• by Karl Greenberg , June 11, 2007

LG Electronics' MobileComm USA, the electronics giant's U.S. mobile phone division, is preparing to launch a program with music-business magazine Billboard Magazine. The effort, "Mobile Beat," lets owners of the company's mobile phones become de facto music journalists posting live commentary to personal blogs on billboard.com.

LG and Billboard are letting 30 contestants get a free LG enV camera phone and VIP press passes to concerts, festivals and shows where they live, to be chosen by Billboard. Winners are charged with covering a raft of summer concerts, where they can post photos and reviews to Billboard.com.

To participate in the contest, entrants must log onto Billboard.com and submit a photo of themselves along with a 100-word statement about why they should be tapped to be a citizen-journalist. They have until Friday.

Starting this month, bloggers chosen from entrants will use the digital LG camera phones to capture concert images and write reviews in real time. A pair of runners-up and one grand prize winner will be chosen in October, with the grand-prize winner getting an all-expense-paid trip for two to a Billboard Music Award show for red-carpet coverage. The runners-up will each receive the latest model phone from LG.

Visitors to Billboard.com can see the photos of, and read the accounts and reviews of concerts by, the amateur scribes. There will also be links to related music news and events and musical coverage narrated by Billboard editors, and there will be sweepstakes dangling an LG phone.

BrandBuzz is the creative agency of record and MEC is the media agency, for Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based LG MobileComm.

The effort is LG's first such promotion with Billboard. "We haven't done a program like this before," says Jon Maron, senior director of marketing at the company. "We have done blogging programs, and we understand the importance and relevance of the blogging community."

Maron says the program is the latest expression of the long-term relationship between LG Electronics and Billboard and that the magazine is a music-programming partner for music downloads on LG mobile devices. "Both of us are looking for ways to reach different audiences, and we see that music as a medium is becoming more and more about a much younger demographic," he says, adding that the target consumer for the program are 15- to-24-year-olds.

In another recent effort to reach younger consumers with the enV phone, the company sponsored the LG National Texting Championship at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Calif., and at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City on March 31. Contestants vied for $10,000 in titles on each coast with finals in New York City for $15,000. "For 15-to-24-year-old consumers, texting has become the modern version of note-passing," says Maron.

Besides an integrated keyboard, the new enV phone has a 2-megapixel camera, video camcorder and MP3 player.

"Most of the music received now is downloaded, it's not bought in brick-and-mortar stores; and Billboard is becoming more trusted as a source of music press not only to the trade but to the downloading demographic who wants to know what's new, what's topping the charts," says Maron.

LG isn't involved with choosing the concerts the cub reporters will attend--the reporters get to choose from a number of events in their areas--and there is no geographic footprint for the program aligning with, say, LG's strongest regional sales.

"The fun thing," says Maron, "is [that] it gives people an opportunity not only to shine as cub reporters but to express themselves through blogging, which is becoming as much a source of news as the news itself."

LG will promote the program and its mobile multimedia devices on Billboard.com, LifeWithLG.com and via a banner-ad campaign on other Web pages.