Grammy award-winning reggae artist and philanthropist Ziggy Marley has launched the iPhone application “Ziggy Marley’s Music Mixer.”

The application features five brand new socially-conscious tracks created exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and fans can buy three additional tracks within the application via iTunes. Mr. Marley tapped independent digital creative agency Heavenspot and sister company AppWagon to create the application.

“We noticed Ziggy Marley didn’t have a large footprint in the digital space, and there is not a lot of stuff out there in mobile related to reggae music in general,” said Chevon Hicks, founder, president and creative director of Heavenspot, Los Angeles. “We thought his fan base is pretty broad.

“Ziggy Marley has a cross-generational appeal, from Grateful Dead fans to hip-hop heads,” he said. “Right now his core demographic is adult contemporary, so the whole impetus for Ziggy doing the app is to expand that fan base to reach younger, cooler users.

“He’s not seeing this as a huge revenue-generator off the bat—his goal is to increase his digital footprint and hopefully bring him and eventually his family into the mobile arena.”

Heavenspot works closely with global brands, movie studios, advertising agencies and media companies to conceptualize and execute marketing strategies that have a digital emphasis.

Clients such as Disney, ABC Family, CBS Broadcasting, Adobe, Endemol, Fox Broadcasting, Focus Features, Hasbro, Paramount Pictures and the Weinstein Company have turned to Heavenspot for Web sites, trailers and banner ads.

Heavenspot’s sister company AppWagon publishes games and applications for the new wave of portable touch devices. Applications are made available on retail sale via electronic stores like iTunes and Google’s upcoming Android Market.

Engaging music fans via mobile
The Ziggy Marley application transforms mobile users into music producers, providing tools to mix tracks, break beats, create dub sounds and more.

Functions such as the “Jackpot Mix” let users shake their iPhone or iPod Touch to randomly mix different song parts for unexpected creations.

Meanwhile, “DJ for Me” picks a track and then randomly remixes it, providing users with new random reggae mixes, each time they engage the application.

Each new song has an average of 50 interchangeable song parts including drums, melodies, bass lines and vocal parts, ensuring a unique mix with more than hundreds of thousands of possible combinations for users.

New songs for the Ziggy Marley application will continue to be added as in-application purchases.

At launch, songs from Ziggy Marley’s Music Mixer include “Technology Rise,” a perspective on how technology affects our lives.

“Be Who You Are” is a classic feel-good reggae tune that celebrates the art of being true to oneself.

“We No Fight” is Ziggy’s song for peace a call to end all wars.

“Are You Ready” is a definite head-knocker inspired jam harks back to the best of ‘70s vintage reggae.

“Dance With Me” is a song that is perfect for setting any dance floor in motion.

Ziggy Marley’s Music Mixer application is available in the App Store for $0.99. Each of the three bonus tracks is also $0.99.

“The primary reason people are going to want to download this app is that for $0.99 it comes with five brand new Ziggy Marley songs—he recorded brand-new tracks specifically for this application,” Mr. Hicks said. “We wanted to offer something you couldn’t get elsewhere.

Heavenspot and AppWagon are using various tactics to get the word out about Ziggy Marley’s music mixer.

“We’ve created banner ad campaigns, viral videos and mobile marketing for major studios, so this was a great opportunity for us,” Mr. Hicks said. “For the Ziggy Marley app, we’re working on a banner campaign across the Tuff Gong family of sites, including BobMarley.com and RootsRockReggae.com, a lot of blog seeding and we’re working on a viral video, as well as 30-second and 60-second YouTube spots.

“We’re giving away promotional codes via social networks, and there are plans for a contest that will be judged by Ziggy,” he said. “People will make mixes using the app, and Ziggy will choose which one he thinks is the coolest and award that person $5,000.”