For the project, I, along with my group, was assigned with rebranding an existing band, as well as creating a music video and presenting how we planned to market and distribute their music.
♪THE RESEARCH♪
Regarding the research to create the most effective campaign, first we looked into the marketing and distribution patterns of two bands in the same genre of our band, Indie rock. We had chosen to do a case study of RCA record's Cage the Elephant and Walk The Moon, both of which share our relative target audience of teens to young adults. The bands had many aspects in their marketing campaigns alike such as an extensive online presence through social media and a primary website, a focus of distribution through streaming rather than download, music videos created of their most popular songs distributed through popular access sites like youtube and Vevo, and branded merchandise.
Additionally, through their ways of virtual marketing, they constantly posted updates on live shows, tours, new merchandise, and music and personal posts and fan interactions in an attempt to grow a relationship with their audience. This gave us a sufficient background in how we were going to plan our own campaign.
Like those of the band, we had emphasized our online presence through the creation of a website and different social media and how we would utilize them to grow closer to our band's listeners and increasing the band's exposure to our target audience, avid users of the internet. Our distribution, although also through physical copies such as CD and vinyl because it is popular for fans within the indie rock genre, was mainly put through to streaming services, it being the most popular way people listen to their music. We had also created merchandise as another way of marketing like Cage the Elephant and Walk the Moon as, besides from being another source of revenue, increasing exposure through the design and branding of them.
♪WHAT WE CREATED♪
BRANDING
Before we had created any marketing content, we had to decide how we would brand the new band, The Wild Stars(TWS).
We had decided on an iconic color scheme to the band of yellow, red, and orange, These warmed toned colors have certain connotations that match the image we wanted for TWS. The color red is associated with aggression, passion, and excitement which we believed to encompass the "rock and roll" feel of the band. The yellow represents the emotional and creative qualities and the orange shows the quirky, uniqueness of the band.
We created an allusion to another famous rock band KISS through the star on the eye iconography, giving us another way to brand our own band and create a positive association with another band.
THE MUSIC VIDEO
Our music video was in a promotional and storytelling style, presenting our band performing the song and having the lyrics narrate a story with the main character (the girl with the ginger hair) having an interaction with a prostitute and a criminal while strolling through town.
Rather than having the plain shots, we had added graphics and images overlayed on the clips to make the video more unique and visually intriguing. The sort of doodle-like, drawn style of the graphics makes it seem less "professional" and disconnected; having it seem more personal to the audience. The graphics also keep to a yellow/orange/red color scheme to match the color branding of the band. The constantly moving and colorful lights also show the performance to be fun and less serious. The eye makeup is another way of branding within the video.
Image: Example of one of the graphics in the video
The story depicted in the music video attempts to generate some sort of sympathy for a prostitute and a criminal through showing their personal struggles to justify their otherwise immoral and inappropriate actions/behavior. The target audience of the band (16-25) tends to weigh more on the liberal side of the political spectrum, therefore aligning with their views such as the empowerment of sex workers and the restoration of voting rights of former felons. And, the female sex worker and female main character relationship indirectly shows LGBT representation, however, rather than making it a "big deal" and dramatizing it, the interaction is shown as normal. There is also a big emphasis on economic struggles in the video and through the lyrics, which can be relatable to the young adult/college student portion of the audience with student debt and starting to find their way career-wise. These implied political statements appeal to the target audience as it applies to the views most common with their age group leaning to more liberal and shows they are up to date with current events. The backlash from some is also considered, but controversy can even serve well for the exposure of the band.
ONLINE PRESENCE
First, we created an official website for our band to hold all their information organized in one place.
The heading of the website that appears constant throughout all the pages of the website. At the very top is the logo of the band and a gif of moving stars (can be seen on the physical website) which automatically catches the viewer's eye through its movement.
All the social media links are concentrated on the top right corner and the links to streaming services at the bottom left corner of the header, both on a piece of ripped paper. The style of the website, although still appearing professional and official, has a constant motif of little drawings and taped up paper and pictures. The purpose of this ongoing style throughout the design of the website is to resemble that of a notebook or diary, making it seem more personal to the audience.
(The small pixelated figure is explained in another section of the blog entry. Scroll below to the interactive media portion for the explanation.)
Once the audience scrolls down further, the first thing they see is a replaying portion of the music video with a link to go view it, right away the marketing for the single being the first thing they encounter on the home page.
The next thing the audience sees is a list of live shows/tours and where they can buy tickets to see the band. There are also pictures of the band members to create some sort of identity for them on the homepage. The SHOWS tab on the website holds the same content.
Then, constant like the header at the bottom of every webpage, is a widget to get the audience to sign up for a newsletter so they could have news about the band go directly to them via email.
The next page on the website is the merchandise. Here the audience can find promotional merchandise such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, stickers, and temporary tattoos. They were all designed to be enticing with the iconography of the band so exposure of the band's name and branding can be seen physically through a fan using the merchandise. There is also an option to buy a physical CD of the upcoming album for the band. The option to buy a signed polaroid picture is to provide the audience with a sort of keepsake that seems very personal with a nostalgic element to build a relationship with them.
The music tab contains a graphic that contains in text that an album is to be expected soon, marketing it right after the release of the single in hopes that those who follow the band for the single also listen to the album when it comes out. Along with that, the already released music is on the page and provides all the links to listen to the song and watch the music video.
The final page is a blog in which the band may share personal messages from the members or promotional material and updates on the band. Making a blog for the band creates a way to develop an intimate relationship with the audience as they can communicate to the band members this way and vice versa.
Regarding social media, we planned to create a Tumblr, Instagram, twitter, and facebook; the most used social media for our target audience. Besides the promotional material we would post like news of upcoming music, tours, shows, music videos, merch, etc., we would also have personal posts from the band members and interact with the fans so it could make more of a personal connection with the audience through their social media presence. Being on social media alone would also give the band exposure through algorithm-based recommendations. We would follow individuals on social media based on how their interests are linked to the indie rock genre or their interest in the genre alone to use this algorithm to our favor.
These social media also have an option to live stream so the band could have live streamed performances to further interact with the audience online and expose their music to a wider group of people.
INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Rather than using traditional ways of advertisement for marketing which may annoy audiences especially if they were saturated all over the internet, we decided to create more enjoyable, interactive ways of marketing to get exposure and gain listeners.
The image shown above would be a physical sticker placed in multiple local locations of the band with a large number of teens and young adults. The size would be much bigger in real life and this paired with the bright yellow color makes it eye-catching, even from afar. Those with a cell phone may follow the instructions on the sticker in order to open a link to a video game.
Riding off the recent popularity of choice based productions like Netflix's BANDERSNATCH, the game is in an RPG style, in which the player can make decisions for a character and have multiple outcomes.
The character played is branded with the red star on the eye. The character selection screen would look similar to the example shown. However, the actual production may have more choices for customizing the appearance to be more inclusive of all different looking people so any player can feel connected to the character; but, it cannot be too extensive in which it could take away from the actual gameplay.
The setting of the story is that of the music video, with the interactions with the prostitute and the criminal. The player encounters different paths and choices that lead to alternative endings based on the combination of choices made. This may also allow the player to play the game for a longer time to access all of the different endings.
Aside from promoting the music video through the similar setting, the single would play throughout the entire gameplay, and, at every ending of the game there would be a link to the band's website, social media, and where to listen to the song.
Clicking the pixelated man on the website gives another way to access the music video through online means. It can also be shared through a link.
We also decided to create an Instagram filter, another type of interactive media. Followers of the band's Instagram gain access to an exclusive filter that may be used on the Instagram app's camera. While someone creates a video or a picture with the filter and posts the media, the single of the band would play throughout. Viewers and users of the filter may click on the name of the song to listen to it through Spotify.
The filter features the iconic star makeup on the users face as well as small moving graphics of stars around them, visually similar to that shown in the music video.
♪CONCLUSION♪
Through the completion of this project, in creating the music video, I attempted new editing techniques with overlays, as well as experimented with color psychology when thinking about the graphics. I also observed how the pacing of cuts can serve a great purpose in exhibiting the tone of the video. When creating the website, the specific style chosen to exhibit a more personal feel, with a resemblance to a journal through some of the visual elements like the ripped up paper showed me how to manipulate the design of something to achieve a certain perception from the audience. I will be carrying this through into my portfolio project and keeping this in mind while creating my film opening, making every decision purposeful with the feeling I want to achieve in the audience, as well as make it look visually intriguing.
