Planet Cazmo Announces Concert Series with Sony & Interscope

Planet Cazmo announced today a December Virtual Concert Series with three artists from Sony Epic Records and Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Each Saturday from December 6-20 will bring a show from, in order, Natasha Bedingfield, The Clique Girlz, and Soulja Boy. With Web video on the rise and more services offering social viewing and even live streaming events, virtual worlds offer a unique opportunity explains Epic Records Digital Marketing Manager Jason Lekberg.

"They are a great addition and help us reach out to the huge virtual world audience who might not participate in our other online initiatives," Lekberg said, via email, of how the concerts fit in with Epic's overall digital strategy. "Planet Cazmo allows us much more flexibility than a traditional stream as there are less 'moving parts' to fail and those that are there, are usually set up prior to the event.  I also see virtual worlds as an audience that may not watch our traditional live streams and I do my best to reach as many different audiences as I can."

Lekberg says he has been working with different virtual worlds on and off for over a year and expects them to become an even larger part of Epic's digital strategy moving forward.

The benefits of the promotional partnership are mutual, though. Special events and music especially have been drivers for other virtual worlds, and Michael Levine, CEO of Cazom-developer Pileated Pictures, has long talked about Cazmo as the MTV of virtual worlds. He hopes that special events like these will drive mainstream attention the world.

"The idea with these was to spread awareness of Planet Cazmo and drive traffic to the site. Mainstream media has gotten tired of virtual worlds to an extent, and you need a new twist to break through," Levine explained via email. "Not that we don't love our virtual world news and gaming coverage we get, but we need to hit the mainstream to reach kids. This was an attempt to 'break through' that bubble, and we plan to do more of them with bigger and bigger artists."

Creating Unique Experiences With Existing Content

The concerts are pre-recorded, though, and not entirely exclusive. Levine says that Cazmo has the technical ability to stream a live event, but is waiting for the right artist and reason. That would complicate matters for users in different time zones, as these concerts begin mid-afternoon and replay each hour throughout the afternoon.

While artists are going to studios to record "Cazmo shout outs" and sometimes exclusive live tracks, the music isn't entirely original or unique to Cazmo. The experience is, though, and Levine says that's what counts with users.

"As to what we have seen so far, by and large the kids don't care. The whole event has such an exclusive feel to it anyways - showing them an illustrated version of their favorite pop stars, fully animated and singing, talking about Cazmo, a cool light show, etc.," he explained.

If the events aren't exactly live concerts, I'd say a closer analog might be exclusive listening parties for album releases. The music can be found anywhere on the next day, but the event is still something unique.  That's something that games, like Rock Band, have seized on. (Again, I'd point anyone  interested to Nabeel Hyatt's deck on the changing music industry.)

"It’s that we are making it this special event, just like a party, but even better," said Levine. "Just like collecting a concert ticket stub, there is something about going to a limited time event."

The perspective comes from observing converts in other virtual worlds, but also from a Halloween concert with Epic artist Yung Berg. Levine declined to share specific numbers for the event, but noted that he was thrilled with the response and that Cazmo had grown exponentially over the past few months.  Part of the benefit is the way the performances live on afterwards as recorded videos, which Levine says users have taken to in social media.

"We saw kids blogging, and making videos from the Yung Berg concert, which end up on their web pages and YouTube," he explained. "We expect to see similar reactions when we debut our "Cazmo Theater" soon, which will let kids watch YouTube videos in groups, and chat while viewing videos, a la Mystery Science Theater."

Planet Cazmo will further expand on its social media offerings in the coming weeks with a social network strategy that will see Cazmo running in Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and other locations.

Monetizing Virtual Concerts

While the current partnership is purely promotional, both Cazmo and Epic Records see future potential for virtual music events as revenue streams.  To begin with, Cazmo is looking for advertising dollars through a portal partner. While Levine couldn't name names, it's worth noting that Planet Cazmo previously partnered with AOL's Kids Online for content distribution.

"We are already working with a major portal partner who approached us to take these events and go out and sell sponsorships for them. They told us buyers and sponsors were asking them for these kinds of things to try out, as they are growing tired of poor performing banner ads," said Levine. "This gives them a space to really engage their target audience, in a new, creative, interactive way. You will also see us monetize these events in other ways in the future through merchandise, both real world and virtual, as well as other ideas we have."

Levine says that eventually the virtual world will sell merchandise and music, as IMVU has recently begun to do, for the artists who appear in concerts. While he doesn't expect it to replace the music business, labels have shown interest. 

With the industry changing, that's a potential that Lekberg sees as well.

"I highly doubt that these areas will become the main revenue source, but I am looking forward to when they will begin delivering significant additional value," he explained.  "There are several areas I expect to develop quite soon.  The first would be to up sell from within the concert to either merch or music.  This could also be done with virtual boutiques that live outside of the concert as well.  I have seen success with this already by linking out to iTunes and other song retailers.  Another revenue source could be charging for the shows themselves.  Many of the virtual worlds have a monetary system in place within them and by having a conversion rate it would be possible to charge admission which would be paid to the artist.  The fan could purchase credits if they wanted but could also earn credits by existing within the virtual world.  Yet another revenue stream would be to offer branding to a 3rd party for either the concerts, the artist boutiques, or the artists "space" within the virtual world.  The "space" is dependant on what is offered by each different world.  All of these options will become more viable as the industry is changing and embracing the artist's career in whole."