MySpace recently launched a new “pilot advertising initiative” that allows users to click through a small overlay on the bottom of music videos to buy the song they are listening to, or jump straight to the artist’s page. The initiative (stemming from a partnership with content detection company Auditude) has debuted on two videos so far – My Chemical Romance’s cover of Desolation Row, and U2’s Get On Your Boots.

Users were presented with the option to buy the song either on Amazon, or (in an interesting twist) on a vinyl disc. Over the 24 hours that the ad ran [on the Chemical Romance video] it posted an impressive 1.2% click-through-rate (significantly higher than rates seen on typical banner ads), encouraging MySpace and Auditude to expand the program to more videos.

The ads are great – the overlay is slick and non-intrusive, and shrinks into a small tab mid-way through. Even better, the overlay replaces the previous ad attempt – a much more annoying (and disconnected) 15-20 second pre-roll.

YouTube launched a similar initiative a few weeks ago, and confirmed that their clickthrough rates have seen significant increases as well.

(via b-side)