First luxury brand runs MySpace ad campaign

The renowned French jeweler and watchmaker Cartier has become the first luxury brand to launch an ad campaign on social network MySpace. How does MySpace merit being host to such high-class 'bling'?

by Helen Leggatt

Starting this week and continuing for a year, luxury brand Cartier will feature branded pages on MySpace to promote its “Love by Cartier” product line.

Corinne Delattre, director of communication at Cartier International, said: "For the past two years, Cartier has embarked on a number of groundbreaking initiatives that unite luxury with new technology.

"Today, the world is connected by a network. Blogs, group or individual websites are no longer the signs of a new era, but are an established reality for a whole new generation. As a large brand we must be able to communicate to this new generation of adepts of the digital world -- the MySpace community makes that possible."

This isn’t Cartier’s first foray into social networks as another campaign is already running on the exclusive, invitation-only ASmallWorld where the rich and famous hang out.

But, why MySpace? According to comScore, MySpace has a high volume of users with an income of $100k or more, and more uniques in that category. In total just over a quarter of MySpace users (48.1 million uniques) make a household income of $100k or more.

Cartier’s MySpace page contains exclusive music and video content from many well known artists including Lou Reed, Phoenix and Sol Seppy. It was launched earlier this week in a selection of countries including the U.S., U.K., France, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, Switzerland and Spain. A China launch is planned for September.