Website

For our ancillary texts we have to do an album cover and website. We have discussed this as a group and decided that we would like to do Myspace, as after conducting some research we can see that they are very popular with musicians. They are especially popular with indie musicians which is our genre, as Chick Habit is indie/retro pop.
Here are some links so some that we found very inspiring:
Lily Allen:  http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic
Katy Perry: http://www.myspace.com/katyperry
Madonna: http://www.myspace.com/madonna

4Ps

1. Summarising in your own words what the 4Ps of music marketing are. Use the following categories:
a) What band/artist related products can audiences buy?
You can buy CDs of the band.artists songs, as well as DVDs of them performing. You can also get a lot of merchandise from band websites such as posters
b) Where can audiences buy/listen to music/merchandise/hardware?
Band Websites, concerts and gigs, festivals, tv, radio, myspace or facebook pages, download sites such as iTunes.

c) Give 2 or 3 examples of paid-for/subscription based and free products.
Paid-for/Subscription products: CD's bought in shops, singles, albums or music videos bought online (iTunes), band or artist merchandise from sites or stores and magazines which specialise for music.
Free products: music downloads (limewire), free concert tickets

d) List between 5 and 10 examples of creative music marketing strategies (including at least 3 internet based examples).

The Streets: a crop circle was made of Mike Skinners face to promote the new album. He also gave away free songs to his fans via Twitter.

VV Brown: There is a banner on the internet where is climbs inside a white box and performs in it.

Britney: Had a free give-away of tickets to her Circus Tour, which also helps promote and create a buzz around her album. She did this via her website.

Pink: She turned up to sing in the big Tmobile karaoke in Trafalgar square, which helped create a buzz around her right around the time where she had a enw album coming out.

Lily Allen: She had an internet game called 'Lily Allen in Escape the Fear' to promote her single 'The Fear'

2. Who is frukt uk and what is their mission statement/company ethos<
Frukt UK are amusic marketing agency. They create and develop ideas that use music as a means of marketing.

Mission Statement:
“We’re all about music and are really very fond of it. Music colours people’s everyday lives…We help brands access the passion and the communities, the lifestyle and the artists.”

Our Treatment

Pitch 1

The Streets - Case Study

1) Summarise the changing image of the band/artist as it has developed over time. It might also be useful to summarise the music genre also.

From 200-2003, The Streets were a group and their genre was more UK garage/house/hip-hop. They set out to push garage in a new direction.
2004+ Mike Skinner is now solo, still called the Streets, and his music has become much more mainstream, as it has a more indie feel, however it does still maintain a garage beat.


2) Who are the fans? Do you have any sense of how the music companies have segmented the audiences? To what extent has the branding of a band been linked to target audience?

The core audience are young males, more working class, this is because of the strong garage feel, and also because front man Mike Skinner grew up in working class Birmingham (despite performing in a cockney, London accent).

The branding of the band is linked to the target audience because the album covers show very ordinary pictures of council estates, bus stops and cigarette lighter, very mundane everyday scenes that the target audience can relate to. Nevertheless as The Streets became more popular his album covers reflect a wealthier lifestyle ie- a posh car, but he is still dressed in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt, to indicate to his fans that fame hasn’t changed him.


3) What marketing strategies can you identify? What kinds of strategies can you list? (above/below-the line? unexpected promo stunts? etc). List any examples of the use of synergy with other industries to promote other media/products in connection with a band/artist.

• Website: skinnermike.com – it’s the official website and blog of The Streets
• Myspace.com/thestreets - he posts new music and up and coming gigs etc.
• Twitter – Mike Skinner gave away 3 free songs to fans
• Youtube – all his songs are up there.
• He faked his house being re-possessed as a publicity stunt for an album launch
• There was a crop circle made of his face, again to promote an album launch.


4) Add any relevant links to your blog, especially Myspace page/music vids/official websites etc. A couple of illustrations (e.g key web design graphics/album cover photography) would also be useful to add to your blogs

See above (Q3)

Moodswings - Video Referenceing

Below is the video for Charlotte Church - Moodswings. We discussed doing something along these lines where our main girl is dancing and her outfit changes as she does so. We think if this is done well it could look really coool. We also like the close up shots in this video and we think we could do something inspired by this as well as the main girl could be singing and her hair and make up could change.

Charlotte Church - Moodswings

Group Meeting 3

18/09/09
Lat Friday the 18th we had a meeting with Ms Blackborow and i am very pleased because she liked our song choice. The only thing we were concerned about was how short it was becuase it is only 2 minutes 7 seconds. However we discussed over coming this with a short narrative at the beginning and the end to the song to add about 20 seconds to it. This is also good as we weren't planning on having narrative during the song, we want it to be more about performance so this gives us a bit of narrative to keep it interesting at the beginning and end. The video we referenced for this was Rihanna's - 'Unfaithful' as this video has about 15 seconds of narrative either side of the song, as we think this works really well.
Ms B then showed us a video that was made in 2003, 'i believe' - joGo, the whole video wasn't really about the lyirs of the song but the style and performance was the main feature this is exactly what we want.