Essay title:
"Succesful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices." To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Possible artists to discuss:
Adele - Her company give her artistic freedom, which means that, while her production practices are mainstream and conventional, she has the freedom to produce work of a high quality. Arguably, it is this freedom that has made her succesful rather than a specific, niche marketing campaign.
Alex Day - The democratisation of the recording industry due to the proliferation of cheap technolgy means that he has been able to produce music in his own bedroom (maybe). However, his success comes from his marketing campaign rather than the quality of his music.
London Grammar - Like Adele, their artistic integrity has been facilitated by the way they have licensed rather than signed to The Big Three. They have a conventional approach to recording, but their success comes, in large part, from the way they used sites like soundcloud and youtube to gain recognition before then being approached by the Big Three.
Syco/One Direction - They have little or no artistic freedom and the production process involved is very traditional. Their success is partly due to their producers having a clear picture of their audience, but also due to their marketing team very succesfully targeting an audience.
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ReplyDeleteAs well as depending on marketing and distribution, having good practices also influences the success of media products. For example, Adele. Her target audience is through the traditional mainstream music despite her record label being fairly small and niche. By being signed to a small record label, this gives her more artistic freedom to do as she pleases with her music, therefore being a possible reason why she is so successful. Her success is not due to being part of the big three oligopolies, but this doesn’t seemed to have had any impact her success. The use of synergy for the Skyfall film enabled her to market her new album by using her feature song as the main song in James Bond’s Skyfall. The use of marketing widened the success of her album, therefore enabling her to have a synergistic relationship and market her product at no extra cost. Adele's Skyfall was named Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards and sold over 2 million copies worldwide, showing how this marketing scheme gave her an increased success. From interviewing 20 students, 60% of them responded and said how they re-listened to Adeles skyfall after watching the James Bond film – and a further 25% bought the single with 10% buying the album. This suggests how the marketing campaign arguably was a reason for the success of her album, but it was not primarily the reason why she became successful in the first place; it could also be argued that the record label XL recordings gave her the creative initiative and freedom to target the mainstream audience how she wanted.
ReplyDeleteFor artists such as Adele, having good marketing and distribution is key, however some would argue that good production practises are just as important. In the music industry good production practices can be defined as having artistic freedom and but still producing high quality music. It can be argued that Adele has been able to keep her artistic integrity through being signed to independent record label XL Recordings. In an article called ‘How Adele conquered the world’ by Tim Jonze, he states that it “was her decision to sign with XL that eventually helped her stake out ground as a credible artist”; this could be because it gives her freedom to write and record the music she wants and she can work with who she likes; all of this helps her music to be unique to her. Adele pushes the boundaries of generic pop music by adding a twist with her unique soul voice. You can also gage her success by looking at all the awards she has won, at the Grammy’s she won Best Pop Vocal Album and Album Of The Year in 2012. She made decisions such as not playing at music festivals which normal record companies, such as Syco who own One Direction, would not be happy with, but because she is signed to an independent label she has the freedom to make these choices.
ReplyDeleteMarketing and distribution can have a deep impact on how recognized a band is in the music industry, but with the advent of things such as the internet and websites including Youtube, the audience a band can access for no money at all has increased dramatically. London Grammar's song 'Hey Now' has received over a million Youtube hits since they put the song up - a number that keeps rising. This suggests that good production practices for this band are more important than marketing distribution. For example, One Direction has no artistic integrity due to being owned by Syco Music, which itself advertises to a niche audience with very specific music tastes; pre-teens. London Grammar differs to One Direction because they are not a mainstream band. As a British trip-hop trio, their musical style is more obscure than pop, and as Hannah Reid said herself, "...before 'Wasting' went up I was terrified...but people do like it, and I think that's as far as our 'pop' sound will go."
ReplyDeleteThis suggests that to this band, good production practice is the ability to make their music in the way they desire to. Unlike with One Direction, which is put together in the intentions of making profit by a production team, London Grammar's music speaks for itself, and they believe that they would not have had the success they receive if they were to make ordinary music - they hint at this in an article on Digispy by Lewis Corner, when they said, "Some early fans do not like it when you slowly merge into mainstream." They even spoke about critics in this by mentioning, "There's more room for criticism. Are you authentic or not?"
Because they are able to make high quality music relatively cheap via the use of technology available at reasonable prices, and the completely free advertising provided by SoundCloud and Youtube, London Grammar have no real need to sell their artistic style to a more mainstream tune, and they think themselves that if they did they would lose the audience they have managed to attract. This could have some basis; in a survey of thirty students, ten had heard of London Grammar, and 50% of those ten said they enjoyed the uniqueness of their music.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/interviews/a490832/london-grammar-weve-gone-as-pop-as-we-can-interview.html
http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/features/37272/London-Grammar-We-got-signed-off-the-back-of-not-much-at-all
Good practices can influence the success of music products as well as the distribution and marketing of the product being produced. If you take Adele as a key example she has made her success by being signed to an independent record label that gives her a lot of artistic freedom this could be the reason why she is so successful because she is able to do a lot more with her music then she would be able to if she was signed to one of the big 3 oligopolies. This is because their idea of good practices may be different for example Syco like using little money to produce something but earning a lot back considering how much they spend. Adele’s freedom of her music allowed her to take the crown for the most downloaded album on amazon in 2013, her album was ‘21’ and features her soulful pop songs with different twists. The reason why her album had so much success in the year 2013 was because of her using synergy with the James Bond film ‘skyfall’ she featured her song skyfall in the film and this could have been the cause of widening the success of her album. The song and films synergistic relationship helped earn a lot of money at no extra cost. The song Skyfall had sold over 5 million copies in 2013 therefore showing the success that the relationship between the two had. When interviewing the CCGS Sixthform centre 90% of the people knew that Adeles song had featured in the James Bond film in 2012 and from that percent 30% said they had bought and watched the film to listen to the song and see how it fitted and 40% said that from watching the film first went on the buy the song. This shows that by that synergistic relationship she had been successful and having freedom over her songs helped her to target her mainstream audience in a way. ‘Adele tops both the singles (Someone Like You) and album charts (21). But what the stats also reveal is some of the majors' ineptitude to develop proper album-artist careers. Sony Music doesn't have a single album in the top 10, despite the fact it usually accounts for more than 20% of record sales.’ This shows that having more freedom over her production and music allows her to not have such pressure on the sales of her music, so maybe a relaxed approach helps more.
ReplyDeleteMarketing and distribution to a specific audience has proven effective by artist Alex Day. In his christmas hit 'forever yours' his track reached number four in the christmas charts. Famous acts on professional record labels lacked in sales behind him. But why? Alex Day specifically targeted his online audience efficiently and effectively whereas larger bands and producers advertising may lack certain advertising criteria which didn't allow them to reach their key audience. Day has received millions of views for his music by releasing music videos on YouTube, with his most popular being the 2011 single "Forever Yours", whose music video reached 1.5 million views in its first week of release.
ReplyDeleteHaving good production practices influences how successful the media products get about as much as marketing and distribution does. Good production practice, for an artist is having good quality products and an artistic freedom to express themselves as an artist. If we take London Grammar for example, among others, they are predominantly signed to their own label ‘metal & dust’ this gives them more artistic freedom that they wouldn’t have if they were signed to one of The Big Three. Their synergistic relationship with Sound Cloud lets London Grammar to market their songs; this increases the sale of their songs and albums. So, this shows us that marketing and distribution has an effect on their success. From interviewing 50 students, I found 30% of them were fans of London Grammar and a further 60% of that 30% said they liked them because of their originality and artistic freedom. This suggests that having good production practises like London Grammar does, influences their success as much as marketing and distribution does.
ReplyDeleteMedia products can also rely quite heavily upon the marketing and and distrubtion compared to the overall quality of the product. This can be seen with artists such as Alex Day who is a musician not signed to a label and creates his own music cheaply in his home with the use of convergent technology. In Christmas 2011 Day released his single 'Forever Yours' which reached No.4 in the UK charts and sold over 50,000 copies in the UK, while selling over 100,000 copies worldwide. Alex Day achieved this sucess by utilising the internet, advertising his product via such websites as Facebook and Youtube, which recieved 1.5 million hits within the first week. On Youtube he created a holiday called 'Forever Day' in order to let his fans know when buying the single would contribute towards the Christmas charts.
ReplyDeleteOther marketing methods employed by Alex Day can be seen with songs such as 'Stupid Stupid' which was an attempt to break a world record. In order to help promote his song, he announced a one day tour called 'Stupidfest' upon which entry was free. This song later peaked at No.25 in the UK charts.
A group of students where questioned about Alex day. Of 31 students, 9 had heard of Alex Day through the video streaming website Youtube. Of these students, 2 had bought his single 'Forever Yours'. While this is only 6% of the total sample, it is still shows the sucess of of his market campaigning with 29% of the sample hearing of the artist.
"Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices." To what extent do you agree with this statement?
ReplyDeleteAs well as being dependent on having good marketing and distribution Adele has also worked out what methods work well for her but are also in her recording company’s budget. The thing that makes her stand out in the music industry is the fact she still has artistic freedom to make her own music which means she can feel the emotion behind the songs she sings, this is a big part of what helps her stand out to her mainstream audience even though she is signed buy a small record company ‘XL recordings’. It is not very often that someone who is not signed by one of the oligopolies to get that high in the chart and make as much money as Adele but it just shows that it has not affected her career at all. Adele has also created synergistic relationships with the people who do the music for James bond as she sung the sky fall song which sold over 5 million copies worldwide. This has helped her marketing and audience range because it has got her name out there and got her free marketing which is good production practice. When we interviewed 50 teenagers 8% said they only listened to skyfall because they wanted to see sneak previews of what was coming in the new James bond film, a further 2% said they bought the song after liking the song when they never normally would listen to her. Although this doesn’t sound like a high percentage it did not cost the record company any extra money to market but made them more than they would have got without the synergistic relationship. Lastly something that got Adele being spoken about is the well knows quote ‘I don't make music for eyes. I make music for ears’ Adele
efining success, is to each their own. Depending on the the level of fame of the artist, sales that reach five figures can be seen as a great success, whereas for a big scale group such as One Direction, 100,000 sales could be seen as a mediocre achievement. On a business level, success would be seen as a product which is easily sold, and produces a lot of income. Within the music industry, good production practices are defined by the integral freedom and independence of the recording artist. It can also be seen in the industry, by the big companies as producing a high selling product for as little cost as possible. For example, Alex Day, a democratised recording artist, who happens to record his tracks from his bedroom, is an artist with a lot of freedom. He creates and produces his music on his own, showing that he has great production practices. In terms of marketing, he is completely dependant on social media. Day uses Facebook (75,000+ likes on his page), Twitter (100,000+ followers), YouTube (1,000,000+ subscribers to his channel) and SoundCloud. In 2011, by the power of social media, he managed to enter the charts at Christmas, with the track "Forever Yours" which peaked at number 4, selling 50,000+. He holds the record for the highest sales by a completely independent artist. This shows that marketing and distribution plays an extremely important role in the success of media products. In the case of Alex Day, I agree with the original statement. His marketing skills and big scale distribution played a pivotal role in his chart success, as well as his good production practices. I conducted a survey amongst my class, and 40% of them had heard of Alex Day, and a further 50% of these were following one of his various social media accounts. This research shows that social media has a huge effect on how an artist sells.
ReplyDeleteAlex Day would be a clear alternative example when considering this statement. For an unsigned independent artist like himself, effective marketing was instrumental to his successes which lead to his Guinness World Record for highest-charting single (Forever Yours) by an unsigned artist. While his music products might be considered to have had good production regarding his artistic integrity and creativeness, his very early videos on his YouTube channel titled Nerimon, were recorded in his bedroom and so lacked the professional quality of standard production practices, however this subsequently meant lower costs which would be an alternative element of good production practice. However it was the Youtube vlogging culture which worked as his foundation to market himself to a specific audience, his dedicated growing fan base, with the channel now having over 1,000,000 subscribers, and ultimately enabled him to be so successful. From here on, he was able to release his 3 studio albums and 2 EP’s, amazingly causing him to have 3 UK top 40 hits, and gain credit as a pioneer of a new style of releasing and distributing music. So from this we can deduct the importance of his marketing campaign in addition to production, thus agreeing with the statement.
ReplyDeleteBy first establishing and distributing their music on social media sites such as Sound Cloud and YouTube London Grammar was capable of producing music in the way they wanted to, they were able to establish an artistic freedom before being signed by the big three and so continue to do so to this day. By attaining over 1.3 million hits on Sound Cloud they managed to establish a fan base early on in their career, one that cost them nothing. This form of marketing and distribution is effective because it is cost free, and due to convergence, it can be done via a mobile device or computer, which makes the process faster and available globally. Therefore successful media products do depend on marketing and distribution, as they are what help get the product noticed and globally recognised by consumers. When conducting personal research, I found that 60% of A level media studies students had watched or heard of London Grammar via Sound cloud and other social media sites, and a further 33% then went on to purchase music from London Grammar following this. This shows that London Grammar’s distribution and marketing has had a profound impact on their worldwide success.
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DeleteA good example of an artist that has used excellent marketisation in order to claim they're fame is One Direction who are a British boy band consisting of five individual artists who were collaborated together on the hit T.V show X-Factor which is owned by Simon Cowell and run by Syco Entertainment. The band went on to place third in the competition but due to their popularity with the younger generation, mainly females, Simon Cowell signed them to Syco Entertainment which is owned by one of the Big Three, Sony Entertainment. This was just the beginning as the boys went on to release their debut album Up All Night in 2011, which became the fastest-selling debut album in the UK of 2011. In 2012, their single, "What Makes You Beautiful" won the BRIT Award for Best British Single. They became the first British boy band to have both their album (Take Me Home) and single ("Little Things") on number one on the UK Singles Chart at the same time. In 2013 Channel 4 created a documentary called “Crazy About One Direction” which focused on the band’s massive fan base and shows just what lengths these fans go to in order to be noticed. This is a very good use of marketisation because Channel 4 is a well-known popular channel who is famous for airing interesting and entertaining documentaries targeted at all ages. The documentary on One Direction included their music, which was played in the background and also merchandise which the band sell, this could attract new fans to research the band and possibly buy one of their albums, it could also attract existing fans to buy new merchandise they didn’t know existed. Channel 4 would have also have benefited from this documentary because they get paid the more viewers they have and if 60% of One Direction fans alone were watching the documentary then they would make a large profit because it is such a large fan base.
ReplyDeleteSyco entertainments depend on their marketing through their prime time TV show 'the x-factor'. The x-factor markets its artists through getting the target audience to show favouritism- this could be through the voting process. The x-factor is followed by the extra-factor when the music artists are marketed more as they are interviewed whilst selling them to the public. The marketing is important within Syco entertainment as they may not be perceived to use 'good production practices' as the artists within Syco do not have much say in their production. One example of this would be one direction- they were formed by Simon Cowell. Straight away the fact that they were put together rather than choosing to work together shows they have very little/if any freedom within their act and production.In the case of one direction, marketing and distribution give the band more success that their production practices as they have constant media attention yet minimal musical freedom.
ReplyDeleteThe marketing of media products and distribution is generally a very rigorous and directed act. The production practices, traditionally are restricted and within a studio environment. By being signed to a record label, as an artist you are restricted in the marketing, distribution and production practices you make use of. However, Alex Day – otherwise known as Nerimon is an unsigned artist and was therefore able to have complete control over the marketing, distribution and production practices as an artist. At the age of 25 Day has released three studio albums, two EP’s, three UK top 40 hits and holds a Guinness World Record for having the highest charting single of any unsigned artist. Day markets his music directly, making use of social media and video streaming services, such as YouTube where he has over 1,000,000 subscribers with over 130 million views of his videos. This suggests that he has been able to create a wide fan base and reach a large amount of people through the use of social media sites and word of mouth, rather than paid advertising. He distributes his music through the internet, and is accessible also through free streaming sites. Day has not taken the traditional route of producing his music, and instead chooses to use a home studio – recording his music and then editing it using his computer, making use of home technology convergence and then using synergy to upload it to the internet and share it with his fans. Day has managed to reach a large fan base by choosing to go with these options of production; ones that would not be considered good by large production companies such as the ‘Big Three’. When asked, of a group of 50 teenagers, 30 had heard Alex Day’s song ‘Forever Yours’ during the Christmas period when it reached the charts. This evidence suggests to us that he was able to reach a large fan base through his marketing. That said, this also suggests to us that his fame is through the power of the marketing techniques he has used and has been able to promote himself well, possibly due to his past as a Vlogger; where he was able to build up a fan base before he released his first album. Alex Day contradicts the point of successful media products depending upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practices as he has not used what production companies/record labels would consider good production practices, yet was able to get a high chart listing and large fan base without the use of this.
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ReplyDeleteI Agree that there good marketing and distribution practices are needed. An example of why it is needed come from the trip hop band London grammar. Apart from being given artistic freedom and remaining individual. They still targeted their audiences effectively and managed to reach out to Audiences in the U.S by using Sony as a skipping stone, because they distributed their music for them but did not retain ownership or have any influence on them. Their music was not disembodied ( having been turned down by all of the big three, possibly for being to much of a risk and not being mainstream enough, they may have also thought it risky because of their low profile at the time). Adele in the same fashion was just as niche a music style and retained her artistic freedom by getting signed to an independent (xl) and also used Sony as a skipping stone for reaching the north American audiences where she managed to come 3rd in the charts.London grammar manged to achieve the same effect in Australia with Dew Process, where it jumped to second position overall, and then hit France at number 11 (if you wait) .Synergy is seen in their marketing via internet services such as sound cloud, which to date have had hey now played more than 1,656,578 and over a quarter of a million followers just on that service. The band had a massive spike in popularity , and sound cloud made revenue through advertising. Both parties also gain even more revenue because there are links to buying the musical product on itunes and google play.
Alex Day (or Nerimon), produces the entirety of his music at home. Being an unsigned artist, he must use a smaller budget than signed artists such as One Direction. However, due to his successful YouTube career, he has the facilities at home to produce the music and the videos as he is a YouTube partner, therefore receives money for every view each video he posts receives.
ReplyDeleteAlthough he has limited resources and a low budget, he managed to reach number four in the UK Christmas singles charts in 2011. Originally, he released the single ‘Forever Yours’ in order to raise as much money as possible for the charity ‘World Vision’, but he later launched a campaign to attempt to beat The X Factor winner to the Christmas number one position. This was a very successful campaign as many people share his views about The X Factor taking over the music industry and producing solely for profit and therefore supported his campaign for change by buying his single. The music video was directed by his housemate and fellow Youtuber (Charlie McDonnell) and posted on his channel. This saved Day money as he enlisted his friend’s help as opposed to hiring a studio and getting a professional director. Charlie McDonnell has a significantly larger amount of subscribers than Alex Day therefore using his channel to post the video distributed it to a larger audience, shown by the video receiving 3,000,000 views within the first month.
Alex Day’s success was down to his marketing and distribution rather than the quality of his product. He enlisted a lot of time and effort into marketing his music and hardly any money, time or effort into the production, therefore maximising the profit going to World Vision.
ReplyDeleteSuccessful media products do not depends on marketing and distribution as much as they do on good production practices because marketing and distribution is much more important. Alex Day, an unsigned music artist, is currently holding the record for the highest-charting single for an unsigned artist after his single ‘Forever Yours’ reached number four on the UK Top 40 charts. He produced this song in a home studio, not in a recording studio yet he distributed his products on websites such as YouTube, sound cloud, Jango and iTunes to attract his audience. His YouTube channel has received more than 130 million views and has over 1,000,000 subscribers, suggesting that Day has risen in popularity as a result of his successful distribution as opposed to the production quality of his work. As part of my research I asked a small focus group of about ten people around the ages of 17 and 18 if they had come across Alex Day, and if so, how? Six of the 17 to 18 year olds said they had heard of Alex Day and one of the 4 of them said that they had seen him advertised on websites/programmes such as YouTube or iTunes. From this I can suggest that Day’s highly successful distribution is due to his great marketing on international websites, such as YouTube or Spotify.
Adele is a British singer/ song writer who focuses less on targeting her audience and marketing her products and instead mainly focuses on good production values. Adele has a fairly mainstream audience and is what you would expect from a conventional singer. However her company, XL gives her artistic freedom, this allows her to produce music of a higher quality and her debut album was given much critical acclaim and one 4 Grammy Awards. This album sparked her career off and it featured music that is obviously created with creative freedom. Her song ‘Skyfall’ that accompanied the James Bond Film however was arguably conforming to a theme that wasn’t her music, composing the song, Adele and her producer Epworth aimed to capture the mood and style of the other Bond themes, including dark and moody lyrics descriptive of the film's plot. However Adele was insistent that the music still reflected her own style as she didn’t want to be moulded to someone else’s limits. This is conceivably one of the reasons she has done so well rather than targeting a specific niche market as she decided to reflect her own music style for a film. The synergistic relationship with the film greatly widened her audience which meant that her first album was able to receive quadruple platinum in the UK and double in the US. It is obvious to see that the music she produces is popular, 60% of 100 teenagers I asked said they have bought some of her music because they enjoy her style and 15% had said they wanted to watch the film because of Adelle’s music.
ReplyDeleteI believe production practices are one of the most important things in the music industry. Most artists in the industry create mainstream music and are signed to companies like syco entertainment. London Grammar are free to express their production practices in a way that other artist signed to other labels cannot. Because there are signed to a small indie label under warner they have been granted musical freedom compared to mainstream acts like one direction. London Grammar have been able to market themselves and their style through sites like SoundCloud and YouTube. These sites have played a huge role in the bands success. About 65% of the people I had asked said that they had listened to London grammar on SoundCloud and 30% of the same group of people have watched there YouTube videos.
ReplyDeleteEvery media product will depend on the marketing and distribution of its product as much as it can. Without it their product would not be successful. However, not everyone depends on specific audiences; for example, Adele’s marketing is done by her company; she is marketed by them worldwide and not as such to a specific, niche group. She has the freedom to produce high quality work, and will always be supported and marketed by her company, making sure she is successful. With Adele using her freedom she has been able to create synergistic relationships to market her product with companies; such as with the production of award winning film ‘Skyfall’, in which features Adele’s song. This song has sold over 2 million copies worldwide, promoting Adele for no extra cost due to the synergistic relationship created with the producers of the film. 20% of 50 teenagers interviewed said they would watch Skyfall specifically because of Adele’s song and the excellent marketing that made them aware of her fame because of the film, whereas 55% of teenagers said they enjoy listening to Adele and would buy her music regardless to whether or not she was marketed and famous from the film ‘Skyfall’. Her success is due to being signed to an independent label which allows her independence and freedom which she would not have if she was signed to one of the big three. Showing Adele’s independence starts right at the beginning of her fame where she was first scouted on Myspace by an independent production practice (XL production). This is contradicting the title; as it is saying you do not in fact have to be part of the three oligopolies to be successful, in which Adele has proven. Also, challenging it further as she is not distributed to a specific niche audience.
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