MUSIC MARKETING PROJECT
I've never done this type of project. From creating a new artist, to coming up with a marketing campaign from the ground up had it's challenges, but I would be lying if I didn't say that it was a really fun and learning experience. I learned meany things, and through research for this project I learned a lot about the music industry that I didn't have the slightest idea that existed. In this post I will give an outline of the various of steps that my group took to create this project, as well as our obstacles as they came about.
The Planning
When my group and I were giving the instructions for the project, a way that we organized ourselves by planning; this made us not feel overwhelmed. We tracked everything we did with dates, while also planning the days of when we would film and edit our music video, when we wanted to be done with our research, and when we would make a visual presentation to show our class.
The planning process, even though it only took us roughly 20 minutes, it really helped us in the long run, and created that sense of organization and time management.
These were our steps to creating this project:
- Receive genre and song
- Research that specific genre through different record labels and case studies
- Come up with an artist name and brand
- Brainstorm different marketing techniques/ how we want to distribute our artists music
- Come up with a theme (i.e. colors, specific vibe of the artist)
- Create a visual presentation of the marketing techniques, distribution, and marketing campaign as a whole
- Create a story board for the music video
- Film
- Edit
- Put the presentation together
Research
To be able to have an accurate and precise campaign, research had to be done. We research two different record companies that represented artist similar to the genre that we were assigned, Hip Hop Funk, as well as two artist per label.
The two record labels we researched were Shady Records and RCA Records; two well know record labels in the music industry. By researching these label we were able to get a view on marketing strategies that they have used to market their artist that may serve us for our own artist.
We created charts to distribute the information more evenly and easier for us to understand. The charts looked something like this:
History | Artists/Groups | Case Study #1: | Case Study #2: |
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Through these chart we were able to organize our research accordingly. Our research consisted of the record labels history like date published, founder, and timeline, it also consisted of the various artist they represented and two case studies. These two case studies consisted of their most popular artist that also related to our genre and that could relate to our potential artist. These artist included Eminem for Shady Records, and Alicia Keys for RCA Records.
The research truly helped us to come up with a functional and successful campaign.
Our Brand
To make our artist/brand unique, we decided to build our campaign around a message. That message being the awareness of drug and substance abuse.
Due to the quirky and funky rhythm and sounds of our chosen song "Me and Your Mama" by Childish Gambino, we were able to use this message since it could correlate with the sounds in the song.
We changed our song name to "chasing the next high" by our brand new artist Wake Up, a duo. What is significant about our artist is that their physical traits and form are anonymous, similar to what singer songwriter Sia did, another example being Marshmello. with having an anonymous identity, we could lead our artist to having a focus on this substance abuse message, more than the common artists that rely on their physical attributes to market themselves.
As a group we did have a few discussions and disagreements about how this would be seen in the public eye, if a new artist should be anonymous. But with research and ideas being passed we decided this this would be a cool and different idea for an artist.
Once we decided this, the music video and the visual presentation, a power point in our case, was easy to establish and create.
Marketing and Distribution
Since it's a brand new artist, good marketing and distribution techniques must be used to reach an audience.
Our artist relied heavily on social media since our target audience were 12 - 24 year olds, but any range of age could relate to our music. We used platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram to interact with our audience as well as promoting our artist, and an official website was created to assist any fan or viewer about our artist.
Website: https://wakeupofficial.carrd.co/
We distributed our artist content and music through three major platform that we found, through research, that were the most popular and most common in the general public. Those platforms being Spotify Music, Apple Music, and YouTube.
We also created a recognizable logo that makes up the profile picture of all our social media.
Below our some of the ways that we interacted with our audience as well as the aesthetic of our social media.
Storyboard
Now that we had most of our marketing strategies down, the only thing we only had left was to create a storyboard for our music video. The storyboard helped us make an outline of what the video would look like. Our storyboard is shown below:
Production & Post-Production
While filming, we choose different places to film at to add depth to the video, as well as making it more intriguing. The whole idea of our music video was to show the reoccurring cycle of someone relapsing. Our video starts with our main character getting the drugs and the whole journey that comes with it. We wanted to do a storytelling based video to tie bak to our whole message of our campaign. Post-production, we had to group our videos and edit them together. We added some special effects like filters and slow mo to add to that sense of confusion and high.
Even though it was a hard idea to film, as a whole I think we captured that essence without being too in depth and since it can be a sensitive topi for a certain audience we didn't want it to affect our artists image.
In the video we wanted to show both point of views that someone might have when they are relapsing or someone witnessing someone who is going through something similar. We wanted to show the glamorized par of it, which is something that many people see it as. For these types of scenes we included tools like slow mo, LED lights, and slow movement to add to that effects of losing conscious. However, we also wanted to show the dark part. The part where someone feels lonely, trapped, and helpless. For these shots we included lots of quick shots and jump cuts to add to that sense of chaos.
We believe that we captured what we wanted, and when presented we believe that the message was received.
Reflection
Through this whole experience I learned time management, group collaborating, and organization strategies. Through multiple obstacles, my group was able to accommodate and resolve our problems. We presented a good presentation that I am truly proud of. It took us multiple days and multiple steps but at the end it was all worth it, and the rewards from this experience was all worth it.
