Music Business

Justin Timberlake Named Bud Light’s Creative Director, Will He Help Them Like He Did MySpace?

image from rack.2.mshcdn.comJustin Timberlake has just been named Bud Light Platinum's new creative director. ""Partnering with Justin as he makes his return to music brings a new level of relevance and credibility to the brand," Anheuser-Busch said in a statement. But Bud Light is not the only brand the has given Timberlake a creative exec title.  The relaunched MySpace is also part of the singer/actor's advisory portfolio.

Thus far, the new MySpace, which featured Timberlake prominently in its launch, has failed to gain much traction. "When MySpace finally started letting people in to experience the new
site, we all realized the same thing. While it’s neat, it’s not easy to
use and doesn’t feel like it’s worth rebuilding a social graph again,"
wrote Brenden Mulligan, who founded and sold ArtistData and recently launched OneSheet.

And because the new MySpace does not link to an artist's previous MySpace fans, every act and fan is building their network from scratch. As of last week, Timberlake, MySpace's own creative director and partner, had just 50,000 fans on the new site. On the old MySpace, Timberlake has 1.5 million followers.

Despite his early failure to re-ignite MySpace, the beer brand is bullish on their new partnership. "Justin Timberlake is one of the greatest creative minds in the entertainment industry, and his insights will help us further define Bud Light Platinum's identity in the lifestyle space," Paul Chibe, VP of Anheuser-Busch's U.S. marketing, said in a statement.

In fiarness, Timberlake has proven to be one of music's more adept and early adopters of social media and digital marketing tools.  Whether or not he or other celebrity 'creative director' can help Bud or any brand more than he has failed to for MySpace remains an open question.

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6 Comments

  1. It’s gonna be very interesting to see how this pans out. In my opinion the Myspace relaunch was doomed sinced they made the big announcment at last year’s CES.
    Justin Timberlake being named Creative Director for Bud Light is nothing more than a commercial for a commercial.
    This is similar to the deal Jay-Z has with Budweiser and all the actual work is probably being done through Steve Stoute’s company as well. Endorsement deals disguised with corporate titles….

  2. I’m not sure who was launching who with the Myspace and Justin Timberlake collaboration. It seemed like something their respective marketing people thought would be mutually beneficial from a co-branding perspective. I think the actual content and execution behind both brands (Timberlake’s Suit and Tie and Myspace’s) did not live up to the hype, which, unfortunately, no amount of flashy marketing can make up for. Check out the new Beck/Bowie endorsement for Lincoln Motor Company: Yet another musician co-branding/endorsement extravaganza. They actually spent big bucks on a 15×22″ pullout PAPER poster of Beck in this week’s New Yorker Magazine – ugh. I guess at least they have the demographics right – but Beck, Bowie and Lincoln in the same breath? Kind of like Timberlake and Budweiser – I thought Timberlake had a classier brand image than that. At least Alicia Keys and Blackberry seems to make some sense from an image perspective, although, again, you can’t put lipstick on a pig (the pig being the Blackberry, not Keys) and sell it as something suddenly desirable. What surprises me is that these artists’ labels don’t seem to consider the possible negative impact of these product endorsements on the artists’ images. The Beck/Bowie/Lincoln ads: http://now.lincoln.com/2013/02/beck-says-hello-again/

  3. Bud light platinum sucks taste like shit and timberlake has no talent at all or any creative skills he is in no way one if the greatest creative minds its just mattering ploy to sell there horrible bud light platinum.

  4. If Bud Light does the same thing as Myspace did, their beer will be full of strychnine or arsenic before you know it. I actually wrote Mr Timberlake a letter about Myspace, but I have not yet received a reply… you can read it at viewdocsonline.com/document/w79erz if you’re interested.

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