Music Marketing Project: Final

 

Music Marketing Project 

Part 2

Marketing means the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. It is the most important part of any sort of media-centered project and allows you to advertise and sell your product. A good marketing campaign can almost guarantee you profit and success. It is extremely important that you know the medium in which you are marketing, which means you must know the best marketing strategies for your desired project that will reach your target audience.

In this project, my group was to create a new musical artist and build their brand from the bottom up. This meant we were assigned a genre, in which ours was rap/hip-hop, and a song. We then created a music video for the song and developed our artist according to our genre. Most importantly, we had to create a marketing campaign for the artist which fit the assigned genre and successfully promote the artist into becoming famous, which was our biggest challenge. 

~Researching~

The first step of developing a brand new artist is researching the genre assigned. In our case, we got assigned rap as our genre, and so as part of our project we had to complete a music research chart. This chart required us to develop two case studies in which we would research two major record labels of our assigned genre and two artists of each, making sure to note their production, distribution, marketing, cross-media/technological converge, and synergy strategies. We decided on four major artists: SZA, Kendrick Lamar, Don Toliver, and Travis Scott. We noticed how all of these artists relied heavily on online marketing strategies such as social media. SZA interacted directly with her fans while Kendrick Lamar grew his fandom by the lack of his interaction with it. Both artists utilized the online medium in different ways, yet both were extremely successful with their approaches. Therefore, we decided that our main source of marketing should take place on social media.

(SZA and Kendrick Lamar, consecutively)

~Brainstorming/Planning~

After deciding our approach we started coming up with ideas on how to make our artists stand out from other rap artists. Would it be his music? His personality? The way he dresses? The way he talks? 

We came up with the idea of exaggerating the artist's features and personalities in a "character," one might say. This character would be sarcastic, comedic, but most importantly he would be from the '90s. With our research, we found out that rap/hip-hop was one of the top-selling genres of the 1990s and so decided that our artist's music would be '90s rap styled. He, the person, lived through the '90s and claims that he wants to bring it back, and restore the glory that rap had back then.

Now for the next part of the planning process: the music video. The song we were assigned was rather difficult to make an interesting and coherent music video to. We had many different ideas but, in practice, they were too advanced for us to produce. We wanted the music video to be somehow both comedic and express an idea that the artist was "dangerous," as that was what the song was about, but in a satirical way, since the character of the artist was known to be sarcastic. 

We decided to have the actors in the music video act like they did not take it seriously, almost in an exaggerated way of how the '90s rap music videos used to be, to bring back the nostalgia of the older millennial audience, but also interest the younger gen z audience who enjoy the comedy. 

~Production~

It was time to put our efforts and plans to the test and start producing. At this time we decided to divide and conquer: I would deal with developing the marketing campaign while the rest of the group would work on shooting and editing the music video. 

*Marketing*

As I mentioned previously, we decided to focus on social media as our main method of marketing, but that did not mean that was our only strategy. We had to create and follow the steps for our marketing campaign. First, we created the artist that I described previously and named him The Vanquisher. To build his brand, we decided to make multiple social media counts for him. All of his online presence would be marked by the same logo for recognition, and he would post, especially on Twitter, to advertise his music, but at the same time maintaining that exaggerated version of himself. On every social media account, we posted teasers, stills from the music video, and merch pictures to advertise his music and merchandise. With his posts, he would also make sure to constantly interact with his fans and followers, as well as try to connect with other artists to possibly grant himself connections in the music industry. This would help him a lot as he would gain many followers as well as have the opportunity for future content together. 

*Music Video*

Along with developing the marketing campaign we also needed to create the music video for our artist's debut song "Dangerous." As I explained, the idea for the music video would be mainly comedic. We went for the promo/storytelling approach as we thought this way we could promote the artist directly by having him sing the song but also demonstrate what the song is about with a story. Except the story would be a represented exaggeration of what the '90s music videos used to look like, therefore still keeping the artist in character with the 1990s theme and the comedy, but also bringing back a sense of nostalgia from the people who grew up watching these music videos on TV.

We looked at many different rap music videos, especially from the '90s, and choose the best types of shots and editing styles for the song. Recording days were a little chaotic, but we ended up getting around five different shots of the artist singing the entire song so that on the editing process we could choose which shots to use at each part of the song to keep it interesting and engaging for the audience. Since the music is moderately fast-paced, we matched that with our editing style. Our biggest challenge was synching the mouthing of the song lyrics to the song audio, which was done really well by our editor. He also added a black rectangle over the singer's mouth when the song contained some inappropriate language.

~Post-Production~

After getting all the footage for the music video it was time to put everything together. We let our editor, also the same person who was The Vanquisher in this case, in charge of producing the music video, while we gave input on what we thought looked the best and fit the story. Our music video was well-paced, the cuts and transitions made sense as well as the switch from storyline to shots of the artist rapping the song. Our composition could have been better, but I still believe we were able to capture the essence of the artist and the song. 

Before our presentation, we needed to divide the slides and prepare our scripts for what each person would talk about, and I kept pressing the group to do so because I wanted to be ready and prepared for the presentation, but there seemed to be a lack of motivation on their part. It was confusing up until the day of the presentation who would talk about which slide, and I was getting stressed over it. 

~Presentation~

Watching some of the other presentations made me realize ours was very well done. We explained our marketing campaign, artist, discussed our case studies, elaborated on how the music video represents the artist and the song, and more. We did so consistently, and even though at some point there was some confusion on who would talk about which slide, we recovered from it quickly and the presenter did a good job on her explanation. The slides were '90s themed and matched the genre and artist well. When questions surfaced, we answered them truthfully and with solid resources. Overall the project could have had been better and could use a little more work, but it was still well-made. 

~Resolution~

With this project, I learned many things that will help me throughout my professional life and career. Hard work is worth it and can open a world of possibilities you couldn't imagine possible. I never thought I would be creating my own artist and marketing campaigns one day, but dedicating myself to this project has taught me important skills. I realized how crucial to any media the process of marketing is, and how a good marketing campaign can make an artist go from unnoticeable to successful very quickly. It showed me how connecting with other artists and collaborating with successful and known companies can expand your following and is key to long-lasting fame and recognition. When developing my Cambridge portfolio I will be sure to pick a good partner that is as dedicated as I am and listens to my ideas as much as I listen to theirs. I will all the steps used in this project--researching, planning, producing, post-producing, presenting-- to my advantage in hopes of developing Cambridge-worth material. 

Music Marketing Project: Researching and Planning

 

Music Marketing Project 

Part 1

Marketing means the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. It is the most important part of any sort of media-centered project and allows you to advertise and sell your product. A good marketing campaign can almost guarantee you profit and success. It is extremely important that you know the medium in which you are marketing, which means you must know the best marketing strategies for your desired project that will reach your target audience.

In this project, my group was to create a new musical artist and build their brand from the bottom up. This meant we were assigned a genre, in which ours was rap/hip-hop, and a song. We then created a music video for the song and developed our artist according to our genre. Most importantly, we had to create a marketing campaign for the artist which fit the assigned genre and successfully promote the artist into becoming famous, which was our biggest challenge. 

~The song~

The song we got assigned is called Dangerous by the rapper Busta Rhymes, released in 1997. The first challenge we faced was the fact that the singer of this song is African American, and the song contains African American slang that is considered a slur for people outside that community. We had to make a decision whether we wanted to bleep out the words in the song or leave them but not film our singer lip-synching those words. At last, we decided to remove those words from the original track in the editing process.                                                                                                                                        Busta Rhymes- Dangerous (1997)       

~The Character~

After researching the song as well as its original music video, we came up with the idea of creating a character for the artist. A fake persona that would have comedic characteristics, catchphrases, strong online presence, and he would embrace the '90s culture. The character's story is that his personality, clothing style, and lifestyle got stuck in the '90s and he has a strong passion for it. His goal is to bring back the culture of that time and the artistic music style especially rap since it was a best-selling genre in the 1990s. We decided his persona should be comedic, as the target audience for his music is millennials and older gen z, they have a stronger sense of humor and value comedy over the quality of a product (research shows they prefer to be easily entertained than consume quality content). 

Meet our artist: The Vanquisher.

~Online Presence~

Researching rappers and hip-hop artists nowadays showed that they heavily prioritize online marketing and advertising through social media. We created various accounts (Twitter, Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram) where our artist will directly interact with his fanbase, create a following, connect with other artists building relationships where they can have a collaboration in the future, and advertise all their content. We discovered that rappers like to release teasers or demo versions of songs on their social media to attract the public and see how successful the song would be if they fully produced and released it, many times resulting in the fans pleading with the artist to release the song as soon as possible. 

We also plan to create a website for our artist where we will post all merchandise, tickets for q&a sessions as well as meet-and-greet and concert/shows. In addition, our artist will be known for hosting secret pop-up shows where he will release the concert information in a few hours/days before the show, and especially at the start, he will sometimes not share the information at all. Moreover, all his music will be distributed on online platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, and SoundCloud, but he will also sell CDs of his songs and albums on his website alongside his merchandise.

~Music Video~

The last step for the researching/planning part of this project is planning and mapping out our music video. We looked at many different rap music videos, especially from the '90s, and choose the best types of shots and editing styles for the song. We are doing a promo-storytelling piece, which means we will have parts of a story happening at the same time our main artist will be singing the song, promoting himself. Since the music is moderately fast-paced, we will match that with our editing style, and we have created a storyboard as well as a list of shot ideas for the music video. As you can see in the picture, rap videos from that time used to have a variety of different shots, but some significant ones are the close up of the mouth rapping, the low angle of the rapper in a "cool" position over the camera demonstrating power, and the crossing of arms. Additionally, we will implement short snippets of the music video in all of The Vanquisher's social media to promote it. Our biggest challenge when making the video will be matching up the lyrics with the singing shots, which is why we recorded the whole song over multiple different angles shots and compositions and then we can pick which shot would look smoother for the lip-synching. 

Here is a visual of what our marketing planning looks like currently, and if we succeed then be ready to have The Vanquisher as your new favorite artist!

what's so special about musicals?

 

Musical film is described as a  genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. In reality, musicals are primarily made for entertainment, since it is pretty obvious they are not realistic pieces, but they strive to tell a story through music, sometimes words aren't enough to express feelings. This genre already existed for on-stage musicals and started being translated onto film in the early 1900s, but it really had its peak between the 1930s and the 1950s. Musicals are all about engaging with the audience and expressing emotion through unusual manners, which include singing and dancing, and can be anything from big and glamorous productions to simple day-to-day life brought alive by music.

~Content~

Music is the most important aspect of a musical piece, as you can probably imagine. But there are many other conventions, characteristics of each individual genre present on most productions, that are established for musical films in order for them to be successful. These include:

A Protagonist With a Dream

The main plot of most musical films involves some kind of dream or a main goal for the protagonist, which they develop through the story. About a good amount of the songs in the piece will be about this dream and/or developing it as the story progresses. 

      

  EX: The movie "Funny Girl" features in its plot a girl who dreams about starring on Broadway. 

Romance Subplot

Musicals tend to rely heavily on entertaining the audience with romance, usually featuring the main character. They tend to have duets together and/or songs about love and relationships. Interestingly enough, this can be for scientific reasons, romance often tends to be implemented in movies to boost oxytocin levels in the audience, but also to set the idea of ​​love and strong emotions that are linked to happiness and fulfillment.

EX: The award-winning movie "La la land" follows two protagonists in love who are drawn together by their common dreams.

Happy Endings With a Depressive Subtext

Many times the audience doesn't get the actual meaning and message behind songs in musical films, and that is because many people are mostly just expecting to see dancing, pretty visuals, and a nice singing voice, and don't really pay attention to the lyrics of the song. The same thing goes for the ending of this piece. Musical films normally end with the main character(s) making a difficult choice, sometimes between their dream and romance, and choosing what is best for themselves and their growth and future. Recently, many musical pieces have tapped into important social matters and used music to give the piece even more meaning. 

EX: The film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Dear Evan Hansen" talks about teenage suicide and gives importance to mental health and seeking help.

~Production Techniques~

Throughout musical films, the director relies heavily on how visually pleasing and simultaneously eye-catching their production looks, which means that mise-en-scene is extremely important for this genre. 

*  They often make use of extravagant costumes and/or sets, making sure that everything that is on screen has a meaning and reason to be there. 

*  Most importantly, the majority of the music incorporated into the piece is original and written by the people involved in the production, sometimes even the actors themselves, and soundtracks usually have around 5-7 songs in the movie, but they usually have many tracks that they cut out from the final product. Songs are written with the end goal of being catchy.

*  Musical pieces strive to create surrealism, that being from the use of extravagant colors and transitions to random dance numbers where everyone knows the entire choreography and lyrics to the song that amazingly everyone can hear.

*  Cameras have to be strategically placed in order to truly express the feeling of being inside the movie and be more engaging with the audience. They also lay more on the extremes of the lightning scale in the sense that happy and uplifting songs will have bright lighting and colors to express the emotion on the character, and in the same way, more depressing songs--where the character most likely sings about a problem--have low lightning, often incorporates rain as a symbol of sadness, and use gray and blue tones throughout the scene. 

~Marketing~

The target audience for musical films are females around 18 to 30 years of age, but mostly just centered on young females, even children. This is mainly because the aspects of romance and music incorporated into film alongside the production techniques of this genre are usually more appealing to young girls/women. There are exceptions like for example older adults who saw the original musical at  Broadway when it first came out and now decides to watch the movie production, but those aren't usually the target audience of this type of film. 

Posters for musical films usually include the main character(s) during some acting, most likely dancing, in bright colors and a happy setting. Trailers include a lot of the original song written for the piece, and usually show a short version of the main plot of the film, which gives an audience an idea of ​​what the movie is about. They also usually advertise these films nowadays by social media for then it reaches their audience target of teenagers and young adults.

~Film Samples~

 In the musical film High School Musical (2006),  Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), the star athlete at a small-town high school, falls into a girl called Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) at a holiday karaoke party. When they return to campus, Troy and Gabriella audition for the upcoming school musical. Meanwhile, the jealous Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) conspires to squelch their chances. The Two Must Struggle to Make It to Auditions While Also Meeting Their Existing Obligations to the Basketball Team and the Academic Decathlon. The movie includes the aspects of having a dream, which in this case is participating in the school musical, while also trying to keep up with their normal school extracurricular activities. It has original songs that characters start singing out of nowhere to express their emotions and life dilemmas, and it follows a romance subplot between the two main characters. The poster shows all the main characters and their friends jumping and expressing smiley faces and an auditorium as the background, and the name already has the word "musical" in it, which gives the audience a good idea of ​​what to expect. 

In the film The Greatest Showman (2017), which takes place in the early 1800s, PT Barnum (Hugh Jackman) displays a natural talent for publicity and promotion, selling lottery tickets by various ages 12. After trying his hands at jobs, PT turns to show business to indulge his limitless imagination, rising from nothing to create the Barnum & Bailey circus. Featuring catchy musical numbers, exotic performers, and daring acrobatic feats, Barnum's mesmerizing spectacle soon takes the world by storm to become the greatest show on Earth. The film also has a novel subplot between PT's work partner (Jack Efron) and one of his circus gymnasts (Zendaya), who come from two different "worlds" but are brought together by love. The main plot of the movie is PTs dream of having his circus that showcases people who are different but want to be accepted into society, which is also the message behind the movie. It has plenty of original songs and some of them are used in circus performances. 

~More Musical Films~

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Mamma Mia! (2008)

In The Heights (2021)

The Sound of Music (1965)

Annie (1982)

Grease (1978)

Teen Beach Movie (2013) 

~Souces~

https://prezi.com/n3uwxsriqsqx/musical-film-genre/

https://strasburgfilm.com/the-impact-of-the-musical-genre/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_film

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z27fyrd/revision/1

First Things First

 Ostranenie means encouraging people to see common things as strange, wild, or unfamiliar; defamiliarizing what is known in order to know it differently or more deeply. I chose this name for my blog because that is exactly what I strive for when using this platform to talk about different kinds of media and the effect it has on our lives.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Julie, and I created this blog not only because I was required to by my AICE Media Studies class, but because I want to debunk this great matter that we deal with daily: the media.

Have you ever actually thought about what you are consuming in the media world? Or if and how the people in charge knew exactly what to do to grab your attention and profit from it? Chances are you have not just like most of the population. But hopefully, after reading some of my posts you will start to see this audience-centered mass-producing business with other eyes.