This project stemmed from one idea: research. After discovering our group would be a rock band, we thought it would be wise to complete our music research on bands and artists that stayed in this field and had a similar style and energy to our band. After finding groups that matched ours pretty well and were still relevant, such as the Arctic Monkeys and the Foo Fighters, we delved into research, honing in on their marketing strategies and how that sparked a connection with distribution strategies. One common factor that every group had in common was creating an image for themselves, so this is where we started the process of marketing our band. We first started with establishing an edgy energy/ vibe through darker colors, black and red, and creating a symbol/ logo involving these colors, fonts, and images to represent our band and make it recognizable.
After creating the basis of our group’s image, we had to figure out one of the next most important aspects of the plan, creating a target audience and cementing all of our marketing campaign, techniques, and style towards this target audience so it would be as effective as possible. Our research showed that a majority of not only rock genre listeners, but to the specific 4 bands we completed our research on, in which our band was directly styled after, are comprised of young adults and teens. With this in mind we knew social media would play a vital role in our campaign, whether by means of distribution or promotion. For example, since our targeted audience is very involved and heavily relies on social media we decided to create a Twitter and Instagram account, since these are two of the most widely used platforms, to inform and create a more personal connection with our audience through visuals and text. Also, since vinyl and records are making a comeback amongst this generation we decided to include that as well. In addition, teens and young adults typically tend to enjoy when products are easily attainable or accessible, so having a one stop shop with all of our music, information, upcoming events, merchandise and more, also known as our website, was a vital emergent of our marketing plan when it comes to being influenced by the target audience.
Another key part of the marketing strategy we found in our research was creating merchandise and easy access to the band’s music and developing personal connections via a personal website and large social media presence. In addition, in our research, such as the Foo Fighters, these bands utilized the idea of a limited opportunity window and prizes in order to lead to spreading the word about their band. With this in mind, I brainstormed ideas and examples of how we could take the base of our marketing strategy and exemplify these more unique and creative methods. In doing so, we came up with having merchandise to accompany our tour that would only be sold for a limited time and holding a surprise pop up concert for one special fan. We decided upon these because besides the clear benefit of promoting the band, each accomplished other underlying goals, such as developing a deeper personal connection with our audience, promoting our future tour for our band, and increasing profits.
The next step, once coming up with and actually creating our plan, was developing our music video. We decided that a storytelling and promotional hybrid video would be the most effective in raising awareness and promoting our band, since we were focused on developing an image for our band and wanted to do so through creating a mood with our video. After listening to our given song, entitled “something from nothing,” we decided this title itself was the perfect message itself to send with the storytelling element: describing the story of someone starting from the bottom and persevering through obstacles to reach their goal and thrive in the end. This was probably the most challenging part of the entire process because we had many ideas but many of them were unrealistic in terms of filming them, such as showing the narrative of a singer who went from playing in the street to a stage. Once we finally came up with an idea, the story of a kid who wants to be a pro fighter/boxer but his parents inhibit him from doing so, until he gets invited to a huge fighting event from all of his progress one day. This was another struggle spot because I disagreed with some of my group members as they believed the video was complete, while I believed only a portion of the story was captured and there were very limited promotional elements included in the video. Although the video looked cool, I knew it was missing elements, which was difficult as I tried communicating this to my group members who didn’t feel the same way. After this struggle, regarding the production of the video, I eventually realized that the video served its purpose in creating the edgy vibe and image our band was going for, so I gave in a little on the video disagreement.
After all of the elements were completed, it was time to organize them into one informative presentation. We wanted a simple design that would still enable our band to be recognizable; therefore, we made sure to utilize our dark color scheme and incorporate simple designs and logos throughout every slide. We were able to easily distribute the work, so when it came time for the presentation, even though we all knew every inch of our marketing campaign, we made sure to speak on the aspects of the project we were most confident about to ensure we seemed less nervous, and more personable and approachable during the presentation.
I learned so many things from this project. Some general lessons were how to work as a team and distribute work while still being aware and overseeing what everyone is doing. However, I mostly learned about the music media genre due to my extensive research and placing myself in the shoes of a marketing team themselves to make sure I not only knew but fully understood and placed myself in a real-life example of utilizing marketing and distribution techniques. I think this will aid me in my completion of the portfolio project because I’ve not only learned so much general information about the music media throughout my research, but also I’ve learned how multiple elements work and come together to create one seamless plan or campaign which will be vital when putting together my portfolio project as it contains many smaller elements that when joined together make a seamless piece of evidence that I’ve learned so much from this class and can demonstrate it through all the elements of my portfolio.
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