Week One - Music

Indie/Alternative Rock

Some popular trends with artists in this genre are mainly based online; this involves using different social media platforms and holding a website where all of the artists' information can be put in one place. Digital distribution of music through various streaming apps is also popular, as well as distributing videos on sites such as Youtube. Live shows and festival appearances also aid in marketing a music group. Our case studies, Foster The People and The Neighbourhood, both use websites as a hub for all their information mainly utilizing Youtube to store their music videos. Foster The People has performed in 15 festivals since 2017 and The Neighbourhood in various festivals such as Edgefesr and Osheaga. 

My group chose to develop the brand of our artist by relating to our target audience, which is primarily 15 to 24 year olds. Firstly we decided to use the artist's name to lure fans in, using "IndieVidual" as a play on words to the genre of music he plays but also to point out that this artist is a one of a kind individual. We used our various social media platforms to reach out to them (Youtube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify) as well as using our merchandise to interest our fans, such as our various sweaters and wristbands that can be won by entering a raffle on Twitter. They could also win free tickets to a show of ours or polaroids and their own polaroid camera.

My group and I created several types of merchandise to market IndieVidual; hoodies with different designs on them, shirts and wristbands are available on our website and in select stores (Spencers, Hot Topic). Below are examples of the hoodies with colorful logos of the artist, Adam Dalton, as well as a T-shirt with another one of his logos to give his fans a variety of things to choose from.

Through this project, I learned that video production is more difficult than I thought. There's also a lot of creative freedom and mobility when filming and editing together a music video, and I enjoyed this aspect quite a bit. While I wasn't able to utilize this exactly to my full potential I was still able to put together something engaging that captured the vibe of our artist, and kept in mind techniques that I could use in the future.

Everything that's put into a marketing campaign is done with finite purpose down to the last detail to ensure that the target audience is drawn in by the content they're seeing. I had to pay special attention to this concept while creating a marketing and distribution campaign with my partners, specifically noting mise-en-scene elements and meanings behind color, costume design, set design and lighting to center around that Indie vibe of being hipster and not sticking to the status quo. Everything had to be cohesive to make our message clear with our audience that this was someone to become invested in. 

Needless to say I still have a lot of work and exploring with film to do, however this project gave me necessary insight into the struggles of film making and the accomplishment from creating something different and sharing it with other like minded people.