Truth.com Offers Smoke-free Music Downloads, CDs
The American Legacy Foundation’s truth.com group will fight youth smoking with online remixes from the music used in its current “Sunny Side of Truth” campaign, created by nine well-known bands and DJs.
Contemporary artists including Cobra Starship, Cascade and Mix Master Mike have reworked original tunes from the broadcast and outdoor campaign, which combines sunny melodies with the grim statistics on the health effects of tobacco and the mortality statistics around smoking.
Ten songs from the ReMix Project became available Wednesday on the campaign’s main Web site, www.thetruth.com/remix, and on truth.com branded pages on MySpace, Facebook, Hi5 and other social networks. The songs will also be placed in rotation on popular music Web sites such as Pandora, iLike, Imeem, Spin.com and iTunes.
Visitors can download the entire album for free from the main truth.com site through the end of July. After that, they will be available for paid download from iTunes and other digital distribution sites including Amazon, Napster, eMusic, Beatport and Yahoo Music.
The truth.com/remix site also offers a widget that will let truth’s targeted teen demographic send the songs to their friends’ mobile phones along with a personalized message.
“Many of the life-saving messages around the truth campaign are designed to be spread peer-to-peer,” American Legacy Foundation President and CEO Dr. Cheryl Healton said in a statement. “With the ReMix project, we’re pairing the innovative talents of DJs and bands with the use of newer media outlets where teens go to be entertained, share information and connect with friends.”
The download campaign will also take advantage of broadcast media. Podcasts showing contributing ReMix artists Z-Trip and Kenny Dope discussing their participation in the project will be featured as vignettes on cable channels VH-1, Fuel and the N.
The behind-the-scenes content will also be available as video on the truth.com Remix site, and as podcast downloads from iTunes, Podcast.net, Podcast Pickle, Yahoo, Odeo.com and other distribution sites. New ReMix artist podcasts will be posted to the truth.com site and social network pages about every two weeks through the first week of October.
The popular G4 channel program “Attack of the Show” will use ReMix songs as background music. The songs will also receive radio play in markets around the country.
Finally, truth vans and street crews will distribute ReMix CDs in a 60-city, 30-state summer tour that will take them to live events such as the Vans Warped tour. Starting this month, people purchasing Vans Warped tickets through Ticketmaster.com will also be offered a free download from the ReMix CD.
Later this summer, truth.com will roll out a campaign that will ask users to create their own ReMixes of the songs and upload them to hosting site http://www.imeem.com for judging.
The ReMix Web site, CD packaging and mobile widget design were developed by Boston-based agency Arnold Worldwide. ReMix music was produced with Rock River Music.
