3, 2, 1, Action!
As mentioned in the past blog, the first step in our Music Marketing project was to research artists of the same genre we were assigned, which was Alternative Rock. Through our research, we learned how these bands interacted and marketed their products to their fans/followers, Despite the common genre, these artists were all unique in how they presented themselves as a group, however, we found that all of their target audience fell under the range of 15-25, and they all used a form of social media and internet presence to communicate with them. Through a website and social media platforms, the artists we researched were able to market their videos, merchandise, events they took place in, even interact directly with their fanbase. During our research, we also made sure to note down the 'unique' aspects of each artist, such as the things that make them stand out in the music industry. For example, The Killers created their own brand of hot sauce, and Fall Out Boy released fidget spinners along with their music, claimed a mascot as a llama, and even has their own animated show on their youtube. These were all important for when marketing our own band we had to make sure that they'd stand out and not blend in with the crowd.
After our research, it was now our group's turn to decide who our artist will be and how will we market their content. First, we spit-balled back and forth different ideas for our brand until we noticed a line in the song we picked, (The Man), "I carry the crown" ultimately deciding on a 'royal' theme and coming up with the band name M'Lady. From there we created our social media, such as our Instagram, Twitter, designed our very own website, along with a youtube channel. After this, we began discussing ideas for our music video, another source of marketing for the band. It was around here where discussed more on how we wanted to be viewed as a band as the question "What is our brand?" arose. We paid attention to the physical image of M'Lady, taking the opportunity of the royal theme, and creating our own logos that would be present throughout all of the platforms and merchandise. This logo, the lion with a crown, would become a symbol for M'lady. We also used the colour pallet of the logo, making sure to incorporate the purples and golds wherever we could.
M'Lady Website
A big part of an artist's brand is also how to present themselves. Together, we decided that we didn't want M'Lady to be serious, we wanted them to be funny and playful, and overall just a group of people having fun. We wanted M'Lady to act like they didn't really take themselves seriously, and more importantly, we wanted their fans to see them as just any other person.
With this in mind, we began planning and storyboarding the shots that would be included in the video, focusing on keeping it lighthearted and comical. Since the lyrics of the song is a bit overconfident, with the constant lines 'I'm the man', we thought that considering our royal theme it'd be a great idea to have the center of the video around a king. This worked perfectly as a big part of M'Lady's symbol was the crown on the lion's head and we were able to incorporate it in the music video. In order to keep the video comical, lighthearted, and to fit in with the brand of our group, we included many 'foolish' shots, some of which were even thought on the spot. Some of these shots included Logan, our group member that plaid The Man in the video, riding a horse spring rider in a park, and falling off of a tree. We also thought it'd be interested to include some sort of a narrative to the music video and we did this by including a secondary character, played by group member Anthony, who would appear throughout the video obviously mad and troubled at our king, which would all lead to the final clip of the music video where The Man gets pushed by this secondary character into a pool.
It took two days to film the shots of the video, and this was almost immediately followed by the editing process which our two skilled team members, Sabrina and Logan took charge of. Like most projects, editing took a bit of time but the end product was absolutely worth it.
After the music video was complete, we began working on the presentation portion of the assignment. Here, we basically rallied up all of our information and data that we collected throughout the whole process and made it, well, presentable. During this process, we were also able to refine some of the marketing, such as creating more merch, releasing behind the scenes images, and even editing a blooper compilation of the music video. The presentation itself went well, we faced some technical difficulties such as links not opening and my computer 'blue-screening' practically the exact moment I finished my portion of the presentation, which was discussing our website, social media platforms, and merchandise.
M'Lady Poster Merch
M'Lady Logo Graphic Tee Merch
Overall, though, I think it went well. I for one am super proud of both the work that I did and the work the rest of the group did. I think that we worked really well together, which is something rare when you're randomly assigned partners. I genuinely had a lot of fun creating the merchandise, the websites, and the social media accounts. I even enjoyed filming my small role in the music video, which was something I was a bit anxious about. For me, it's safe to say that M'lady was a success.
I think this project has taught me two main things, for one, the importance of marketing not only in the music industry but in general, and two, the process of thinking through, reflecting, and writing out the steps we went through in order to make this project how it is, which is something important for the Cambridge portfolio.
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