Publisher: Harmony Central

Managed Service

Automotive, Education, Entertainment, Non-Profit, Retail, Sports, Technology, eCommerce

We Don’t Want “Advertisers.” We Want Media Partners—and So Do You. Harmony Central’s goal is growing the music industry. We’re here to get people excited about music—playing it, recording it, listening to it. And, we want to get them excited about your gear, and what happens when you combine great products with musical creativity. Our content is written by professionals, and our forums are moderated by music industry experts—even including a multi-Grammy winner, a member of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, and an award-winning mastering engineer. Harmony Central is about serving our community. We are steadfastly against “pay to play.” If you make products that we believe will interest our community, we’ll review them or write about them whether or not you advertise. But when it’s time to target 2-3 million unique visitors per month consuming 8 to 20 million page views, let’s talk. We believe the days of sticking a banner ad on a site and calling a company once a month to ask for money are over. We want to partner with you to figure out the best way to get your message across to those who will benefit the most from it. Harmony Central has several innovative ways to promote your message. We explore some of those possiblities below. If all you want to do is buy a banner ad, you can skip ahead to the Advertising Requirements section below. Featured Home Page Hero Slider Placement. Gain home page exposure with big, beautiful artwork that links to anything from product landing pages to HC’s own expert reviews. It’s an impression people can’t miss. Forum Sponsorship. To target a specific audience, sponsor a specific forum. The sponsorship banner sits directly above the first forum thread—not the navigation bar—so it’s more visible to “ad blind” visitors. No wonder the John Lennon Songwriting Contest sponsors the Songwriting forum. Team HC’s Interactive Pro Reviews. In these “open source” reviews, everyone is welcome to participate in a discussion about the product being reviewed—including manufacturers. Discussions are moderated, but not censored; these reviews have none of the space or time limitations of print, and present the most in-depth product reviews and information anywhere. (Please note: Not all products are eligible for Pro Reviews.) Review exclusives. We said we wanted a partnership; this one’s for us. If you have a hot product coming out, we want to know about it and so does our community. This doesn’t cost you anything other than contacting us ahead of other sites for possible consideration in our review schedule. We will work with pre-production units or beta software, but not release the review until it has undergone a fact-check and the product is in the stores. Side Ads. Click-throughs on banner ads aren’t what they used to be, but with proper placement, banners still offer exceptional opportunities for branding. Furthermore, provocative headlines and images can serve as “click bait” to take visitors to your site. We’ll be happy to work with you on campaigns that maximize impact. Purchased links. Our reviews and articles often include a “Resources” section with links for places to obtain more information. Do you have a great product video? Did some other web site publish an insightful review? Do you want people to download the manual? Maybe there’s an interview online where an artist talks about using your gear? Buy a link as an inexpensive way for visitors to see your message. “Content feed” widget. Harmony Central has the technology for a page widget that can serve up videos, news, links, or whatever you want, with content under your control. We can also provide you with a Harmony Central content feed widget that can serve up all of our review and article feeds, or only those items relative to Guitars (for example) or your product brand as well. Articles. No, not advertorial. Companies have stories they want to tell—how to use gear, applications, technology details, techniques, and more. We’re always looking for quality editorial, and we don’t care who writes it. We will publish your article at no charge if it meets our requirements for being informational instead of promotional. Packages. We are flexible about assisting with a campaign that uses some or all of the above elements, and the timing for introducing those elements. For example, some companies like to combine forum sponsorships with forum side ads to achieve a forum takeover. Harmony Central has also produced short product videos for Korg, TC Electronic, Guitar Center, Electro-Harmonix, and others that can live on the company’s site was well as Harmony Central to accompany an article review. We’re here for you. We can’t grow the music industry all by ourselves. Come join us, and discover the advantages of working with a true media partner who will work with you to maximize your message—instead of that person who calls you up once a month and asks for money. Growing the love of music grows our industry. Let's discuss the best Media Partner plan for your needs, and help more people find out how your products and services can help them make better music. For a complete eMedia Package please contact: eMedia Partnership Contact : Dendy Jarrett E-mail adsales@harmonycentral.com Creative Submission Instructions E-mail required elements to adsales@harmonycentral.com For inquires regarding required elements please contact: adsales@harmonycentral.com Or Call: 1-800-719-0994 ____________________________________________ Advertising Requirements Harmony Central Hero Slider Creative size: 1050 x 400 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB - No Exceptions Format: JPG, GIF, SWF*, and HTML The Home Page Hero Slider Tiles are sold in weekly increments. Those increments are based on the number of tiles in rotation. Most tiles live for a couple of weeks to a month. Harmony Central Site Banners (ROS=Run Of Site) Leaderboards Creative size: 728 x 90 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB - No Exceptions Format: JPG, GIF, SWF*, and HTML Vertical Square Creative size: 300 x 250 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB- No Exceptions Format: JPG, GIF, SWF*, and HTML Vertical Rectangle Creative size: 300 x 600 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB - No Exceptions Format: JPG, GIF, SWF*, and HTML Required Elements: SWF* and/or GIF, JPG or HTML file – one of each size Clickthru URL Mobile Creative size: 320 X 100 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB- No Exceptions Format: JPG, GIV, SWF*, and HTML Optional Elements: Alt Text *When submitting a SWF file an additional JPG or GIF will need to be supplied should a user's browser not have flash supported. Reference file for proper ClickTag coding of SWF files is attached below. For assistance troubleshooting ClickTag code, please email FLA file, version 9 or previous, to adsales@harmonycentral.com. Advertising contract must be signed and on file before troubleshooting can commence. FORUM SPONSORSHIPS Harmony Central now offers the ability to sponsor or co-sponsor a specific forum. This is a new feature. This allows you to own or co-own the banner at the top of a specific forum. You may own it as an exclusive sponsorship, or share it as a co-sponsorship in rotation with another co-sponsor. Price is based on traffic to a specific forum. Creative size: 728x90 pixels Maximum file size: 100KB Supported file formats: JPG, GIF (animated included), and HTML Required Elements: GIF, JPG or HTML file Clickthru URL Alt Text Existing Suppression File from any previous dedicated e-mails. This file will be scrubbed against our database of names to ensure we do not send the e-mail to those who previously opted not to receive e-mails. FORUM TAKE OVER This take over allows you the benefits of Forum Sponsorship and the side banners on a specific forum. You would "own" the advertising in a specific forum. While there may be other ads in rotation on the side verticle, your banners would recieve priority rotation. General Advertising Guidelines* Prior to submission, creatives and their clickthrus must be tested for stability across all browser platforms. Please adhere to the File Size Specs when submitting creative. All creative is subject to approval by both the website and the Ad Production group. No Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Clickthru URLs must be submitted with all creative Alt text is optional for site banner advertisements, and cannot exceed 30 characters. *Harmony Central, Inc. complies with IAB Creative Unit Sizes. We reserve the right to reject any advertising materials we deem offensive or inappropriate. Harmony Central will not be held accountable for broken links submitted with an advertiser's creative. Advertisements are setup explicitly with the creative elements provided by the advertiser. If any required elements are omitted from the submission of an advertiser's creative assets, Harmony Central reserves the right to supplement missing assets with appropriate content in order to meet the guidelines agreed upon in the advertising contract.