X-Men on MySpace = X-Space: NewsCorp hits one out of the park.
X-Men on MySpace = X-Space: NewsCorp hits one out of the park.

NewsCorp hits a synergistic grand slam with the MySpace page for the new X-Men movie and shows us all what it means to create meaningful branded communication within sibling companies for an energetic audience. In this case between MySpace and Fox.

Today I saw the X-Men trailer on a coworker’s computer in passing. The meme forced me to Google it and I found the new X-men movie’s homepage.

I immediately noted the call out in the bottom right side of the page with a link to X-Space, “The official X-Men community on MySpace”. Being an online marketer and a friend of Garrett’s, I couldn’t resist.

Let’s ignore for a moment the geek-a-licious the page graphics and layout. Try to move beyond the ready availability of the high definition trailer and movie photos. Finally, forget about the ring tones, buddy icons, wallpapers and other downloads to be had from this MySpace page.

These things are available on most movie sites and this page only differs from most movie sites in that it is a huge movie and that it is on MySpace.

The things that blew me away as examples of NewsCorp taking full advantage of the medium are the X-Men MySpace skins, the ability to include the movie trailer on your own page, added functionality on your own page to have up to 16 “Top friends” instead of the standard 8 by adding X-men as a friend and finally the inclusion of an in-profile forum where people are discussing who could play Gambit and what the coolest superpowers would be.
The bottom line is that that the people at Fox in charge of this effort knew their market, knew where to find it and have created incentives for market participation in branded discussions on the market’s terms.

If you need proof as to whether or not this approach is successful take a look at the number of people who have added “X-Men: The Last Stand” as one of their MySpace friends. When I finished writing this post, the number was 135,570.

If you have questions or would like to discuss how you can support branded conversations with your marketplace through MySpace or any other medium leave a comment or shoot me an email at adam.schultz@marketsmartinteractive.com.

Update (5-17-06)
Follow up post - MySpace marketing with PosterFoo.com
Adam Schultz - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |