I have been using Last.FM for the last few months now and I am a huge fan. Somewhat similar to the second best thing to come out of Sweden, Spotify, Last.fm is an online community that focuses on exploring music genres and bands. It is based on recommendation tools that are used by a lot of online retailers to push listeners and consumers down the Chris Anderson’s Long Tail. This recommendation is in the form of ‘radio stations’ and a normal bar suggesting what else I should listen to based on what I have already heard. If I was to type in Iron Maiden and listen to the Iron Maiden Radio I will be able to listen to music by bands such as Iron Maiden and similar ones as suggested by other users. My track history is automatically saved and you can highlight the tracks “I love”. What more, it is 100% free. There is a premium service which I have not seen necessary to explore. Perfect.
As with a lot of internet networking sites, the main source of income is via advertising. Facebook and Myspace both do it which has led many to believe to be the cause of their death. Especially with facebook, they have changed their layout and format to facilitate more advertising and to make more money at the expense of its users. But hell, what is a business supposed to do? With this in mind I started to think about Last.fm and their new page takeovers and pre-roll clips on the radio. They have issued all pages and radio stations with Vodafone sponsorship. I was OK with the page take-over however I was highly confused that there was no frequency capping on the pre-role ads. I was confused because it was the same video each time I changed radio. Calculating the amount of times I changed station a day, I had seen the same advert 49 times in a week. This is not good news for both Last.fm and Vodafone. I was getting highly irritated and just pissed off with this same advert.
With this, I e-mailed the website and was put into contact with Chris Wistow, Senior Account Manager, European Sales. I explained my problem as both a consumer and as an advertising student and I got an interesting reply.
When asked about the lack of frequency capping, Chris replied with “These types of campaigns are generally freq capped to ensure you're not seeing the same ad time and time again, however we have in place an exclusive setup with Voda for a short timeframe during our official launch window”. The reason for capping is to “ensure we don’t annoy our users”, which is true, as was evident with me. Another problem I had was the exclusivity to Vodafone, and lack of variation there are soon to be “10-15 clips and we'll do our best to work with brands that resonate with our audience”. I asked if I would be expecting to see Bonio and My Little Pony adverts on my page soon – He said that he will see what he can do. AWESOME!
With this page take-over also, the layout and set up of the page had changed. The radio player had become more advanced and I was happy to see this as it made it more interesting. Chris said that the redesign of the radio player was designed to help integrate adverts a lot better. It is this change that has led sites such as these to their demise. However I would like to argue that it is a slightly different change. Unlike Facebook, where there are no advantages to the user for the change of layout, the new radio player plays a loop of photos added by users. There is an actual advantage for the change as it enables the user to discover a little bit more about the bands than before; which is the main point of the site!
Since my conversation with Chris Wistow the frequency capping has been implemented again and I am no longer getting pissed off with listening to the same people telling me what they would do if they ruled the world.
If I had a chance to rule the world . . . I would let everyone listen to Metal . . . ALL the time. Perfect
Scottie
N/B – Since I first posted this blog Chris Wistow has provided the screen shot for the Vodafone campaign that can be seen above. Cheers !
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