Odyssey joins philstar.com

Odyssey, the country’s No. 1 music and entertainment retailer and this year’s Philippine Retailer of the Year, recently signed up with philstar.com to be a content and marketing partner. Under the terms of the agreement, Odyssey will be one of the main providers of music content for philstar.com’s YS Online section. It will provide YS Online with CD reviews, music and video news, top hits charts, feature articles and other entertainment-lifestyle content from its recently launched music portal, odysseyplanet.com. At the MOA signing last Nov. 7, Odyssey president Jay Fonacier remarked that the partnership with philstar.com would be an "excellent vehicle to keep the Filipino global community, especially its young progressive and culture-oriented segment, updated and informed of the latest developments in music and entertainment." Fonacier added, "the partnership makes very good sense. The typical YS Online reader is a music and media sponge who is always abreast of and hungry for new artists, genres, trends, albums and videos. We are the country’s top provider of these products."

It is for this reason that philstar.com president Kevin Belmonte believes "Odyssey is a valuable addition to philstar.com’s impressive suite of content and service partners. In getting leaders of their respective industries to partner with us, philstar.com is quickly building itself up to be the top Internet destination for Filipino-oriented news, infotainment and e-commerce opportunities. Very soon, anything you want online, whether it be information, services or products, will be accessible through philstar.com."

Other industry leaders which philstar.com has partnered with include RFM Corp., PLDT, Viva, BidShot auctions, Jobstreet and eYellowPages and DFNN.

The philstar.com partnership marks Odyssey’s latest move in its thrust to become a top new-economy retailer and marketer. Central to this transformation is its recently launched website - odysseyplanet.com - which is geared to be a complete music portal. Fonacier relates, "We’ve packed everything in for the music lover - album reviews, song listings, downloadable posters, industry updates, gimmick and event guides, chat rooms for fan clubs, links to artist websites, music clips and the widest selection of Filipino music on the web. Anything about music, it’s there."

Odyssey is the country’s No. 1 music store, with over 59 branches nationwide. The company is an industry pioneer, having been the first retailer in the Philippines to introduce listening stations, DJ booths, open-rack systems and in-store concerts. Recently, it garnered industry acclaim for its flexible positioning and aggressive marketing moves, opening superstore "Odysseys XLs" in large markets and smaller "Odyssey Express" locations in provincial areas. These efforts culminated in Odyssey’s receipt of this year’s "Retailer of the Year" award from the Philippine Retailer’s Association.