After having spent the better part of two years working to re-energize their relationship, Lenny Kravitz and Virgin Records are now focused on rebuilding the Kravitz brand in the run-up to the Feb. 5 release of the album “It Is Time for a Love Revolution.”

The first stop on this new quest: MySpace. “When I approached them,” Virgin senior VP of marketing Amani Duncan says, “their first reaction was, ‘Lenny who?’ Their second reaction was, ‘He’ll never do anything with us,’ because he never had in the past.”

But once MySpace understood that Kravitz and Virgin had a new approach, the social networking giant came aboard with an innovative promotional campaign dubbed Get on the Bus With the Love Revolution. The initiative begins with a contest wherein fans submit videos via MySpace demonstrating why they want to be part of an upcoming Get on the Bus tour.

The tour runs Jan. 17-31 through select cities, and will feature an “old-school 1970 Eagle bus that we’re totally vibing out a la Lenny,” Capitol Music Group president Lee Trink explains. “The bus will pick up a contest winner and a friend in each city along the route, and Lenny will hang out with these winners on the bus. We’ll videotape the whole thing and put it up on MySpace and Lenny’s official site.”

Duncan adds that the tour will have multiple sponsors, tentatively set to include Champion and Harley-Davidson, among others.

“All the sponsors are creating a new business model for us,” Duncan says. “I’ve got a saying that’s become a mantra in the office: ‘Let’s get it done, but with other people’s money.’ Industry-wide, we’re all being forced to cut marketing spends; having sponsors allows us to brand our campaign in unique ways and get these cool things done we otherwise couldn’t.”

By Susan Viskawitz, Billboard

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