Music Marketing Project
I have been working with my three groupmates on a music marketing project for the past two weeks. This project revolved around a random genre we were assigned and then we would have to create a brand or a new artist based off of that song. Forget about the singer or band of the song chosen. We have to make a new brand and an entire marketing and distribution plan for said brand. We were assigned the genre of alternative music. This was a bit of a problem as I didn't know what alternative music was prior to this project, so I had to learn about it and create an entire brand revolving around it. Out of the four given songs, we chose "Night Running" by Cage the Elephant. Me and my three groupmates have worked hard on creating a storyboard, a research paper, a music video, and a presentation for this project. Let me tell you about the process of each of these components.
Planning
Before we could start this project, we needed a plan. This project is an extensive one, so we would need a schedule for all the components of the project to make sure we can complete it on time and properly. We got onto a word document and just created a quick schedule so we could get started with our research chart.
Picture of schedule
This schedule would give us a good idea of what we needed to do and how much time we would have to complete each task. We wanted to complete all of the research before we would do the presentation, which included the marketing and distribution plans, since this would help us understand the genre better and create a better marketing and distribution campaign for our brand. Then we wanted to brainstorm ideas for the music video and storyboard as soon as possible so we could start the filming of the music video. Completing the filming would give us time to edit the video together. After planning, we got started on our work.
Research
Like I said earlier, I had no idea what alternative music was. At first, I thought that it was an older kind of music because the sample songs that we were given were all older music; however, as the project progressed I realized that I would be wrong. But first, we needed to research about two different music publishing companies and under each company, we needed to research two artists or bands related to our genre. In our research we wanted to include the marketing and distribution practices of artists in our genre so we could have an easier time creating our own campaign using the research as an example of a campaign. We also wanted to note the target audiences and the audience interactions of these artists.
Page 1 of research paper
The research paper would also help us with an upcoming essay that would be about marketing and distribution to a specific target audience. We noticed that a lot of these artists utilized multiple different social medias to advertise their band, and they all used multiple streaming platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music to upload and distribute their songs. We thought we would do the same with our campaign. Now that we had our research done, we could start our brainstorming for our music video.
Brainstorming
Now can we could start filming? No we cannot. Before filming we needed to plan out the music video. We can't just film without having an idea of what we were going to film. So our group got together and discussed ideas of what the song's video could be about. We decided that we wanted to do a story music video rather than an artistic or promotional video. Each member of the group said an idea that they would like to see as the story of the music video. My idea was a party, as the vibe of the song just felt like a late night party. The idea we chose was a house robbery and then a police chase. Although this sounded ambitious, we knew that we could accomplish this.
After getting the idea for the music video, we had to create a shots list to create a storyboard. Rather than creating the music video first, we wanted to create a shots list on a word document. Creating the list of shots before doing the storyboard would make the storyboard much easier to do as we would know every shot that we would want. Then we could draw it.
List of shots for music video
With the shots list done, we could finally start the music video storyboard. Only one person was needed to do the storyboard since the shots list was already done, and we just needed someone to draw and label the most important shots. I took up this task.
Image of storyboard page 1
With the storyboard finished, could we finally start creating the music video? Yes, we could now start filming once we had all of the members together.
This music video required the filming to be during the night time because robberies are usually done at night and the song was called "Night Running." It was only fitting to film during night. There were some problems that we had to solve before the filming of this video. We wanted a cop to pull up to the robber and start chasing the robber; however, we didn't have a cop or a car. We solved the problem of having no car by calling one of our other friends and asking him to bring his car. We solved the cop problem by printing out a badge and just making him an undercover cop.
Shot of police badge
One more problem we had was that we didn't have a gun. Obviously high school students wouldn't have guns. So we would have to get creative. Instead of showing a shot of a gun, we showed a shot of the shadow of the "cop" holding a phone. This looked like a revolver or a pistol, which was good.
Shot of shadow of police officer holding "gun" (My favorite shot)
Post-Production
With the filming finished, all we needed to do to finish the music video was to edit the shots together in a cohesive manner. Although we worked together to film the video, it was better that only one person worked on the editing of the music video because it would be a hassle if two or more people worked on it, since they would have to transfer the files to each other, and it would be a mess. One of my groupmates worked on this part while my other groupmates and I worked on the presentation. Before he could edit, we had to send the files to him because we filmed the shots on another group member's phone. However, we had a problem sending the files to him during class one day, so we had to wait another day for class to send the files to him.
https://youtu.be/tzKLtqq9rO0 (music video uploaded onto YouTube)
My groupmate did a good job of editing the shots together that made the story understandable and cohesive. He used Premiere Pro to edit the video. We uploaded it onto YouTube for ease of access and because we wanted to include a YouTube page for our distribution and marketing plan for our band.
Presentation
Finally, with all of the other components done, we worked on the presentation. We did work on the presentation during the creation of the music video, but now that everything else was done, we could completely focus on the marketing campaign and distribution plans for our new band. We first wanted to be on the same page for the marketing plan. With everyone on the same page for the marketing plan, we could then split up the work and make a cohesive plan, instead of everyone just doing what they think is the right plan. We also named the band RedSkyz and created the brand message of chasing your dreams. We called the band RedSkyz because we wanted show that the sky was the limit and that we wanted to include red in the name as it would be more edgy and create a color scheme for our band.
Marketing steps slide
We split up the slides so we could finish faster. I got the slides for social media marketing, distribution plans, and cross media convergence usage. Examples of slides my team members got were internet presence and genre conventions. For my social media marketing slide, I needed to create examples of the social media that we would use. I decided to create a Facebook page.
Examples of social media posts on Facebook
On the social media pages, we would post merch advertisements, upcoming concerts around the world, and announcements for new releases for songs or physical copies such as vinyl.
One of my other groupmates created a website where we would sell the merch and also market our band. He also created lots of merchandise and the band logo. For the color scheme of the website, he chose red, obviously, as it is in the name of our band, and various greys.
https://sites.google.com/view/redskyzband/home (Home page of website)
With the presentation completed, all we needed to do now was present it in front of our class. We decided to present first as it is always better to go first. Since there is nothing to base our presentation off of, ours will look like the best. I had prepared a paper with all the things that I would say, and I put less words on the presentation, so the audience would have to listen to me speak as I held valuable information.
My groupmates had note cards with what they would say. I think we did a good job on presenting as I did a good job on explaining my slides and talking to the audience, instead of looking at the board or at my paper.
Reflection
In this project, I learned all about the alternative music genre, as I had known nothing about this genre before this project. I also learned that there are multiple different components to creating a marketing campaign because I had to create a marketing campaign. I also learned how to be a better leader and manage a team. In this project, I had to manage my group with what they would do in the filming process and in the presentation. I was the one who was reminding people of what they had to do, and I learned of what to do in this type of position in a group project. My newly gained knowledge of leadership and time management will help me on a big project like the Cambridge portfolio, as planning my time would be very useful, and if I work with others on this project, leadership would help a lot.
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