June 12, 2008

By By Kamau High, N.Y.

Viewers watching this weekend's coverage of Bonnaroo on music network Fuse
will see an integrated campaign from Microsoft's I'm Initiative, a charitable program that funnels a fraction of revenue generated from Microsoft's instant messenger and ads on its email service Hotmail to charitable causes such as The American Red Cross and The Boys and Girls Club of America.

Starting today Steven Smith, the host of "Steven's Untitled Rock Show" on Fuse, will conduct several interviews from the art and music festival centered around the I'm Initiative, said Allan Infeld, senior VP ad sales, Fuse. Five one-minute clips will be put on the homepage of fuse.com and on air as well as two 30-second spots featuring Steven.

"We're taking a 360 type approach with on-air, online, and our headquarters in New York,' he said. The I'm Initiative will have a tent at the festival festooned with 20 free to use laptops and Fuse will also show consumers using the laptops.

The promotion comes as Fuse launched a re-branding campaign last week from ad agency the Brooklyn Brothers, which is based in New York. The Cablevision owned network's campaign uses the new tagline "Get Your Music On ... Fuse."

The I'm Initiative is finishing up a year-long campaign from San McCann WorldGroup, San Francisco. Last year it was also a sponsor of Bonnaroo and ran a promotion with MTV. McCann, part of holding company IPG, partnered with Fuse because of its demographic, said Devin Holmes, account director.

"These are smart individualist who are part of a trend setting audience. We're looking for people who say 'Why wouldn't I do that' instead of 'Why would I do that," said Holmes.

Subscribe to Billboard magazine today!