Genre and Marketing

A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music.
Music can be divided into many genres in many different ways. Genres can be distinguised by the time period, techniques and instruementation

Music Genres;

Pop
R&B

Indie
Rock

Punk

Heavy Metal

Drum and Bass

Dance

Techno

Reggae

Country

Jazz

Blues

Soul

The genres of the song we have chosen are Acoustic/Soul/Blues.

•  Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means. 
• The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments.
• Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues

Traditional & New methods of marketing

Since the birth of the Internet, marketing methods have changed.

Traditional methods (indirect):

• Press, radio, television and general advertising

This puts the record deal completely in the hands of the record comapny, Marketing costs are not recoupable under this model, and so unless a minimum figure is set in the recording contract, then here is no guarantee that a label will put a effective amount of money into support a band's marketing campaign.

New methods (direct):

• The internet, particuarly websites such as MySpace

Bands are able to use this direct marketing to their advantage as they can talk directly to their fan base before they even have a record deal. This has cut ou the necessity for a more traditional marketing platform in order to reach and audience. However, in order to have long term success, the band neeed to have a strong marketing strategy combining both direct and indirect marketing (radio, press, TV, online and club pluggers as well as advertising).

Record labels usually base the amount htey spend of the marketing on the estimated number of records that each artist will ship to the shops. Managers do not have any control over how much money the label invests in marketing their band.

Due to the rapid decline in physical record sals, the music industry is llooking at different models to break and markt new artists.

How a plugger can help?

Most record labels build a promotional campaign for a new band by investing in plugging teams who deal with national radio, TV and press promotion as the main areas to focus on, followed by regional press and radio,, and student and club promotions on top of that. A radio plugger will see a new live band and approach them to offer their help. National radio and press are often more likely to play demos of unsigned band if they know a plugger is involved.

Touring

This is a vital area of marketing, if a band has a successful national tour, there willl be a regional radio and press campaigns to build the profile around each date.

Finding fans

There are no rules when it comes to breaking a new band and there are various marketing tools at the artists disposal. The internet is still one of the best places to market a new artist The general idea is to initially try and find the hard core fan base for a band and once the album is released to move beyond that fan base by marketing to a wider audience usuing billboards and Tv advertising.

Kate Nash-Marketing her new album 

Here is a printscreen from her website show an advertisment for her new album, 'My Best Friend Is You', it is a link.



Here is a printscreen of what the link in the previous printscreen links you to, it enables you to choose what country you are from and shows images on the right hand side of kate. One of the images shows her creating a heart shape through her gesture of hands, this is a typical representation for an acoustic genre, as it signifies love/romance. Above the selection of countrys is an advertisement for Limited Edition Album, the advertisement includes a link of the website it is available from. This part of the website isnt very imformative, but includes what it needs to and includes alot of imagery.

Here is a printscreen of the amazon website, selling Kate Nash's album, once you pick a country on the previous printscreen you are then linked to this website, encouraging and enabling you to purchase it. This is a form of convergence selling the product linking straight from the artists website to the shop. It is also a form of synergetic marketing. This is a good marketing technique as it not only advertises it but allows you to buy it at ease.

The printscreens below show the rest of the amazon page for Kate Nash's album, it gives details of the album, songs included, similar artists and reviews;

We also discovered that her album was also advertised on the guardian website, as its a newspaper is included detailed reviews;

During our research process we came across a magazine advertisment for the realease of Kate Nash's new album. We felt studying and analyzing the advert would help us to understand how magazine adverts represent the artist and how it is layed out, this would help us when creating our own magazine advert.