Frontiering Talk

Coke and Bacardi have both created separate initiatives to work with artists to bring music to consumers.

Coke’s initiative is called StageSide and will feature a new artist every 90 days. It currently features Island Def Jam’s Ne-Yo. The music video is free and is distributed using a wide range of formats including bit torrent. According to Cnet, Coca-Cola is paying Ne-Yo’s label, publishers and the artist himself for the right to exclusively film a 15-minute “day in the life” mini-documentary interspersed with two minutes of music.

Barcardi has launched a 24 hour internet radio station called Barcardi B Live that will feature uninterrupted music featuring the worlds top DJ’s that will attempt to “keep your spirits lifted”. This initiative has been welcomed by the music industry as Barcardi is spending $40 million on the station including the payment of standard internet radio licensing fees.

Perspective: I think these initiatives work well for truely global brands and provide an excellent channel that local markets can leverage. Associating the brands with trendy and popular artists and making the content freely available is a clever way to give consumers the opportunity to engage with and share the brand relationship with others.

Frontiering Real Estate web site Zillow.com now provides 45 degree low altitude photos to it’s home valuation area using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth platform.

Try it out by browsing these Beverly Drive Hollywood homes!

And while we are talking about Frontiering Real Estate, check out Palm Island being developed in Dubai, courtesy of Idea Sandbox.

Here’s another incredible story of making something from almost nothing using the allure of internet advertising.

Like Alex who’s Million Dollar Home Page earned him $1 million and internet fame, Kyle MacDonald’s One Red Paperclip is a simple idea which has attracted lots of attention. Kyle is hoping to trade One Red Paperclip for other objects of greater value until he finally trades for a house.

Starting this initiative in July 2005, Kyle has traded his red paperclip for a pen, then a doorknob, then a stove, a generator and so on. The site has had nearly 1.5 million visitors and the current item on offer is One Year in Phoenix.

Perspective: Kyle has a story which attracts attention from the blog-s-sphere, which in turn atracts advertising and internet fame, which Kyle is using to sell his short stories. Good luck Kyle, and I’m sure the current affairs programs aren’t far away!