Music Marketing Project Post #1

 For this project, we split off into groups of 4-5 and were randomly assigned a genre. With this designated genre, we first researched and developed a case study including 2 record labels and 4-5 artists from both labels. With this research, the goal is to develop a successful music marketing campaign for a brand-new artist, including a campaign outline, a music video, marketing techniques, a distribution plan, and more.

In my group, I worked with four other students, and we were assigned the "country" genre. We decided to research Warner Records and Big Machine Label Group as our labels. Our artists included Kenny Chesney, Zach Bryan, and Blake Shelton from Warner Records, and Dolly Parton and Jackson Dean (who I researched) from Big Machine. In our research, we considered trends in marketing and distribution, as well as branding and social media presence. 

My research for Jackson Dean

After the research process, we were given a choice between 2 songs which fit the country genre to be our artist's debut single, which we would also create a music video for. We chose the Song 'Wild Animals' by the group Trampled by Turtles. Being a more slow-paced song with rather bleak lyrics, we decided to campaign a somber, wise, singer-songwriter-style country musician by the name of Lone Ranger. We decided that depicting him with neutral and earthy tones like black and light brown would be best as they would contribute to a more rugged, authentic branding. We decided that creating a website with merchandise, Instagram, and Facebook page would be a beneficial marketing decision as our research had proved these habits to be a trend amongst country artists. Also, they would allow all ages of the country audience to be reached.

When planning the music video, we all agreed that a combination of a promotional and storytelling music video would be best. The music video tells the story of Lone Ranger traveling to pay respects to his mother's grave, which we felt would effectively capture the mood of our song. The name of the song would be changed to "Rust", taken from a line in the first verse of the song. We also thought it best to film in a remote, rural location as the majority of country music videos are filmed in locations such as these. Storyboarding turned out to be very helpful in bringing this concept to life in our heads.

                                       

Our storyboard for the 'Rust' music video

This past weekend, we met up and began filming at a local park. With the exception of a few shots, we practically finished the shooting process. I have started the editing process and unfortunately discovered that editing a music video is far more challenging than it looks. Syncing the film to the song and finding the right balance of shot variety to prevent the video from feeling boring is no easy task. From this point, my group must finish recording our audio files for the stand-alone presentation, and I must finish the editing process.

My current editing timeline