• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Musicians Find New Marketing Avenue With Music Artist Smileys

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 September 2006, 09:00 CDT

IRVINGTON, N.Y., Sept. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Smiley Central(TM) (http://www.smileycentral.com/), the most popular emoticons site on the Web from IAC Search & Media, Inc., a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp , today announced that more than two million of their Music Artist Smileys have been shared via emails and instant messages since they were launched in June. Music Artist Smileys feature the voice, moves and likeness of today's hot new musicians, and have quickly become an effective new way for artists to reach an online teen audience.

Smiley Central has been working with top talent in making its Music Artist Smileys, including Speech from Arrested Development, who voiced the first talking musician smileys. Most recently, Smiley Central attracted pop rock duo Aly & AJ and breakout female artist Anna Nalick through collaboration with B Major Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based strategic marketing company. Music Artist Smileys have become Smiley Central's most popular category in less than two months. On average, more than two million Smiley Central emoticons are sent daily via email, instant messages and blogs.

"This promotion has been successful in bringing new fans to my Web site and exposing them to my music," said Anna Nalick, one of Columbia Records' most compelling and successful emerging-artist success stories of the year. "It's nice to find a new avenue in which to promote my songs. It's further proof that a smile (or smiley) can really work wonders."

Each artist's Smiley homepage features a header link to their official Web site, encouraging users to click-through for more artist information. Artists voice seven to eight smileys -- all created in their likeness -- and can choose to create their own script or provide their favorite phrase or saying.

"Music Artist Smileys provide record labels with a great opportunity to promote their emerging artists," said Saralyn Bass, spokesperson for Smiley Central. "As the fifth most downloaded application in the U.S.*, we have the ability to directly reach and influence the young adult audience -- since the vast majority of that age group listens to music."

Smiley Central smileys can be sent through most webmail, email, and instant messaging applications (including AIM(R), MSN Messenger(TM), Yahoo! Messenger(TM) and Google Talk(TM)), and are also compatible with most mobile phones. Artists and management interested in creating Music Artist Smileys can find more information at http://www.smileycentral.com/music_artists.html .

Smiley Central is part of the free MyWebSearch(R) browser toolbar, which provides easy access to the product directly from an IM window or web browser. The toolbar also provides users with other popular free products including Cursor Mania(TM), Popular Screensavers(TM) and MyFunCards(TM).

*According to ComScore as of July 2006. About Smiley Central

Smiley Central is a free smileys website launched in June 2003, which revolutionized the emoticon industry when it introduced flash-based "super" smileys and talking smileys. The more than 10,000 smileys and emoticons that are available through Smiley Central work with instant messaging applications, email programs, blogs and mobile devices. Smiley Central is a web property of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

IAC Search & Media, Inc.

CONTACT: media, Cathy Thompson of IAC Search & Media, +1-408-738-1395,or cthompson@iacsam.com; or Tracy Garcia or Laura Jastram of Smiley CentralNews Bureau, 877-686-6397, or smileycentral@carryonpr.com

Web site: http://www.smileycentral.com/

Web site: http://www.ask.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

More News in this Category