Jay Z launches album with digital watermarking technology

In a blow to the newly active Chairman and Chief Executive of ITV, the Competition
Commission have this morning definitively ruled that the CRR remedy, (which allows buyers
of advertising airtime to renew their existing contracts with ITV, with investment adjusted to
reflect the change in ITV1’s audience share), will be maintained for the foreseeable future.
The only concession that the Commission has made to ITV’s extensive lobbying is an
amendment to include viewers delivered by the ITV1+1 and ITV1HD channels.

This Sunday the Observer will run the UK’s first print advert to use digital watermarking technology to interactively sample music as part of the launch campaign for Jay-Z’s new album ‘The Hits Collection Volume 1’ which is being released on 8th November.

The campaign which was devised by ted@MediaCom and Def Jam UK in conjunction with The Observer will appear as a full page on the back cover of Review, and uses CLIC2C’s patented digital watermarking technology which allows the reader to access a custom-created website and interactively sample the tracks from the album via their smartphones.

A teaser advert featured in last Sunday’s Observer review section detailing how to download the app that enables smartphones to use the digital watermarking feature.
The launch will further be supported by a multi-media campaign incorporating television spots on Channel 4, Sky One and FX and digital advertising on Facebook, 4th Screen, YouTube and MSN.

Sarah Stringer, Media Manager, ted@MediaCom said of the campaign “As with all greatest hits albums, it's imperative to track sample in order to highlight the catalogue of hit singles which demonstrates its value for money. The difficulty we faced is that is usually limited to just printing the track listing, however using technology such as CLIC2C allows our press adverts to work harder for us, giving us the time sensitivity and scale of a full page advert in a national newspaper, whilst also incorporating the interactive element of digital. Using this technology could save entertainment client's print investment, turning traditional 2-dimensional one-way transmissions into a portal to Jay-Z’s rich media content.”

Shyamala Tharmendiran, Label Manager at Island/Def Jam UK heading up the marketing for the Jay-Z release, added: “It’s important as a music brand that we stay at the forefront of the media marketplace and push our artist’s content in new ways. We will be very interested in the reaction to this for future campaigns.”

“The use of our digital watermarking technology makes total sense for the entertainment industry and to have Jay-Z as the first music artist to adopt this technique is even more exciting. Being able to deliver an audio and visual experience from print shows just what can be done by those who integrate CLIC2C. We look forward to seeing consumer reaction to this pioneering piece of marketing" says Adrian Fleming, Director of Digital Space.

Simon Kilby, Sales Director, Guardian News & Media, said: "This kind of advertising is an innovative new step for a music artist, and combining print and digital is a great way to reach this target group."