Me, me, me, MEEeeyeah . . ." A typical viewer's first reaction to SonicNet's new TV campaign might be something like, "What the hell is Christina Aguilera/Sting/Jewel doing?" Or, those a little less in touch might simply wonder, "Who the hell is that?" Whatever the case, this is a natural clutterbuster, and therein lies the benefit of getting 36 major musicians from Alice Cooper to Static X to riff on your slogan. How'd they do that? Being owned by MTVi helps. The network group's VP-marketing, David Hyman, says the goal was to get SonicNet's name out there for the general audience of newbie Netizens, as well as music fanatics, who'd find the site one way or another. "SonicNet had a great reputation in the industry," Hyman says. "It was just time for the public to know. It's not a new music site. It's the oldest music site on the Internet."

Fittingly for a music enterprise on a new medium, MTV went back to the creator of its very first ad campaign, Dale "I want my MTV" Pon of New York's Dale Pon Agency. Pon says it was a meeting with MTVi CEO Nicholas Butterworth that touched off the creative process. "He explained what he wants SonicNet.com always to be: 'The best place we can share our passion for music.' " Co-CD/writer Maria Raissis used that philosophy to come up with the slogan, "Me music. It's mine."

"We thought, 'Gee, what's the most basic piece of music there is?' " recalls Raissis. "From there we took it to 'mi mi mi,' and we thought if we could have all these artists warming up with that, it would convey that sense of personalization that SonicNet offers. The idea for the slogan and for the spots was pretty much always hand-in-hand. We figured since it's SonicNet and Viacom, they have relationships with all these great artists, so wouldn't it be great to have all of them come to a party and do this for us."

Everybody rose to the challenge with the help of veteran diva-director Tim Newman, whose music videos have been on MTV since the '80s.

Client: MTVi/SonicNet Agency: Dale Pon Agency, New York Creative Director: Dale Pon Co-Creative Director/Copywriter: Maria Raissis Director: Tim Newman, MTV/Crossroads Films Production Designer: Rob Young Director of Photography: Fred Elmes