Major Labels

Hypebot Infiltrates Columbia Records Site With Anti-Label Ad

There are many reasons why corporate and artist sites should not carry advertising. But the most obvious one is that outside ads change the conversation.  In one of the few places that a marketer can completely control their message; they’re sharing the stage with outsiders who have a different agenda.

To prove the point,  I placed this ad via Google AdWords in rotation yesterday on the front page of the main Columbia Records web site columbiarecords.com:

Major Labels Are Obsolete

R.I.P. or learn and thrive.

Music. Tech. The New Music Business

Hypebot.com

As of this morning for a mere $3.37 in click thru fees, 6417 people visiting Columbia Records flagship site were delivered the message that this company is obsolete.  Could that have been worth the share of $3.37 that parent Sony BMG will receive?

  • Read a Day #3 update here.
  • Sony BMG Insider Responds
  • View a snapshot of my Google Adsense account page after the jump
  • NEWCOMERS: Check out Hypebot’s daily music industry news and commentary here and consider bookmarking the sire or subscribing to our RSS feed or newsletter

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Read a Day #3 update here.

Bruce Houghton on 07/29/2008 in Major Labels | Permalink | Comments (25)
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25 Comments

  3. Bruce, that is great! You rock. All the record labels have stupid ads on their sites. I always think that they are very sad for doing such things. How can they have any pride and run ads for other companies on their sites. You don’t see General Motors doing that and they are really hurting for cash.

  4. a) Hilarious, good on you.
    b) A major label running ads on its corporate site deserves nothing less. At least have custom ads or something. Google text ads. ugh.
    c) That is a horrible looking site in general and perhaps text ads are exactly what it deserves.
    Cheers

  7. Thanks for the comments and links. To answer one question. I did not publish a screen shot of the Columbia site because its protect by copyright and given the ribbing I’m giving them I don’t want to push my luck.
    UPDATE: It seems to still be running. I’m up to 7338 impressions for my $3.37 !

  9. Columbia Records Ad Spoofed

    This is pretty funny stuff. There are many reasons why corporate and artist sites should not carry advertising. But the most obvious one is that outside ads change the conversation. In one of the few places that a marketer can…

  12. Interesting. Pretty low ctr but what the heck. How long before they ban your site from their adsense account…. Is sommeone from Sony reading this thread. I bet after the Lefsetz email blast/blog they will be.

  15. Sony should be ashamed.
    Most of the labels should be. None of them get enough traffic to justify doing this to their sites. They never will.
    They should be especially ashamed about running ad-sense on any of their sites. It doesn’t get more amateurish than that.
    That tells you how much the people in charge of monetizing the digital properties knows about making money online.

  16. I think the key issue here is that the labels do not get the ad-funded business models even when it comes to their own sites. Sad but true!
    However I think it highlights a more important issue in reference to the whole ad-funded model and the music business…
    ..this issue is the fact that the current ad-funded models are not managed little own leveraged in a dynamic and feasible way via the labels or the ad-funded retailers.
    Advertising funded models can work for music. However, labels and the ad-funded business models need to leverage the proposition in a more effective manner. As a brand being associated with giving away music for free should bring a higher cost then your typical banner ad (ie £4 per 1000 via myspace)traditional cpm model.
    Having an association with music little own giving it away for free brings higher levels of brand association and drives more effective brand loyalty than traditional run of the mill cpm models. As such the ad spend should be higher.
    Please tell me who in the record labels or these new ad funded business models are actually getting the aforementioned key FACT?
    Until they do I’m sure we will no doubt see more demonstrations of both labels and new ad -funded retailers incompetence in relation to their own brands al-la the recent hypebot
    demonstration of the labels downright incompetence…
    Has anyone tried this on a major labels artist website (ie placing a bogus adsense or otherwise banner ad on the site decrying the lameness of the artist)?
    Lets up the stakes here…
    For a more in depth analysis of the ad-funded model in terms of how and why content owners ans digital retailers should be leveraging their propositions to brands check out this post (on my blog)…
    http://www.themusicvoid.com/?p=103
    Cheers,
    Jakomi

  19. Funny, but you exaggerate the situation. Only 4 out of the 6000+ people actually clicked it. Most of the others didn’t notice it. Worse yet, noticed it and didnt click.

  20. Doctor F Alias,
    So I take it then you think these ads are a good idea?…..come on, come clean, you have to be Charlie Walk.

  23. Doctor F. Alias,
    And another thing…How is noticing it but not clicking on it worse than not noticing it at all?!?!?!? Further more…is this not the type of ad that can be viewed and absorbed without being “clicked”……huh…you dickhead?
    If you don’t already work for a major label you should….shit, you’re dumb enough to be president of one.
    pwned

  24. I agree with you! A lot of people have asked me why I don’t have ads on my HDR blog and my reason is that I also think more doors are opened when you don’t have ads.

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