Just to prove that I read other publications than the Wall Street Journal I turned my eye to a stalwart of the new media age, the New York Times. Ok, so it's just as "old school" as the WSJ but someone has to read these things, right?
So I ran across a pretty interesting application of MySpace by Cartier of all companies. Now, I can never shop with Cartier and in fact I have a hard enough time pronouncing it but this caught my eye. Most recently, it seems that Facebook has been touted as a good option for business applications while MySpace has been relegated to the teeny-bopper space, spammers and well, let's face facts here, social misfits. (If Andy said it was OK to write that then direct all hostile comments to him directly, thanks). As far as a networking tool I am a LinkedIn fan but that is just for networking and it isn't really a place to sell products, especially vanity products like jewelry and accessories (I know a little about this stuff because I am married and I have an 11 year old daughter so stop snickering).
Currently Cartier has about 3,800 friends including Sting and Lou Reed which may seem eclectic but the cross sell of their music makes it much less cool and a lot more calculated. What they appear to be banking on as one of the first luxury brands to set up shop on MySpace is to reach a future audience and be top of mind. A bit farfetched in my opinion but I guess there was some research behind it.
Apparently there has been a general reluctance by luxury brands to take this route but Cartier took the risk because it was a "different way to talk to a young audience" according to Cartier's director of communications, Corinne Delattre. I can't say I disagree with that statement because it sure is different. Will Tiffany's be next trying to shill chandeliers on MySpace? Stay tuned.
Since anyone can set up anything on these social networking sites there are concerns by companies that there is a lack of control in the set up of any page. Also, it is the old "how does the network make money" concern because the idea is that friends will influence friends for free so why would anyone pay for that?
In what is described as a "solution" MySpace simply requires that big brand marketers pay to put their presence on MySpace. How much is it you ask? That wasn't given up. Frankly, this is not really a solution for anyone other than MySpace because now they are changing their model for commercial purposes because ad revenue projections are falling way short of the hype of just a few short years ago.
MySpace has even magnanimously offered to drive traffic to the Cartier site (can you say push / manipulate MySpace users?) and offered to police their "friends" by checking to see if the drunken party crowd is trying to rub elbows with Sting and company.
I don't know about this personally. I suppose it could work and MySpace desperately wants it to. Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president for content and marketing at MySpace International says, "I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers {on MySpace}". If that doesn't sound like towing the company line, I don't know what does. Of course, you think it'll be great because YOU have to sell it. As for the actual people who buy the concept, like Cartier, are they going to be explaining away their MySpace spend after six months of no results or will they look like marketing geniuses? I guess only time will tell and if it's with a Cartier "timepiece" you will have paid dearly to know!
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