Music Marketing Process #1

    Our newest project is creating and marketing a new musical artist using a marketing campaign and a music video to illustrate their brand and character. We were given a genre with a list of songs to choose from, and the song we chose would be the one we would have to form our campaign around. My group got heavy rock and chose the song "Blind" by Korn. This came after much discussion about what types of music videos we could feasibly make with what we had available. The types included a story, a promo, focusing on the band members playing, or artistic, a more abstract way of portraying the song's essence. We ended up deciding that "Blind" would be good for promo or story, and we also decided it would be a good song to edit to the beat.     

A page from our storyboard

    Once deciding on "Blind", we made a research chart on different record labels and artists in the same genre. This helped us find marketing practices that we could utilize for our own band. My group used Columbia Records, housing System of a Down and Payable on Death, as well as Warner Records, including Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed. After getting our charts filled out with info about the bands' marketing and distribution practices, we began working on the storyboard for our music video and thinking of ideas for the marketing campaign PowerPoint we had to present. 

    This was one of the harder parts since we not only had to figure out which type of music video would be best for producing as well as building the image of our band but also trying to figure out what marketing techniques we should use. Our fake band is small and only just releasing their first single, so we had to keep that in mind and it handicapped us in our abilities to fully market or distribute the music. For example, a smaller band would not be able to hold a concert for a larger venue and would have to restrict themselves to pop-ups or be openers for other bands. We also had to think about the location we would film at and what to wear, as we decided on doing a promo music video, focusing on the musicians. We wanted a dirty and distraught look at the location, and we ended up on prison uniforms for the on-screen presence to establish the rebellious and almost dangerous nature of the band, further emphasized by the music.

    In the future, I definitely want to delegate my time better, as I felt as though I was rushing with the storyboard and marketing PowerPoint. I underestimated how little time I actually had to do these things, and it ended up hurting me. For filming, editing, and finishing the presentation, I would like to delegate the group's time better and our roles in everything. We have assigned one day to film the actual music video and the rest of the time editing as well as finishing the presentation. I plan to have 1 or 2 people edit the video, while the rest mainly focus on refining and developing the marketing presentation to its fullest extent. Hopefully, filming goes smoothly this weekend so we can edit and start finishing up the project!