It took weeks of scouring garage sales and thrift shops to collect what Grand Central Marketing needed for client Napster’s showcase at the Digital Life show last year. The agency wanted to take Napster, a Web-based music-sharing service, back to when founder Shawn Fanning first championed new talent from his garage. The trade show presence needed to reflect Napster’s anti-establishment image in contrast to the slick, prefab booths that are more typical.

“We wanted to say Napster still champions new talent,” explains Matthew Glass, chairman and CEO of GCM, New York City.

The Digital Life electronics show has a strong consumer pull, but Napster’s goal was to knock out its peers in attendance. It had deals with XM Radio and Creative Players, and wanted to build ties with other possible partners.

“We kind of point to each other while we’re there,” says Napster’s Dana Harris.

On a $50,000 budget, GCM transformed a 20′-by-20′ space into the Napster Lounge, a portable backyard garage that just might be home to a young band.

Dressed with beaded lamps, overstuffed old couches and back issues of Rolling Stone, the “garage” also featured amplifiers, microphone stands, guitars and milk crates filled with vinyl records. An old fridge held premiums: single-serve beer coolers and bandanas with the Napster logo. (The famous “Napster cat” logo also appeared on a Mick Jagger poster and old beer bottles in garbage cans.) Laptops were set up on a ping-pong table for visitors to check out Napster’s music library (it signed more than 100 members for its service).

“We went against the grain and that felt right for this brand,” Glass says.

• CAMPAIGN: Napster Garage
• AGENCY: Grand Central Marketing
• CLIENT: Napster

• CAMPAIGN: Napster Garage
• AGENCY: Grand Central Marketing
• CLIENT: Napster

It took weeks of scouring garage sales and thrift shops to collect what Grand Central Marketing needed for client Napster’s showcase at the Digital Life show last year. The agency wanted to take Napster, a Web-based music-sharing service, back to when founder Shawn Fanning first championed new talent from his garage. The trade show presence needed to reflect Napster’s anti-establishment image in contrast to the slick, prefab booths that are more typical.

“We wanted to say Napster still champions new talent,” explains Matthew Glass, chairman and CEO of GCM, New York City.

The Digital Life electronics show has a strong consumer pull, but Napster’s goal was to knock out its peers in attendance. It had deals with XM Radio and Creative Players, and wanted to build ties with other possible partners.

“We kind of point to each other while we’re there,” says Napster’s Dana Harris.

On a $50,000 budget, GCM transformed a 20’-by-20’ space into the Napster Lounge, a portable backyard garage that just might be home to a young band.

Dressed with beaded lamps, overstuffed old couches and back issues of Rolling Stone, the “garage” also featured amplifiers, microphone stands, guitars and milk crates filled with vinyl records. An old fridge held premiums: single-serve beer coolers and bandanas with the Napster logo. (The famous “Napster cat” logo also appeared on a Mick Jagger poster and old beer bottles in garbage cans.) Laptops were set up on a ping-pong table for visitors to check out Napster’s music library (it signed more than 100 members for its service).

“We went against the grain and that felt right for this brand,” Glass says.

Sonny and Cher live again.

A DVD set of the 1970s musical duo is selling gangbusters through an infomercial — and even better through a Web site, according to Tim O’Leary, CEO of Respond2, the agency that created and is marketing the set.

The “Sonny & Cher Ultimate Collection” includes three DVDs with nine hours from Sonny and Cher’s two TV shows, commentary by Cher, a karaoke feature, musical outtakes from the shows, and a 15-song CD.

A pre-order Web site went up a month before the collection’s Oct. 14 release, and 1,000 orders were placed before Respond2 did any marketing, except for notifying fan sites by e-mail that the set was available.

The reason? “Cher has such a fervent fan base,” O’Leary said from his Portland, OR office.

Then — gearing up for the rollout — with a little public relations and Web marketing, “We popped over $1 million in sales right away, which showed me there was very good word of mouth on the product,” O’Leary said.

The timing helped. When the offer was launched on DRTV, Cher had just finished the run of her “North American Living Proof — the Farewell Tour.”

And with the dozens of Cher fan sites buzzing with news and activities about the pop diva, people flocked to the offer. “We would watch the dialogue on the fan sites and observe the discussion on where they’re buying and what they like,” O’Leary said.

Once the 30-minute infomercial began broadcasting, 15,000 packages were sold in the first month. At $80 per set, O’Leary is pleased.

Overall, the marketing costs some $50,000 to $100,000 a week, according to O’Leary. Spending will increase, he added. “The more you spend, the greater the life span.”

For every dollar spent on media to push the infomercial, Respond2 is making $2 to $3 in sales. “The question is, how long can we stay that way?” O’Leary said.

The Web response rate has been harder to measure. One reason is there can be quite a long lag time between the infomercial’s broadcast (which shows the Web site address — www.sonnyandcher.com — and a toll-free number) and a spike in Web sales.

But up to 70% of the sales are being made on the Web site. Usually, just 30% of sales are tied to the site.

In a typical TV campaign, 80% to 90% of the orders occur within five minutes of the 800 number (and Web site address) appearing. Web sales might register immediately or not until two or three weeks after the broadcast.

With Sonny and Cher, “the drag on orders is a week to two weeks,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary hasn’t invested in very much Web marketing because the Web performance is so unusual in this campaign, “the numbers are hard to read.” He intends to evaluate the sales and the channels in which they are occurring before revising his marketing plans. “We haven’t quite figured out what our media efficiencies are because of the drag,” he said. “You have to be able to filter out word-of-mouth people.”

He is, however, testing e-mail.

A pre-Thanksgiving mailing to a couple of hundred customers who had bought videos from Respond2 in the past did well enough that O’Leary decided to hit another group of video buyers in mid-December.

A 120-second spot on DRTV also is appearing, but it performs a distant third behind the Web and infomercial’s response rates. Even so, an airing on HSN in early December sold 2,000 sets.

Other marketing includes a swap with a Web site that markets Cher’s concert DVD. Both sites offer a coupon for each other’s products.

O’Leary wants to do more careful targeting, including efforts directed to gay men who are fans of Cher, during the first quarter. Media targeting that demographic might include e-mail, direct mail, catalog placements or print ads.

O’Leary is accustomed to success with his DVD “Ultimate Collections.” A Bob Hope package was a huge seller, and one on Johnny Carson was a mega-hit, too.

The measure of a product’s success on infomercials is how long sales take to dip before it’s sold at retail. It took “the Johnny” (as O’Leary refers to the Carson set) three years to end up in the stores and by then had sold 2 million collections. “The Johnny was a home run,” he said.

O’Leary predicts that Sonny & Cher will run about a year on DRTV. “It’s not a Johnny, but it’s a double,” he said.