MJ Thumplay commercial

[Grand Master S]

Has anyone else seen this? I saw it last night and it felt sorta out of nowhere. The whole ad was about MJ ringtones. They played clips of Beat It, Bad, Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, and Thriller. Pretty cool. It was on Noggin (or "The N" during mid afternoon and night) which is a sister channel to Nickelodeon.

 

[J5master]

haha coolio

 

[MJJChichi]

noggin' ?? you mean there is a channel I dont have

Wait, NickTV ... oh lawd, not another kids station ?? dont they have enough channels ??

 

[EssenceOfMagic]

that's great!!

 

[michaelsson]

lol ive seen this billions of time especially when im watchin moesha lol

 

[Grand Master S]

I'm impressed that you would even admit that you watch Moesha lol.

 

[michaelsson]

Lol. Mo 2 Tha, E To Tha Moesha =] Lol No Shame N My Game

 

[TSCM]

Yep, I've seen it too! In late-February Sony BMG and Thumbplay partnered together so that Thumbplay could then officially promote and offer Sony BMG catalog products through their site and commercials. My thoughts:

a.) It's great that out of the 16,000+ ringtones and 60,000 total content items available on Thumbplay, they've decided to dedicate an entire commercial to Michael's catalog alone and are promoting Michael's music on popular youth channels like Nickelodeon/Noggin. The youngest generations are increasingly being introduced to Michael's timeless music through commercials like these, YouTube, and other MJ-related specials like the America's Best Dance Crew Thriller-themed episode. The commercial also promotes the Thriller 25 album by featuring the album cover of it. Other than this Michael Jackson commercial, I haven't seen any other Thumbplay commercials that advertise for one specific artist--all of them I've watched advertise a variety of songs from different artists.

b.) I personally loathe the onslaught of ringtone advertising in commercials. They are hugely misleading and deceptive, and it's all the worse that they most often target kids and teens. There's always some catch in the fine print. Virtually all of these commercials immediately place the person on a monthly subscription as soon as they text in to get a "free" ringtone, and so each day/week/month they charge the person a certain amount and a lot of times this goes unnoticed for some time. If you text to get a Michael Jackson ringtone, you become subscribed to a $10/month subscription that must be manually canceled.