Skype, the fast-growing Internet telephony system, is this week launching a global promotional campaign centered on Coldplay’s new single “Talk,” Billboard.biz has learned.
In partnership with EMI Music, Skype has launched a competition that invites users to leave a message for the band on its voicemail service.
The band members will judge and select the best message at the end of next February. The winner gets to talk to the band members via Skype.
Through the campaign, the British alternative rock band and its single will also be promoted heavily on the service’s homepage. Subscribers to the service can click on a link to the “Talk” video or purchase the “X&Y” CD via the band’s Web site.
The service is gradually moving into online-music entertainment and the Coldplay campaign marks its biggest music-related project to date. Saul Klein, Skype’s U.K.-based global VP of marketing, describes the tie-up as “first major industry promotion to signal that 2006 will see the first of many entertainment-related projects.”
The competition will be accessible to Skype’s global database of more than 70 million users. Klein says the service registers 180,000 new users each day.
Skype was invented by the creators of controversial peer-to-peer network Kazaa. It was acquired in September by online-auction giant eBay for $2.6 billion.
From early next year, Skype plans to offer users access to ringback tones. The company already supplies ringtones.
