Specific Media, the company that bought MySpace from News Corp for $35 million, knows it has its work cut out in sparking new interest in the limp social network. With the industry gathered in New York for Advertising Week, there was ample opportunity to get people talking again. And what better way to draw people into a conversation than offering up time with a celebrity?
Specific Media had hoped to woo advertisers with an invite-only event on the first day of Advertising Week, trotting out its famous investor, Justin Timberlake. And influential agency execs did turn out, so that’s progress. But even the presence of Timberlake, everyone’s favorite boy-band sensation-turned-serious-Hollywood-actor, couldn’t attract more than a few representatives from big marketers themselves, according to folks who attended, contrary to reports that as many as 55 CMOs and senior marketers were expected.
One top marketer who showed face was Jonathan Mildenhall from Coca-Cola, while agency leaders included MDC Partners’ chief strategist Chuck Porter, Ogilvy & Mather New York CMO Lauren Crampsie and Interpublic Group of Cos’ execs John Hughes and Thom Gruhler, who are president of the Martin Agency and CEO of McCann’s New York office, respectively.
According to several people, there were no more than about 40 executives present Monday evening in an upstairs room at Radio City Music Hall. There Timberlake spoke for about three minutes, while Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook spoke for about 10 minutes. Their pitch turned out to be less about a new future for MySpace and more about returning to its roots.
Specific Media did not provide a comment by press time.
AllThingsD has posted a copy of a deck that MySpace is now using, which can be seen here. But far more interesting than anything contained in this deck – which, like most decks, looks like a dry slideshow full of assertions (MySpace is “The Hulu of Music”) – is the story that Vanderhook and his new famous friend Timberlake emphatically told potential advertisers: that MySpace gave “voices to the unknown” and turned them into stars.
The crux of the pitch was about MySpace as a discovery engine for the music world, pointing out that it was responsible for unearthing artists like Katie Perry and Justin Bieber (wasn’t that YouTube?). For this reason, advertisers should consider it a primary means of reaching young demographics, they said. Of course, strategy is just one part; the other is how MySpace will look and work for users. People who attended the VIP event said MySpace’s new simplified look was pretty nice actually, and notably, said one person, it will look “less trashy.”
That’s a start, at least.
To read the original article in Advertising Age, click here.
What chance do you give MySpace? What will it take to make it relevant again? Post your thoughts in our comment section.
