Last month, the site broke globally exclusive tracks for its first Western property, Linkin Park, and Taiwanese pop behemoth Jay Chou. 

As a result, the website jumped 250 million hits from its average one million, and sales soared 73 per cent. Similarly, early this year, rival Nokia launched a web-based music magazine and content platform in China. Not a bad deal, but how does it all work?

1 First off, why does music resonate so well? According to Ian McKee, CEO of Vocanic Singapore and a pivotal player in the ongoing success of the Heineken Green Room series, it's because the emotional attachment to music exists long before -- and continues long after -- a person's exposure to the brand. On that basis, clients already have an emotional foundation on which to revitalise their brands. "It's sort of cheating, but it works," says McKee. "Music allows brands to offer a proposition apart from 'buy my product'."

2 Heineken was one of the first in Asia to do this successfully, with the Bates Singapore-conceived Green Room sessions in 2001, in conjunction with MTV. The series of free club events tapped emerging musical acts and DJs to attract otherwise counter-cultural fans. Since then, the brand has kept its programme current by devoting teams and agencies to the initiative. Furthermore, last year the company applied Vocanic's Groundswell technology to identify influencers and propel word-of-mouth brand buzz. 

3So what does it take? Two elements cannot be compromised: resources and long-term vision. "You have to be 100 per cent committed to it," says Dirk Eschenbower, OgilvyOne's regional ECD and one of the brains behind Motomusic. "There's too much change going on in music and you need people who are following it all." For instance, Motorola formed an entire department whose purpose is to engage with youth culture and identify emerging music stars. According to one market analyst, Motorola isn't making money from the music platform, so it is purely "a marketing tool".

4 But even the giants have made mistakes. One such example is Coca-Cola Singapore's 'Coke Amp' site, which launched in 2005 with sponsored content downloads, promotional events and even art exhibits. But it fizzled out quickly -- on a recent visit, the site hadn't been updated since February. Even Nokia's first attempt in 2004, Club Nokia, a project akin to Motomusic, failed to really kick off. Sources say that the initiative faded out within the year due to lack of widespread internal support.

5 Meanwhile, agency networks have quickly reacted to the mounting client interest in marketing with music (though some argue the phenomenon actually dates back to1971 with Coke's reverberating I'd like to teach the world to sing TVC). In September, WPP and Universal Music partnered up to launch a dedicated media unit called BrandAmp, which matches ads to artistes. Omnicom and Havas launched such units even earlier.

6 Ultimately, clients need to be an early adopter of a particular strategy for it to work. According to McKee, who is frequently asked to emulate the Heineken Green Room for other brands, being second or third rarely cuts it anymore. "Music risks being exploited, but I think there's still room to do remarkable things with it. It takes a lot of creativity," he says. He identifies the live music scene as a relatively untapped arena -- for now.

7 In 2005, album sales in the US had dropped 21 per cent since 2000, while digital music downloads jumped 150 per cent. Meanwhile artistes appear to be reacting faster than their record labels: this year, Bob Dylan signed up to release exclusive digital tracks through iTunes.

(Source: Media)