Nokia UK released two very cool new video commercials on YouTube to promote the new Lumina 820 along with their free Mix Radio service. Both commercials employe electronic dance music inspired rhythms and we always love that UK accent. We’re not sure who the subjects of these videos are, so we’re asking you to identify them. Just post in the Facebook comments section or blog comment section below. We’re curious to know!
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Sennheiser, a leading manufacturer of headphones and microphones for the pro can consumer audio market, recently launched the Inspired by DJs: Day and Nite Portrait Series to promote its new Amperior headphones. Based on the popular HD 25 DJ headphone, Sennheiser says the the Amperior, with its brushed aluminum finish, is geared for both the street and the DJ booth.
The campaigns home destination is its Inspired by DJs website, which hosts video interviews with DJs from around the world, including legendary turntablists, Q-Bert (USA) and DJ Fly (France), as well and British house music producer, Bob Sinclair, and Detroit’s iconic techno artist, Richie Hawin. The videos are also available on the Sennheiser’s official YouTube channel.
“The Day & Night interviews explore the source of their creativity, asks if inspiration strikes by day or night, and looks at who the world’s greatest DJs see as their own mentors and sources of inspiration. We wanted to show the personalities and also the work, commitment and passion that has made them the best in the world,” said Katrin Huss at Sennheiser Consumer Electronics.
To drive interest to the campaign, Sennheiser and Bob Sinclair teamed up for a One Day & One Night in London contest. Entrants submit photos, video and stories about their favorite nightclub experiences on the Sennheiser Facebook page. 5 winners will be chosen for an all-expendes paid trip to London for a night with Bob Sinclair. 50 runner-up winners will receive a special edition box set of HD 25 DJ headphones and Amperior headphones to take their sounds on the road.
As far as social music campaigns go, this one is very basic in concept and execution. Sennheiser closes the loop by driving interest to its destination web site, then points entrants to the company’s Facebook page to enter the contest. We thought it fell short in a couple of areas:
1. Content Syncronization – The Sennheiser YouTube Channel features videos that have yet to make it over to the destination website. In fact, Qbert’s video lives on YouTube, but is curiously not yet embedded on its respective page on the website.
2. Poor SEO – The Inspired By DJ site has a fixed layout. Clicking on any DJ in the left sidebar loads content in the right content pane. While this has a bit of a cool factor, so that the page doesn’t reload, the site loses a bit of SEO juice by limiting the opportunity for Google to link a page URL with keywords to a page with a corresponding H1 tag.
In the code samples from the site below, we see that the meta tags contain no reference to the DJs and DJ Fly’s div block contains an H1 style, but the URL bar remains fixed on the overall page URL: www.sennheiser-sites.com/inspired-by-djs/#.
<head><script type="text/javascript">var NREUMQ=NREUMQ||[];NREUMQ.push(["mark","firstbyte",new Date().getTime()]);</script> <title>Sennheiser - Headphones & Headsets - Microphones - Integrated Systems</title> <meta charset='utf-8'> <meta content='Sennheiser - Headphones & Headsets - Microphones - Integrated Systems - Service & Support - Discover True Sound - Top-quality products and tailor made solutions for every aspect of recording, transmission, and reproduction of sound. ' name='description'> <meta content='Headphones,Headsets,Microphones,Integrated Systems,bluetooth headphones,ANC,ANRPilot headset,studio headsets,audiology,RF wireless,sennheiser.com' name='keywords'>
<span id="the_content2" style="display:none;"> <div style="color: #FFFFFF; padding:10px; height:586px; background: url(DJFly_bg.jpg) 0 0 no-repeat;"> <h1 style="color: #FFFFFF;"> DJ FLY <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">(<a href="http://www.myspace.com/djflycom" target="_blank">www.myspace.com/djflycom</a>)</span> </h1> <p> Exploding out of Lyon as part of the Scratch Bandits Crew, super star turntablist, scratch virtuoso and producer DJ FLY has taken the global DJ scene by storm over the past decade. As well as breathing in the rarified air at the top of the DJ world – winner of regional and national DMC titles and of the DMC World Championship in 2008 -, DJ FLY is a legendary performer – wowing crowds with energy and personality. <br> <div align="center"> <iframe width="356" height="200" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WN38V270QWg?rel=0&autoplay=0&autohide=1&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> <br> Influenced primarily by Hip Hop, with an affinity for Soul, Rock, Electro and Dubstep, DJ FLY’s original sets smoothly integrate tracks from artists such as “Busta Rhymes” to “Chase And Status”. <br> <br> His talents have taken him beyond the borders of his hometown: DJ FLY soon conquered France and destinations abroad as he met with the same success on tour. He has performed solo and alongside artists such as Method Man, RedMan, Raekwon, Nas and Akon as well as with other renowned DJs such as DJ QBert, Grand Master Flash and A-Trak. </p> </div> </span>
3. No Social Sharing Buttons – The Inspired By DJ site lacks any social sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest, even though the main Sennheiser site contains those features in the left sidebar, as shown below.
In addition, the main site has yet to implement Facebook Open Graph Objects tags for articles in the site
<head></head>
element, which cause’s its sharing tools to display the site’s H1 and not the H1 of the story itself. When delivering content into social media, it ‘s important to get the right content into a page, so that when it gets shared across the social web, the context remains constant.
<html lang='en'>
<head><script type="text/javascript">var NREUMQ=NREUMQ||[];NREUMQ.push(["mark","firstbyte",new Date().getTime()]);</script>
<title>Sennheiser: Headphones, Microphones and Wireless Systems</title>
<meta charset='utf-8'>
<meta content='Headphones, Headsets, Microphones and Wireless Systems - Sennheiser Discover True Sound - www.sennheiser.com' name='description'>
<link href="/assets/application-dc3ffb692385bf88b0f61915192657f0.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="/assets/application-7e2d2d16e8b018239cd62ad6be7e9e00.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src='http://html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js'></script>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7]>
<link href="/assets/browsers/ie7-a22d94c4a525623a781dd45e4fb585c9.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]>
<link href="/assets/browsers/ie8-c8e024da5b07b220181401405c63a13a.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->
<script>
//<![CDATA[
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-29729271-1']);
_gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'sennheiser.com']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
//]]>
</script>
</head>
In the screenshot below, we can see that the content for the share is incorrect. Facebook is pulling the title of the main page and not the title of the news item. Implementing Open Graph tags for Ojbects would help scrape the page and ensure the correct content is shared into a Facebook wall post. Notice that only the photo and a portion of the URL of the page is correct: http://en-de.sennheiser.com/news/the-word-on-the-streets-what-are-the-hottest-clubs-around-the-word-tell-sennheiser-your-tips-to-win-one-day-one-night-in-london-with-bob-sinclar; the title and description are not.
4. Confusing “Call To Action” - We’re not sure what the call to action is here. There is text above the Bob Sinclair video embed that says: “Call To Action,” but does not click through to anything. Most web users have never heard the phrase, “call to action,” which is an insider’s term for inserting content that will drive a user to take an action, for example, visit a web page, enter a content or buy a product.
While the video of Bob Sinclair is embedded in the center of the page, there is no mention of the contest until you scroll below the fold to the Latest News section, which provides links to content announcements in the form of news; very uninspiring!. There is no continuity here. What’s missing? Maybe graphics around the video that promote the contest. Simple to do and simple to execute, but it seems as if there was no interest in getting creative. We guess there was some “compromise,” despite the “without compromise” line under the “Inspired by DJs” header.
Launching the contest without wrapping the DJ in contest imagery or mentioning the contest above the fold – well, we can see where that is a #FAIL.
5. Where’s Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram as part of the contest? – Why only Facebook? Companies need to understand that in order to leverage the social web, you need to attack all the channels, not just one.
6. Poor Image tagging – We noticed that on the Inspired by DJwebsite, all of the home page DJ images are not using the “alt” or “description” elements in their respective image tags. While each image uses the DJs name in the file name, i.e. “square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg,” the image tags should also contain more descriptive information for Google to pick them up and rank them higher in an image search.
<div class='js_tile tile-position-2 tile-size-2'>
<a href='' onclick='document.getElementById("the_content0").innerHTML = document.getElementById("the_content1").innerHTML;return false;'>
<img alt='' class='js_imagetoggler' data-src-mouseout='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg' data-src-mouseover='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar.jpg' src='square_homepage_tile_size_2_Bob-Sinclar_SW.jpg' />
<div class='info'>
<span class='link'>
DJ Bob Sinclar
</span>
<span class='debug'>
tile-position: 2
</span>
</div>
</a>
</div>
<div class='js_tile tile-position-2 tile-size-2'>
<a href='' onclick='document.getElementById("the_content0").innerHTML = document.getElementById("the_content2").innerHTML;return false;'>
<img alt='' class='js_imagetoggler' data-src-mouseout='square_DJFly_SW.jpg' data-src-mouseover='square_DJFly.jpg' src='square_DJFly_SW.jpg' />
<div class='info'>
<span class='link'>
DJ FLY
</span>
<span class='debug'>
tile-position: 2
</span>
</div>
</a>
</div>
While they’ve put a good amount of thought into this campaign, Sennheiser could have taken it one step further and really made a strong, creative impact. Hopefully, other companies will learn from where Sennheiser fell short. Regardless, Netmix hopes the Sennheiser campaign is successful. And, if you feel so inclined, maybe you’ll pick up a pair of Sennheiser Amperior headphones from Amazon through Netmix.
(Disclosure: We get an affiliate commission if you buy through Netmix and can use the extra pennies!)
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:13 — 24.9MB) | Embed
Tony Zeoli interviews Brett Deutsch, President/CEO of Crossed Over Entertainment, an independent music promotion and marketing company, about working music to Internet and terrestrial radio stations and DJs.
Brett’s got interested in music promotion through his brother, Frank Murray, who is currently VP of Promotion at Robbins Entertainment. He started at Slip’n'Slide, an early UK dance and electronic music label that opened offices in USA (and is now part of Soundz Unlimited), then went to work under Fred Held at Heat Entertainment. In 2000, Brett and his partner, Melanie Weimer, launched Crossed Over Entertainment.
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Sonic Notify is a unique new technology, when applied to music performances, can enhance in-venue fan2band interaction. The company created technology that delivers a high frequency tone inaudible to the human ear (dogs might not be too happy about this). An app installed on a users mobile device interprets the signal and unlocks messaging or content delivered at various points throughout the performance.
According to TechCrunch, which announced Sonic Notify’s recent $4.5M round of VC funding, the signal pushes notifications and multimedia without app actually being launched on the phone. While other companies like Shazam need an app to be launched to identify songs, Sonic Notify works in the background to push notifications to the device.
The company recently forged a partnership with Interscope, a Universal Music Group label, giving artists on that label access to the technology. It has had successful trials at CMJ and in New York City’s Beacon Theater during a performance by Pop boy band, Mindless Behavior.
Here’s how it works:
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:08 — 34.9MB) | Embed
Netmix founder, Tony Zeoli, interviews Sergio Goncalves and Joe Berinato from Pitch Control Marketing, a leading dance music promotion and marketing company, about all things dance music marketing and promotion in an era of social music. Listen to the podcast in the player above. While you’re checking out the podcast, learn more about Pitch Control on their website here.
Note: This interview was originally recorded as a Skype interview, but because of dim lighting and poor video quality, we’ve converted it into a podcast.
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Okay, we all know the power Twitter now wields over unfettered thought on the web. However, if you’re a company who has set up their first Twitter feed, only to find that competitors and those who either hate you or want to see you fail start posting things you might not want your mother to see, then check out two new services that will allow you to moderate Tweets before they hit your feed.
TweetRiver.com recently provided moderation services for the first Twitter conference, TWTRCON, in San Francisco. A few bloggers are already talking about the service.
From their web site:
TweetRiver delivers innovative and exciting solutions for a broad spectrum of companies and organizations. Some customers are simply trying to get a moderated Twitter stream onto their website. Some are trying to redefine how they engage customers from first-touch through customer support.
We know that each of our customers has individual needs. What solution can we deliver for you?
Not to be outdone, there’s a newbie on the block. TidyTweet.com promises to do the following:
TidyTweet is currently in private beta. Sign up for an account to test it out. It looks like it will be free for personal users. Business customers will have to fork over the toll.
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