EMI Music UK Launches New Content on The Raft to Celebrate 10th Anniversary

This week, EMI Music UK celebrates the 10th anniversary of its award-winning aggregate site, The Raft, by launching an exclusive '10 years in tune feature. The feature will bring together tracks, videos, rareities, and prizes from a selection of the decades most influential artists.

(PRWEB) April 3, 2005 -- EMI Music UK is inviting consumers to vote for their favourite icons, landmark albums, gigs, events and artists from a period that saw the advent of Britpop, electronica and even girl power.

As a community site, The Raft provides EMI Music UKs labels and artists with a space where consumers can find a huge selection of accredited news, music and video. In the decade since The Rafts launch, its exclusive and bespoke content has provided EMI Music UK with consumer insight and a commercial edge; simultaneously allowing the music label to get closer to fans and providing quality content to brands. EMI Music UKs partnership with Samsung UKs Funclub site highlights the value of The Rafts content to brands; making sites more 'sticky, adding value to customers and providing the 'glue to an online community.

Danny Van Emden, Digital Media Director at EMI Music UK, comments, For us, The Raft is a great channel for building and sustaining our relationship with consumers. Having established trust with our audience, we have been able to create lasting relationships, introduce them to emerging talent, identify new trends and offer our audience a 'say'. The site is also somewhere where we can be proactive and flexible when it comes to working with brands as we can create bespoke content and offer maximum appeal at sensible prices."

The Raft has over 300,000 registered fans, all of whom identified their musical preferences when subscribing. For the past 10 years, EMI Music UK has been able to effectively use this growing database to cross-sell and up-sell, and to sustain a personalised dialogue with its audience.

Van Emden continues, As the first magazine-based site to launch, The Raft has provided consumers with a central site that allows them to access quickly and easily a huge selection of artist accredited news, music and video."

The Raft offers exclusive artist interviews, exclusive movies, webcast, webchat events and links to EMI Music UKs official artists sites, driving traffic to these sites.
The Raft has revealed exclusive interviews with The Chemical Brothers; Massive Attack; Blue; Spice Girls; Willy Mason; Macy Gray; and Michael Eavis, the Glastonbury Festival organiser.

About The Raft www.the-raft.com
The Raft has won a multitude of awards, from best site at NME Net Sounds Awards, to Music Week creative awards. The site has been hosting adverts and sponsorships for five years. The specialist Raft team, who comprise dedicated writers and a video content team, create bespoke advertorials, database sampling, white label editorial and streaming services to brands.

About EMI Music UK -- Digital Media Division
EMI Music was the first major record company to establish a dedicated Digital Media division in 1998. The division, headed up by Danny Van Emden, the Digital Media Director, is responsible for the digital activity of EMI Music UK and Ireland and its individual music labels. In addition, each of EMI Musics record labels - EMI Records, Innocent, Parlophone, Virgin and the catalogue division - has a Digital Media Manager responsible for developing artist specific new media opportunities, promotions and web presence.

The Digital Media division develops many of the companys digital cross-marketing and artist promotions; providing exclusive content; managing data capture and eCRM systems; and monetising EMI Musics assets across the digital media.

With in house skills in journalism, programming, photography, SEO and design, the team are able to generate the right mix of copywriting and creativity to exploit a range of commercial opportunities. Working with EMIs Commercial Digital team, Digital Media has worked with retail, brand, online and mobile organisations. This year alone, the division has agreed a number of crucial deals with high profile partners including OD2, i-Tunes, mycokemusic, Napster, Orange and Vodafone Live.

Websites developed for well-known artists include Kylie.com, Kelis.co.uk, thethrills.com, nerduk.com, thedivinecomedy.com, doves.net and jamelia.com. The team is also responsible for creating artists web shops, selling physical products and exclusive merchandise, as well as developing mobile shops and download platforms.

EMI Music UK is part of The EMI Group, one of the largest music companies in the world and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

www.emimusic.co.uk

Contact:
Anna Vickerstaff
immediate future Ltd.
0845 408 2031
pressoffice@immediatefuture.co.uk

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