August 12, 2010

By By Eleftheria Parpis, Adweek

Pereira & O'Dell of San Francisco has won the assignment to help rebrand MySpace following a review, according to sources.

The shop bested New York agencies Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Droga5 and Los Angeles-based Goodness Mfg., which made final presentations to the client two weeks ago.

Agency and client officials either could not be reached or declined comment.

The review for the News Corp.-owned property was led by consultancy Select Resources International in Santa Monica, Calif. The client had said the winning shop would fashion a branding campaign. MySpace is seeking a consumer-facing campaign to reboot its business as it rolls out a revamped site in late fall.

In 2009, MySpace spent just $2 million on advertising, excluding online, per Nielsen. From January to May this year, the company spent $200,000. There is no paid-media estimate going forward.

Once the darling of the social networking scene, MySpace has seen its stature erode as rivals like Facebook and Twitter have taken center stage.

As of June, the site's unique audience was 46.5 million, down 26 percent from the same period last year, according to Nielsen. By contrast, Facebook has grown its audience to 127 million in the U.S., a 46 percent increase over last year. Just four years ago, MySpace was the social networking leader.

Of late, the site has moved away from its "A place for friends" genesis and made some effort to play up its ties to the music biz and leverage that as a point of differentiation.

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