Brand: sonicnet.com
Agency: Dale Pon Advertising (NY)
Creative Directors: Dale Pon and Maria Raissis
If sonicnet.com’s new “me music” commercials prompt a certain sense of déjà vu, it’s intentional. The online music portal’s suddenly omnipresent campaign borrows from and pays homage to MTV’s marketing masterstroke, those eighties “I want my MTV” spots. (In fact, Dale Pon created both campaigns.) In the sonicnet spots, everyone from k. d. lang to Sisqó sings, simply, “Meeeee!” with varying degrees of melody and finesse. Three dozen spots, featuring 36 artists, were shot, which means there’s a good chance one of your favorite artists will eventually pop up. There’s wit, too, in the unlikely juxtaposition of talent within the individual spots (Buckcherry paired with Christina Aguilera and Yo-Yo Ma; Isaac Hayes paired with Blink-182 and Sheryl Crow). And then, of course, there’s the blessedly succinct tag line, which is actually a pretty good brand-positioning statement: Sonicnet.com really does offer “me music,” with an online database of music information and sound samples as diverse and idiosyncratic as the musicians in these spots. Ultimately, though, the campaign is a way for sonicnet, newly acquired by the MTVi Group, to announce its major-player status: “Who’s willing to shill for us? Absolutely everybody!” Calvin Klein has long had a lock on that marketing tactic. Now, instead of jeans, we get musicians selling … music. A campaign that has inner logic and lets self-promoting artists do what comes naturally? Sounds good.