Music Marketing Project

Our latest project immersed me into a field that I only had basic knowledge of before. When my group chose the indie pop rock genre for our music marketing campaign, we discovered the target audience was mainly 16-24 year old students, with an almost 50/50 ratio of males and females. The genre includes elements and styles of punk, psychedelia, and country, but can also be more melodic and less abrasive. Ultimately, we realized indie pop rock music has varying musical approaches so we wanted to embrace the uniqueness of the genre in our project.

Indie pop rock artists rely heavily on social media, and usually have a website which contains information about tour dates and new singles/albums. We did a case study on the band Foster the People, and found that the band performed extensive live shows, eventually performing at large music festivals such as Lollapalooza to spread their reach. The band promoted their first club shows by emailing fans who had downloaded their single from their website about the shows. After they released their first EP, fans who purchased the EP through the iTunes Store were able to apply it toward the purchase of their full-length debut album. These techniques allow for a fan base to be built over time by creating anticipation and consistency with the audience.

When developing the brand for our new indie pop rock artist IZZA, we wanted to be certain her bold and rebellious personality was showcased as efficiently as possible. It can be difficult to gain recognition in the music industry, so our primary goal was to create an iconic element for our artist with the purpose of making her stand out. We chose the color pink for that very reason, and decided to incorporate black as well to produce a sense of mystery and edginess. Additionally, we created a logo for her brand that consists of a neon pink sign of a rose, to further create an essence along with a visual appeal to our works. These are the main pictures of IZZA we posted across her social media sites demonstrating the aforementioned themes:

The neon pink light and black shadow establish her distinct theme.

IZZA's iconic element of pink dyed hair is showcased in this picture.

Besides establishing a social media presence, we focused on creating merchandise for our marketing products, since indie pop rock fans tend to wear "band t-shirts" of their favorite artists. The merchandise consists of black colored clothing items showcasing our rose logo, and included options that would cater more to our male audience with the skull t-shirt. These alternative options still remain consistent with our theme because the pink rose is still present. The merchandise would advertise our name effectively and expose a greater number of people to our music. A sense of community among our fan base would also be achieved through these products.

Overall, this project taught me the importance of planning when it comes to creating a music video. Editing choices and how you choose to portray your artist in their music video are crucial because you have to accurately represent the persona and brand you are trying to promote to the audience. The target audience and brand established must influence all the choices you make when it comes to marketing and distribution. Ultimately, a marketing campaign requires deep analysis of how all the aspects will come together to introduce your artist into the world.