Different approaches to marketing artists

We've covered some of this ground before in the structure of the music industry. How to get your records out there to the public.

Basically you have the traditional route of working through RECORD COMPANIES/LABELS, who'll do most of the work for you if you're lucky enough. The other routes are SELF-PUBLISHING or working with an INDEPENDENT LABEL. Remember the diagram of the breakdown in money you get from sales from the different approaches? Remember the breakdown of who owns what in the music industry?

It's worth remembering if you do self-publish, the revenue streams are much smaller.

SELF-PUBLISHING

There's lots of stuff up there about this. Go hunt!


THE VALUE OF FREE

We can't ignore that most new bands find it hard to find a fanbase and maybe turn a passion into a give up the dayjob full time career.

Four seasoned producers here talk about their experiences of the changing music industry, how the structure of the industry itself has changed and how, importantly, the value of free, getting something for apparently nothing, is the new economy music has to work in.

http://mixonline.com/studios/business/getting-music-noticed/



Different approaches to Branding a Musician

Traditional way of marketing a band is to promote the band to the public using music videos and maybe publicity in the form of interviews in the hope that this will, in turn, generate sales.

If the band is big enough they probably don't even need to do that much publicity, they almost self-generate it would appear. This isn't the case. There is nearly always a publicist or clever manager somewhere thinking up new ways to reach his/her band's audience.


JAY-Z AND HIS BOOK

It seems now, because we have the internet, that marketing and selling music is getting harder and harder.  Or maybe it isn't.  Maybe those selling music just have to come up with better ideas?  Its hard to say.

I found this article about Jay-Z's new book, Decoded. It's essentially his autobiography, but the whole thing has been marketed on the web as a Donnie Darko style web mystery that you have to put together.

The plus for us: a bit of late night digging around in Jay-Z's history.

The plus for Jay-Z: helps the sales of his records by propping up his public image and keeping him in the public's mind. Beyonce with a bump doesn't hurt either, but that is a tad cynical.

http://www.jay-z.com/index.php


IT'S ALL ABOUT THE IMAGE

This chap does very well with contemporary country acts.  It might not be your cup of tea, but what he has to say about what he wants from a music video is very interesting.

He isn't as much interested in telling the story of the song.  He is interesting (as are his artists, because according to him, they come up with the ideas themselves) in selling the artist themselves.

Its also very interesting for another reason.  Music videos are moving image, right?  So, really, anything that is a moving image that deals with the band or artist, is potentially another method of selling the work of the band?

For example.  The Osbournes.  It's a reality show, but didn't it do wonders for the publicity and profile of all the Osbournes and their various careers?

This chap, Marc, says something similar.  Nowadays, and he's very straight up about, bands need to be looking out for other moving image opportunities.  Not just music videos.

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/producing+music+videos


BEING IN A FILM

There is a natural cross over between music and film. They are after all both artistic disciplines and work well together. However, one can't deny how working in film, for a musician, doesn't hurt their public profile and ultimately their album sales. Beyonce was in Goldmember, and wrote a song about it:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q6fv_beyonce-hey-goldmember_music

That's old school. The Beatles were doing it way back in the sixties with a HARD DAY'S NIGHT. A full length feature film made at the height of their fame. It happened to be very good, very funny and was recieved both critically and commercially.

Here's a clip from it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCVmUD3WfNM

There's tonnes of other examples.

Here's a good one (its from Wiki!): The genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his fiThe genre-defining surf films of Bruce Brown, George Greenough and Alby Falzon and others are also notable for their innovative combinations of image and music featuring sequences of specially-filmed surfing footage, carefully edited against long music tracks, with no accompanying dialogue. Greenough's landmark 1972 film Crystal Voyager concluded with an extended sequence (filmed and edited by Greenough) that was constructed around the 23-minute Pink Floyd track "Echoes". The band was impressed with Greenough's effort and agreed to allow Greenough to use their music in his film in exchange for the right to use his film footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.lm footage when performing "Echoes" at their concerts.


SUSAN BOYLE

Na. You're joking. This is nuts.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/lou_reed_apologizes_to_susan_b.html

People seem to take music videos very seriously.  Or maybe there is a lack of real news in the media thesedays.

What's interesting about the Susan Boyle music video, the one Lou Reed directed, is the sheer amount of publicity it generated on other websites.  There were stories about the locations.  Stories about the scenary. Stories about how it was made, what camera was used, even the blinking stunt woman managed to get a story into the Scottish daily the Daily Record.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/11/09/i-was-perfect-choice-to-be-susan-boyle-s-music-video-stand-in-says-stunt-double-86908-22703252/

This is, of course, all good news for the Producer, the artist and anybody involved in selling the music. Because it creates a buzz, which is slightly different from branding in that it just puts the artist in people's minds. Not necessarily with a branding attached other that - wow, this person is worthy of our attention.

I wonder, if you tried to moneterise the publicity (work out how much it would cost to get a PR company to get you all that publicity) would it amount to more than what the music video cost to make in the first place?

In other words, does the music video pay for itself by other means and is this another financial strategy for hard pressed music producers?

Different Approaches to Distributing a Musician

Here's a great article I found in Wired about more creative almost homespun ways bands are distributing their music. (mostly in an effort to help sales, be different and avoid the internet in some way)

These types of distribution can't really be divorced from the band's marketing, since the very act of releasing an album on tape (gasp) is a way of saying something about the band in the first place.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/the-10-weirdest-ways-to-distribute-music/

How the Music Video Might Help Things Along

It's hard to pin a bottom line monetary figure on what a music video does for a band. If there are statistics I haven't found them yet, and the music industry is notorious for not chucking out balance sheets on what is sold. So, that aside, what we can do is look at the EFFECT certain music videos had for artists, especially at PIVOTAL moments in their careers.

We can also look at how the music video CONTENT also helped to sell the band to the public. Whether that be because it contained a lot of the artists themselves (a nice introduction and a form of person branding in itself) or by the creativity and flair in the video, which is then reflected back on the artist and once again, helps to build her BRAND. (good example of this would be Lady Gaga's videos, which are very much, well, Lady Gaga-ish)

We can also try and find what Music Producers and Management have said about the importance of the music video and that to, is an equally valid way to work out their importance.


BRANDING

But first, a little on what Branding is. I don't like the word, and most artists deplore it, because it is a word used a lot in advertising and advertising, for a lot of artists, is akin to fishing around in toilets bowels and selling what you find.

However, this is the modern world, sigh, so we can't avoid it.

Put in short terms, branding is the strategic development of a relationship between a product and its public.

YOU are the PUBLIC. The PRODUCT is the music.

The REASON? If you have an idea of the BRAND in your mind, and that idea is favourable or just known, then chances are you'll buy something related to that brand.

So, here is it explained, in lovely graphics. Just don't get sucked in...




So, with what you've learnt there, you can see how important BRANDING is to music. U2 is a brand, in some ways. So is COLDPLAY. So are the SEX PISTOLS. And the type of brand and the message they want to put across is reflected in everything they do - especially their MUSIC VIDEOS, which are, like it or not, a visual way of building the brand.

Look at this video. It's a little bit hard on the eyes, but this company want to BRAND twenty people (experts on something) and they set out to do so by attacking the media with their publicity and going on tour. Sound familar?



I might sound cynical. It's good to keep a critical distance from this stuff. You can get carried away. However, branding is not a bad thing. It's just a way for people, on a mass scale, to get to know you. Churches, Governments, Dictators, Bands, everyone is at it because they are in the business of working with masses of people and the best way to do that is visually.


MUSIC VIDEOS THAT HELPED MOVE THE GAME ON

So, branding tour completed, back to the meatiness of the unit: music vids.

THRILLER

Since the unit wants you to look at a music video and what it did for the different people invovled, you could worse than start at one of the most popular music videos of all time. Thriller.

Thriller changed lots of things, not only for Michael Jackson's popularity and position.

Up until Thriller, no one had ever spent that much money on a music video. And as you'll see the money didn't come from the usual sources, i.e. the record label.

It also made a tonne of money for everyone as well. Even those people who were against it at the start!

What it did for Jackson's Brand is establish him (or re-establish him) as a superb dancer, a great live act, a creative force and a little bit dangerous, maybe even sexy? That was then. It's no doubt they chose this kind of music video because Jackson, A. Could dance like a demon, B. He made just as much money from his live shows and this was a good showcase for them and finally C. His ambition was to be the biggest act in the world, the biggest music brand in the world - to do that you need to make the biggest music video in the world, and they did.

Here's one link. I thought this was a well written background to the story, gives a lot of interesting facts and is based on the Director's book.

http://awesomewithasideofsweet.blogspot.com/2009/08/story-behind-thriller.html


RADIO HEAD

Radiohead took a massive departure musically for their next album, Kid A, in October 2000.

What's interesting I think for us, is how they branded themselves and marketed the album. They didn't make any music videos for a start. Radiohead, in particular, Thom Yorke, had grown depressed at the potential of Radiohead becoming conventional and ultimately boring. Instead of letting their label dictate terms they stripped everything back and did a series of live gigs to build up word of mouth.

Of course, recordings from the gigs went up on the Internet and this allowed fans to get a hold of the music before it came into the record stores.

Then, instead of traditional music videos they released BLIPS. Which, if you remember your music video history, are not a new idea, but something that was being done fifty years before, except they were called PROMOTIONAL CLIPS. However, the BLIPS themselves are very much in keeping with the Radiohead brand. They are ABSTRACT, non narrative, IMPRESSIONISTIC pieces of film. Perfect for Radiohead fans, allowing them to make up their own minds.

The Wiki article on it is quite good and worth a look.
The record was a massive success, it went platinum in a week.

The band were able to change their style and the marketing of the record reinforced that.  This contributed to the continuing belief of radiohead as an iconic band; a band whose records were worth buying by a loyal and devoted fan base.

Interestingly.  The band would go on to control their own fortunes by essentially taking control of their sales and marketing and not being beholden to a label.





For the original Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_A


OK GO

It's hard to talk about contemporary music videos and not talk about the band OK GO. These innovative music videos have got everyone talking about the band; upbeat, fun, a little edgy, they communicate all these branding emotions and reflect them back onto the brand and ultimately help push sales and gig tickets along.

This is their new one.




FATBOY SLIM

Fatboy Slim's Praise You video won lots of awards. And lots of awards means lots of BRANDING and potentially lot of sales too.

Would the song have done as well without the video? Is a song's worth now intrinsically linked to its video? Hard to know. Maybe a little. But the video idea, originally intended as a prank gift by creative wunderkind Spike Jonze, was so original it got people talking and eventually listening to the song.

See if you can find out more about how the music video affected the sales of the song.  This was 1998.

The Wiki article on PRAISE YOU is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_You

A much more informative article on Spike Jonze, the director of films such as Being John Malcovich and Adaptation is here:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/1267/

The video itself is here.




OVERALL

There are tonnes more examples but what you'll notice overall is how the music video reflects the BRAND IDENTITY of the band/artist themselves and this helps to keep in people's minds exactly what that band is and what they mean to you, the buying public.

Do some digging on this yourself, see what you can find. Talk to local bands and see what they think about it.

The Changing Face of the Music Industry

Probably the best way to understand the music industry and how it works, how money flows, is to look at its structure. This is the structure from the point of view of a Music Publishing Company, who will collect and market the artist and ultimately be responsible for paying them as well.

You'll see a whole bunch of things you might not have been aware of. There are organisations like PRS, who collect money on behalf of the artist.

Imagine your a band.

How you might get paid for your hit single, works like this:

A composer (the musician) assigns their copyrights (the music) to a PUBLISHER in a so called 'publishing deal'.

Publishers LICENSE the use of these copyrights to RECORD COMPANIES who record them.

Every CD manufactured and sold generates a 'mechanical publishing royalty' which is paid by the record company to the MCPS (in the UK) who then pass it on to the PUBLISHER who takes a cut and passes the rest to the COMPOSER

Typically a publisher will take between 35% and 15% of the royalty depending on their deal with the composer. A publisher will also try to license their copyrights to film and commercial makers in order to generate as much income as possible. A composer will benefit in three ways from such a deal.

1. Through a structure of foreign offices and sub-publishing deals the publisher will be able to collect royalties on behalf of the composer world wide.
2. Should a copyright infringement take place the publisher will have the financial might to sue the pirate on behalf of the composer.
3. The publisher will promote and seek additional exploitation of the copyrights thereby generating additional income for the composer.

Source: http://www.planetoftunes.com/industry/industry_structure.htm

PRS is the Performing Rights Society and they collect money on behalf of music used in broadcasting or film.

Here is all of the above in a diagram!

There is an even lovelier diagram at this link:

http://www.sloaneandco.com/images/universe_of_music.jpg

You'll notice straightaway there are a lot of people involved in the selling and promoting of music. The reason for that is there is still a lot of money to be made. Although things are changing rapidly.

Back to the money. Are artists getting a winning deal? Not likely. Not unless they are very powerful and have a massive back cataglogue. Industry is there to make money.


HOW THE INDUSTRY IS CHANGING

Okay. It's best you read round some of the current views on this to give yourself a wide and informed opinion on the changes in the music industry. Suffice to say, changes are huge. Here's links to interesting articles. You'll see one of the biggest effects on the industry is the change in distribution from physical (records and CDs) to digital (downloads). But that also shifted the power away from its traditional base.

Where money had come from: http://www.thephoenixprinciple.com/blog/2009/08/how-the-music-industry-has-changed-woodstock-sony-emi-rca-apple.html

Download Charts: http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/07/how-the-music-industry-has-changed.html

A little about music industry management and the future: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com/2010/02/03/insight-in-music-business-management-from-mpn/

The future of distribution: http://www.futureofmusicbook.com/2007/10/21/new-artist-model/

Marketing direct to the right audience, labels doing it badly: http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/how+the+music+industry+has+changed+and+why+the+major+labels+don+t+get+it

Youtube and the future: http://www.themmf.net/showscreen.php?site_id=55&screentype=site&screenid=55&loginreq=1&blogaction=showitem&bloginfo=1338&blog_id=12&dc=21

Global Industry Sales and Shares (notice how the sales numbers have gone down): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data

Amazon Cloud and the Big Four: http://notsocommonplace.com/2294/the-music-industry-is-running-out-of-last-chances/

The Demise of the One of the Big Four, EMI: http://gigaom.com/2011/02/02/will-the-music-industry-ever-learn-from-its-mistakes/


THE CHANGE TO DIGITAL

THE INTERNET ISN'T ALL GOOD NEWS

However, this isn't all good news for bands as it might seem. Below is a link to a diagram of what you have to sell online to make the basic wage (in America). A tad shocking isn't it.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/