› return to entertainment

Napster

As the originator of the digital music revolution, Napster has a long history of innovation to its name, making it one of the biggest brands in the industry. In early 2006, Ruder Finn played a key role in helping Napster prepare for the next chapter in its history: the launch of Napster.com. Napster.com is the first legal digital music service to offer music fans free, on-demand listening to over two million major and independent-label tracks (five times each). With such important news to share, it was essential to develop a media strategy that garnered the most attention in the shortest period of time.

Using the 2nd annual MUSEXPO event in Los Angeles as a launchpad, Napster and Ruder Finn orchestrated a massive media effort that would bring the exciting news to nearly 100,000,000 people.

 

 

OBJECTIVES

Generate widespread media coverage in a variety of mediums including broadcast, print and online citing Napster.com as being "free."

PROGRAM

• Developed segmented Key Message and Q&A documents to guide media strategy and provide unified talking points for all employees.
• Secured pre-launch briefings with key analysts to bulletproof messages and validate approach; subsequently used contacts as media references.
• Secured exclusive features with a national newspaper and key trades.
• Executed aggressive "morning of" media pitching of wires, broadcast, print, online, and blogs; supported pitching efforts with live b-roll feed.

RESULTS

• The story broke early on May 1 with a front page business story in USA Today and feature articles with BrandWeek and The Hollywood Reporter.
• Ruder Finn secured several interviews "morning of" interviews including a live interview for Chris Gorog and industry analyst reference Aram Sinnreich of Radar Research broadcast on CNBC; additional interviews included Bloomberg TV, Ad Age, Ad Week, BusinessWeek, Business 2.0, Boston Globe, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PC Magazine, Red Herring and Reuters.
• Major broadcast coverage included "The Most" (MSNBC), "The Abrams Report" (MSNBC), "Bloomberg Market Movers," "Headline News" (CNN), "Live Today" (CNN), "Robin & Company" (CNN), "American Morning" (CNN), "Squawk on the Street" (CNBC) and "News All Day" (NY1). Many of the stories included anchor commentary.
• Coverage spread rapidly among bloggers as a direct result of Ruder Finn seeding the blogs as soon as the USA Today clip was available online.
• Overall initial impressions equaled more than 91,719,102. A syndicated "Kurt the Cyberguy" segment appeared in late May 2006 and was syndicated to more than 10 stations throughout the U.S.