Last week, we ran what’s called a “site takeover” for a new single by P. Diddy. A site takeover, or skin allows the advertiser to customize the look of many prominent parts of a website. Today, we are running one for the new Kid Cudi record released tomorrow.
We’ve received a variety of responses to this highly visible campaign, and one email from Taz managed to summarize most of the frequent concerns into a single message. I’ve asked Taz if I can share his emails to us and my responses, they are reproduced below in italics with his permission.
Taz:
Puff Daddy on the page? I understand making a profit because you are a business, but come on. Puff Daddy has never been on hypem because he is not a good artist for your target market. I’m offended by this advertisement. I used to listen to Pandora until they sold out. You need to consider what the community thinks about this.
Anthony Volodkin:
Thanks for writing about this.
We are still working out the kinks with some ad campaigns. I agree
that the execution of this one could be better.
On the other hand, it is also clear that this is an ad and not the
normal blog content which remains unaffected.
How did Pandora sell out?
Taz:
Thanks for the response. I appreciate that you took the time to do this.
Here is why I think it could be a concern: Hypem is special because the community are music hunters. Unlike the majority of the market, your community seeks music to listen to instead of being fed music. Radio stations and TV shows typically advertise and sell the music that pays the most, so its not really “good” music anymore. Record labels can obviously write the biggest check, so they get the airtime. This drives away music hunters because the quality is typically not as enjoyable as truly good music. Hypem is exactly what music hunters love because it is a truer system of measurement, determined by users and not executives.
What I fear is that once these record labels start dominating an entire page, what is to stop them from appearing on the front page for music? It is all web space in the long run. These people have so much money that they will approach you, if they haven’t already, with this idea. As a business, I think this is great, but I still don’t want my music experience affected by a business deal like this. If you can assure me that the content will never be promoted or the voting system will be taken advantage of, I am ok with this. I just understand how money can determine these types of things and I dont want to see hypem sell out this way.
Pandora sold out because selected artists have a much better chance of showing up on a listener’s playlist. They are literally a radio station, so labels pay them money to “show up more” on playlists.
However, if you are approached with this type of thing, I would encourage you to have a different section for this. One way to approach this have a “hypem staff favorites” page. Your staff could list promoted songs and then list them as their personal week favorites. No one would suspect otherwise because it would be the “opinions” of the staff.
I use Hypem everyday and love it, so if I can help maintain how it functions, I will.
Anthony:
Responses to specific paragraphs below:
> What I fear is that once these record labels start dominating and entire
> page, what is to stop them from appearing on the front page for music?
We are there to stop them. We delineate between content and
advertising carefully. When I started the Hype Machine several years
ago, these were the exact concerns I had about how music gets through
radio and magazines.
> It is all web space in the long run.
It’s not THAT simple, the context and how things are presented is
really important. The P. Diddy campaign was very obviously an ad and
did not come from one of our trusted blogs.
> I just understand how money can determine these types of things and I
> don’t want to see hypem sell out this way.
We work diligently to prevent all sorts of manipulation of charts, as seen here:
1: http://blog.hypem.com/2009/06/on-chart-integrity/
2: http://blog.hypem.com/2009/07/more-on-integrity-and-promotion/
> Pandora sold out because selected artists have a much better chance of
> showing up on a listeners playlist. They are literally a radio station, so
> labels pay them money to “show up more” on play lists.
I am not familiar with this program, but I’d have to imagine they
disclose this to the listener when it takes place. This is available
on Last.fm and I think they disclose it as well, though it has yet to
see wide adoption. Labels with successful acts (for example, Matador
Records) don’t typically pay for this kind of stuff anyway –
they are confident enough in their work and choices to see it featured
in blogs, magazines and elsewhere.
> However, if you are approached with this type of thing, I would encourage
> you to have a different section for this. One way to approach this have a
> “hypem staff favorites” page. Your staff could list promoted songs and then
> list them as their personal week favorites. No one would suspect otherwise
> because it would be the “opinions” of the staff.
Hehe, this’d be sneaky – why would we hide the promoted stuff in this
fashion? We have personal integrity too!
You’ve asked some good questions here, would it be ok for me to post
this email thread on our blog (or on my personal blog)?
I’d love your thoughts on all this too.
Well put, Anthony, as always. Not to take anything away from the concept, and ultimately it’s up to the advertiser, but I can’t imagine Diddy saw a huge return on the investment here. Kid Cudi might. In effective advertising, it’s all about the fit, and everything Taz says about the campaign is likely the reaction of many HypeMachine users. Targeting that reaction at HypeMachine is misplaced, however, as advertisers are free to spend their advertising dollars wherever they please, and as a business it’s difficult to say no to advertisers who are willing to spend lots of money and perhaps not see the return they might were their ads placed on a more relevant site. At some point the business has to say “this is relevant *enough* to potentially work, if you really want to spend the money.” In this case, Diddy’s folks did.
I would say this is just more evidence of HypeMachine proving that you can’t buy your way to coolness anymore.
September 15, 2009 12:44 am
I personally think, what ever helps you pay the bills and keeps our music bangin’ – I’m all down for. I support hypem, ad’s or not.
September 15, 2009 1:32 am
I think it also comes down to ad execution and design. While most say that we’ve trained ourselves to ignore ads, its pretty hard to ignore a page takeover. When I saw that P. Diddy takeover, my first thought wasn’t “OMG, Hype Machine has sold out!”, it was “OMG, WTF is this ugly ass ad and why is it making me hard to actually see the content of the page”. I think you have a pretty unique opportunity to provide labels and emerging artists a chance to reach true music fans, and even make them forget its an ad in the first place.
The Kid Cudi ad works well because A. it looks decent and doesn’t take away from my experience on the site B. It gives me the basic info (album release, etc) C. It provides a video snippet that makes me want to actually click on the “real” ad to check out the rest of the album.
I know you can’t always control the look or content of these sponsorships, but if you set a precedent for future artists and labels to follow, you’ll end up with a solution that makes you money and provides enough value to listeners that they won’t bitch in the process.
September 15, 2009 1:56 am
Whoops, it was “making it hard”, not “making me hard”… 🙂
September 15, 2009 1:58 am
Bang on Anthony.
In this highly customizable world of choice people seem to want absolutely everything to be personalized and perfect. A Puff Daddy advert might not be the exact ad for one person but it might be relevant to a large chunk of users (and with Kanye regularly topping the charts, I can see why the advertisers splashed their cash). It sure beats an ad for the KKK, McDonalds or online gambling. Yeah, you could have keyword specific, user-stalked google ads which perfectly fit people but they pay a pittance and have cannibalized value, as well as user expectation.
Idealists forget that people like us have rent to pay and extra shots of coffee to pay to enable us to put in the hours we have put in and will continue to do without the need to compromise our time (by working on other, probably more profitable things) which goes into our passions that turned into our jobs because we were lucky. People forget we [probably] care more about our sites more than they do.
The fact people can and will react in an instant via email (and probably would think better of it if they had to hand write a letter and walk to a post box) and expect, nay demand some unrealistic utopian world where everything is free and unfettered by the hands of commerce/capitalism. In an ideal world all music would be free, all musicians would SOMEHOW get paid what they’re due (not every act is in the position of NiN or Radiohead ferfucksake!) but we don’t live in this global land of free, nor do we live in a meritocratic world which allows the cream to rise to the top. Live with it because we don’t inhabit this impossible place.
My suggestion is that if people really don’t want ads or to see sponsorship, offer a premium ad-free version of the site (which would cost time and money to build) but oh no, you can’t do that, as that would be the ultimate selling out, it’d be commoditifying something which people don’t expect to pay for. That’s the rub and it’s one that there is no business model (currently) to solve. I’d rather not have to think or care about any of this stuff but sadly just running and developing a website, let alone trying to spread the word about it costs a lot of time and money.
People need to cherish the media and technology they’re lucky enough to be able to use FOR FREE, rather than abuse the dedicated people behind the scenes as if they’re bathing in asses milk and living like a Roman emperor.
September 15, 2009 2:01 am
What Taz is talking about in regard to Pandora is good old-fashioned Payola, where the paid placements are blended into normal programming, and not clearly labelled or identified as paid.
It’s technically illegal in the broadcast world, but pretty prevalent in commercial radio through a variety of loopholes. I don’t know if Pandora is doing it or not, but there was an article last summer in wired where the CEO of targetspot suggesting that it would be internet radio’s savior:
http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/09/ad-exec-payola/
I’m pretty doubtful.. maybe on myspace, but not on hypem 🙂
September 15, 2009 2:06 am
Not really, I think it was a bit more like this but blown out of proportion (or maybe abused) http://musicmanager.last.fm/help/faq?category=Promotion
September 15, 2009 2:15 am
also one of the most successful and well received ad campaigns we’ve ever done to promote our site was spending a few hundred pounds on this http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/
September 15, 2009 2:16 am
great to have this discussion here!
as long as it doesn’t manipulate the content itself its an ok thing to do.
my question: most blogged artists: kid cudi on first place? with the background design of the kid cudi ad, it looks a bit questionable, but hei, it could be the truth aswell. is it?
September 15, 2009 2:23 am
>It’s not THAT simple, the context and how things are presented is
really important. The P. Diddy campaign was very obviously an ad and
did not come from one of our trusted blogs.
I don’t think you’ve answered the question Anthony – it was obvious it was an advertusemebt. The primary issue is that it was a (rather noticable) ad for the wrong audience which, it appears, alarmed quite a few visitors.
September 15, 2009 10:23 am
I agree that it wasn’t a perfect fit. We are working on getting the best fit possible here, but it is a hard process and this was our first one.
September 15, 2009 1:41 pm
I keep clicking on the ads because when you scroll down the page you can’t tell that the white on the side is part of the ad. Then up comes the popup. Support your business! Run the ads! Don’t trick me into clicking on them though!
September 15, 2009 2:14 pm
While some of what you said, Sean, seems right on the money, other parts struck me as awkward:
“The fact people can and will react in an instant via email … … unfettered by the hands of commerce/capitalism.”
I see your point, but I somehow think you’re focusing on the wrong aspect. Sure, a lot of us would like to keep up the independent part of our music ecosystem, although I don’t think the desire is as glowing as you describe it. What instant email reactions do tell me, is that a lot of music fans use and care about the Hype Machine more than you would imagine.
We care enough to respond and react when we see something that may compromise the integrity on here. Not necessarily because it ends up doing that, but because we care too much about this site to just let it slip. If people reacted like that if I decided to throw ads all over my site, I would know I had an audience that truly cared.
“Care” may not be possible to monetise through ads (especially not the ones that has little relevancy), but I bet that “care” could come in handy if you were to try out different models. After all, I think we all like to come here once in a while. And don’t forget that most of us are in the same boat as you with the passion/hobby/job situation, although our perspectives are probably different
September 15, 2009 2:45 pm
anthony (and the hype machine team),
you do what you do and have done so for many years, dedicated to bringing the best service that you feel you can deliver. i haven’t always agreed with some decisions or rules/ guidelines (and enforcement of same) but have always supported what you do and respected how you go about it.
of course i benefit from your presence (not financially of course, just traffic wise) and hope to continue to do so.
if you have identified an opportunity to capitalize on your growing popularity i will absolutely support it as long as it does not impact on your core service as it were.
you must serve the wider audience that hype machine now serves as a result of greater mainstream media coverage, etc. as such, a p diddy advert (skin or otherwise) may offend some users/ community members that may be around for a while but actually serves your advertisers in reaching their market in a new way.
fair dues to you all.
keep doing what you do and we will try and do the same.
cheers
c
September 17, 2009 4:46 pm
Hey Anthony,
It’s great that you made this a conversation. I think it’s going to be a long one. The Diddy ad was obviously a poor fit, but more importantly the ad itself was ugly and took away from your great design. I think the community outcry is largely due to launching this new feature with THAT artist and THOSE graphics. Had it been with the current ad (I believe it’s coke/girltalk) right now, I doubt people would have reacted as strongly as they did.
Ads on hypem are often relevant and actually add value to the site (kind of an anomoloy . This little slip-up just illustrated how tough that job is.
Anyway, I can’t think of a webapp I’ve used as often and as long as the hype machine. Thanks for it.
September 18, 2009 6:28 pm
i know i have blogs out there but could not find even one of mine on your sight y?
September 27, 2009 1:36 am
i just want to support antony – As far as i care he can put what ever banner ads he wants up! Not everyone is going to like the artist/advert but hey you wouldnt complain if there was a P diddy AD on in the middle of your favourite TV show. Personally i wouldn’t even mind if hypem had audio ads, i get a great service who cares?
I’ve had to make and run 1000’s of Ads for companies I had no care for. Ad’s are Ad’s and with music now becoming just another ‘service’ I fully expect them when I use a site like Hypem.
I know Taz feels threatened that his ‘music experience’ will be ruined by the evil P diddy and commercial execs but I bet that Taz is the type of person that has never paid for any of his music and probably feels that it is his right to have ‘free music’, the truth is whether you like it Pdiddy has probably given a lot of independant artists a chance in the music industry. Whereas as Taz probably hasnt spent a penny supporting the artists he loves.
keep up the good work hypem
October 3, 2009 11:06 am
well i am an ad major. so i do appreciate good advertising, as i hope to work creative. but just reach your target audience before you turn off your people, especially this website is far from top40 (hopefully)… 😉
love hypem
October 29, 2009 11:56 pm
& MEXICO….UUFFAA..WTF Whit this!!!Fuck off!!!
October 30, 2009 12:44 am
I want hype machine to make money. I don’t mind the ads, BUT given the magnitude of said ads, I feel like you should be providing more features to the users of this site. I would assume that these large format site take over ads from larger artists/companies (Coca Cola) are generating a good amount of revenue. Why can’t you add some simple features to show us that you aren’t just interested in monetization, but also your holding onto your user base. A simple way to queue songs to listen to would be a great addition IMO. Innovation should increase with revenue stream.
November 4, 2009 11:05 am