Matmi has partnered with British pop star Lilly Allen to promote her single and second album.

The artist’s single and album were promoted by Matmi through the online game “Escape the Fear.” Internal statistics say that the songs had already passed 2 million plays. At the same time, it went to the top of iTunes music charts in UK, US, and other countries.

Lilly Allen’s single “The Fear” has held on the number one spot in the UK Singles chart for three weeks.

The integrated campaign was engineered by Parlophone and Matmi.

“The game was designed to help us reach a new audience for Lily – people who are not listening to the radio, reading the music press or generally exposed to new music, but are part of our target audience,” said Dan Duncombe, Director of Digital at Parlophone. “The game is based on the lyrics of “The Fear” and the single is the game’s soundtrack. With an average dwell time of nearly five minutes the vast majority of players are listening to the track more than once.”

Duncombe maintained, “This game is the promo video of the digital age.”

It is the perfect example of branded entertainment at work, said Jeff Coghlan from Matmi. “Consumers are sick of online advertising because it doesn’t have any intrinsic value,” Coghlan asserted. “When it’s done properly, branded entertainment like ‘Escape the Fear’ has very high value and gives consumers an opportunity to interact with the brand as well. When consumers endorse the material by passing it on, the positive influence of the brand is nine times more powerful than an advert. When you take the costs into account as well, it’s no wonder major brands like Parlophone are using these more sophisticated promotional techniques.”

Grammy-nominated artist Estelle Swaray will be singing to the beat of Kraft-owned Crystal Light, a brand of powdered drink mix.

Kraft is building a campaign around Swaray’s newest single titled “Star.” The campaign is centered on a Website (upumpitup.com), where visitors are entitled to a free download of the song before it is available in March for music sites.

The collaboration between the musician and the marketer is not a first. Most recently, Chris Brown integrated the product Doublemint gum in a new version of his song “Forever.”

This partnership seems to benefit both parties well, that’s why it’s becoming a trend.

“On the side of musicians,” writes Stuart Elliot from the NY Times, “marketers can help generate exposure for new songs, which struggle to gain attention because of the decline in CD sales, radio play, music video shows like ‘Total Request Live’ and retail outlets, including Tower Records.”

Elliot continues, “On the side of marketers, the trend fits in with the rise of what is called branded entertainment, by which a product seeks to link itself in the minds and hearts of consumers with movies, TV shows or songs they like. The partnership between Estelle and Kraft, for undisclosed financial terms, was arranged with Atlantic by the Ogilvy Entertainment unit of Ogilvy & Mather.”

“We believe branded entertainment needs to be developed from the brand up rather than from the entertainment down,” said Doug Scott, president at Ogilvy Entertainment.

What Scott means is for the formula to work, the branded content needs to connect with the target demographic. Scott also added that the product integration of the brand to the content should be organic.

Roxanne Bernstein—senior brand manager for Crystal Light—said that, “Ogilvy Entertainment did quite a bit of legwork,” on the potential partnership. Bernstein concludes, “There’s a really great fit that exists between Estelle and the Crystal Light brand.”

Rum maker Bacardi has confirmed a four-track release of the dance band Groove Armada.

Last April 2008, Bacardi and Groove Armada signed a partnership for the band to work with Bacardi for touring, recording, and producing global events for the marketing campaign of the Bacardi B-Live and B-Live radio shows. Although confirmed, the four-track album still has no official launch date.

“The relationship with Bacardi has taken us all over the world and seen us perform in some jaw-dropping locations,” said Tom Findlay, a band member of Groove Armada. “However, what sets our unique relationship apart is the music we're producing, so we're especially excited to be in the final stages of the mini-album and ready to see the impact a band and brand collaboration will have on both our fans and the music industry.”

The details of the album, together with the global distribution and business planes will be announced on January 20, 2009 at Midem—the Cannes international music market conference.

iTVX.com--- It's very interesting to compare Britney Spears’ new video for her latest single “Circus” on MTVMusic.com and YouTube.com. On the latter, the video opens with Brit opening up a jewelry set of earrings and necklace with the trademark Bulgari logo emblazoned on the inside of the box. The MTV version, however, has no writing - just the jewelry.

One wonders if the video on BritneyTV (the singer’s channel on YouTube) has exclusive rights to air the brand name or some other legal thing where the trademark can’t be visible. The only other possibility is that it’s some promotional video on YouTube for the company.