For the Music Marketing Project, my group's genre of music to create an artist from (along with brand/identity and strategies for attention/exposure) is pop. While that may seem like a lucky draw, I realized, in the process of brainstorming, that it's harder than it seems. Pop is one of the most popular genres, relevant to many age groups but specifically the target age of 16-21 year-olds. While the genre of music is known for many recognizable faces and personas, figuring out a new and relatable brand for our artist without feeling too repetitive to modern trends to evoke individuality made me realize that this was going to be harder than I thought.
The project, above anything else, depends on a foundation of research on different artists, along with their brand/identity and marketing/distribution techniques. This was not only the first part of the instructions but also, I think the most effective. When doing our research chart, we split up the work between my three partners and I to ensure an even distribution and approachable amount of work, which would later result in a true deep dive into the research of the case studies. The case studies, including research of two artists under our chosen record labels, were the true indicators of strategies and specific decisions to make toward our own artist marketing and distribution. We chose artists not only for their extensive fame but to learn about different styles of branding and how their representation of their identity/ persona is constructed into different aspects of their work. For example, we chose Taylor Swift and The Weeknd from our first record label, primarily because Taylor Swift is a "marketing genius" and one of the most famous people in music, so investigating why that is could aid in our decisions for our artist, and The Weeknd is distinguishable for many reasons. His chosen artist name and mysterious persona (he doesn't give too much away about himself) aid in his brand, being another option for our artist.
After our research, we began to brainstorm on our artist and relation to our song. Our chosen song to make the music video on was the song "Royals", originally by Lorde. The lyrics are very specific to status and societal expectations, showing defeat against the "royal" life. We worked hard to think of a more modern-day message to the song that still relates to the original meaning, coming up with this: The song relates to our artist's introduction to the world of music (as it's her first single), showcasing how she won't fit into regular standards/ be the basic "pop girl" that may be expected of her. Rising pop artists such as Renee Rap for example showcase that being individualistic and true to yourself can get you far, an important aspect of our artist's identity. Along with the actual music video, figuring out who we wanted our artist to be and envisioning her in the pop world was something I started to struggle with, but as soon as we discussed ideas for marketing and unique aspects we could incorporate to make her stick out, I began to get a firm idea of who she was, applicable to all aspects of the project. Below are some notes I took of our conversation in different stages of prepping and planning, serving as the outline for some of the points in our presentation. While they may be messy, these notes serve as a reference of important aspects of our artist, her brand, and marketing/distribution (more emphasis on marketing).
