The Effect of Branding & Brand Image in the Music Industry
- Sinclair Hodgson
- Nov 30, 2017
- 10 min read
Introduction
To most, a company’s brand is simply their logo; however, it’s so much more than a picture or symbol as it’s a collective of information, history and meaning between the company and the consumer. A brand can be defined as “the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another” – Seth Godin.
In this article, I’m going to discuss a variety of examples of effective branding throughout the music industry and how various artists have utilised marketing to their advantage. I’ll also refer to how the artists incorporated the rapidly growing technology industry into their marketing strategies. Music is a major factor of the entertainment industry in this day and age and brand image and viral marketing is the key to the success of many artists and athletes.
Music
Music has developed over the years from just a form of art to being one of the biggest cultural and social influences. I believe music has the best examples rebranding, particularly for some of the popular artists today. Rebranding can be defined as “the creation of a new look and feel for an established product or company… the usual goal of rebranding is to influence a customer’s perception by revitalising the brand”. In other words, rebranding is altering the company’s brand to influence a different perception from the consumer’s perspective. I’m not sure who said the original quote, but I think it summarises how rebranding has become more prevalent in the industry. In a song by 50 Cent called ‘In Da Club’, he says “I’m a tell you what (Lloyd) Banks told me cause go ‘head switch the style up, if haters hate then let em hate and watch the money pile up”. This sums up the marketing strategy more and more music artists are implementing today.
Rihanna & Christina Aguilera
Rihanna and Christina Aguilera used the same marketing strategy through rebranding to shed their early career personas. Both started out as pop princesses appealing to young teenage girls marketed as “sweet and innocent” with songs about love and feelings, etc… Both had sex appeal but it wasn’t their primary focus for selling music. Christina shocked the world when she brought out the song ‘dirty’ which showcased her mud wrestling in crotch-less black leather pants and red underwear. It seemed that the sweet and innocent Christina Aguilera embraced her sexuality and showed a very different side to her. Rihanna did a similar thing, donning a different look from long flowing brown hair to a side-fringed black hair cut. However, Rihanna’s change was a slow process, not using sexual innuendos until much later music videos. Rihanna donned the new persona, titling her album ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’, and thus started her career as a Hip Hop Diva.
Both these artists embraced the basic marketing scheme that sex sells. By embracing their sexuality in the way these two have, they changed the world’s initial perception of them as sweet and innocent, and became “Dirty”. In other words, they were both Good Girls Gone Bad. Christina went back to her old brand image over time and died out as she got older. Rihanna, however, is one of the biggest Divas in the music industry today and has ridden the rebranding of her image throughout her career.
Miley Cyrus
Like Rihanna and Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus adopted the sex symbol as the rebranding of her public image. However, Miley Cyrus caused a stir during her rebranding as she started her career off more than just a sweet and innocent pop star. She originally was known as a Disney princess starring in a show called Hannah Montana, and was idolised by young teenage girls and children everywhere. Her rebranding caused a lot of negative feedback from the public, particularly from parents who didn’t like the “new” Miley Cyrus. This Disney Princess came out swinging naked on a wrecking ball during her music videos. They say, any publicity is good publicity and in Miley Cyrus’ case, that couldn’t be truer. Once she came out as a sex symbol, you couldn’t go a day without hearing her mentioned on the radio and hearing public opinions on her new look.
Now I understand why Miley caused such a stir, but I will say her marketing manager did a fantastic job with her rebranding. Being a Disney icon is great at the start of a career, but Disney panders to a small demographic of young people and families. Rebranding her image towards a Pop Diva through sex appeal expanded her market towards teenagers and adults. An unwritten rule in Marketing is there’s no money in kid’s television, unlike teenagers and adults.
What people don’t realise though, is Miley never did anything that bad compared to any other pop artists, everyone was upset because she used to be a part of Disney and entertained children. If you look at her rebrand from a logical perspective, she never did anything that bad compared to divas like Beyonce or Rihanna. Everyone was outraged because she was running on stage with barely any clothes on, as if any other female artists never did that. Rihanna is naked in pretty much every music video these days, while the supposed “goddess” Beyonce is thrusting her hips in every video. Everyone lost their minds when Miley smoked a joint at one of her concerts, like Rihanna doesn’t post about smoking weed on her Instagram every day. Miley smoked that joint at a concert in Amsterdam, where smoking weed is legal so in reality she didn’t do anything wrong from an objective stand point.
As I said, Miley is a great example of rebranding as she successfully shed her Disney star brand and embraced her Pop Diva brand through sex appeal which as I said before, sells more than being a child star.
Drake
Now, in terms of rebranding, Drake has taken multiple approaches with his music starting off as an RnB singer switching the style up towards a rap artist and recently changing his style again to a reggae/indie vibe. Drake’s progress is a combination of multiple talents and marketing strategies appealing to a variety of demographics with his music.
Initially, he was an RnB singer whose mixtape nearly won him a Grammy award. His career started off providing a number of well-known artists with hooks for their songs such as Trey Songz, Mary J Blige, & Rihanna. His first album was a combination of RnB and HipHop showing his ability to sing and rap. His second album, Take Care, built upon this and transitioned him from singer to rapper but also gave him the brand image of the “Heartbroken Lover”. However, after Take Care he started providing his own verses in songs he featured in before releasing his third studio album “Nothing Was the Same”. This album was a different Drake than we’d previously seen, being less RnB and more HipHop rapping in all of his songs.
Drake started gaining traction becoming more of a recognised name in both the RnB and HipHop genres. Apart from his rebranding, he also developed a keen mind for marketing after he announced his 4th studio album which was supposed to be titled “Views of the 6”. As a massive Drake fan, I couldn’t wait for this album to drop and followed the news wondering when it was going to be released as were his other fans. He postponed the release date for a year and a half and released two mixtapes in those years without any marketing for them.
“If you’re reading this it’s too late”
No marketing or studio production or marketing and was randomly released online.
First mixtape I believe to have all songs crack the US Billboard top 100 songs at the one time.
Throughout each song, he mentioned or made reference to his upcoming studio album “Views of the 6”.
“What a Time to Be Alive”
No marketing or studio production and randomly released online.
Collaborated with HipHop artist Future
Throughout each song, he mentioned or made reference to his upcoming studio album.
Other Singles
Summer Sixteen
Released as a promo for Views of the 6.
Charged Up & Back to Back
Songs made as Diss tracks to fireback at Meek Mill, a previous collaborator, for slander against Drake claiming he ghost writes his songs. (Ghost writing implies he doesn’t write his own music).
Back to Back was made in 3 days.
Both promoted and made mention of his upcoming album Views of the 6.
Successfully turned negative publicity created by Meek Mill into positive publicity for himself.
Called out Meek Mill through his lyrics, shutting him down while being respectful to mutual friends, adding further marketing to Drakes brand image.
Hotline Bling
First song from the upcoming Views album.
The music video showed Drake dancing which is something he’s never done in a music video before.
The dance moves were different in a comical way, but the song became a viral video.
As a viral video, the clip had many adaptations made out of it, becoming a comical vine through social media.
Sponsored by Apple
Drake furthered his career by signing exclusively with Apple Music outside his own record deal OVO.
Apple realised the demand for Views of the 6.
Ambassador for Toronto Raptors NBA team
Exclusive position for Drake.
Sponsors the Jerseys
Toronto Native and the “6” he refers to is the starting number for the area codes.
Drake finally released his 4th studio album, exclusively available on Apple Music and ITunes for a week before being made available everywhere else. The title which was supposed to be called the Views of the 6 was simplified to just the “Views” album. His marketing through his songs and mixtapes leading up to the release paid off as the album went quadruple platinum in a month. The hype leading up to the Views established Drake’s brand image as more than a music artist, becoming one of the top music artists of the present day and the face of his home city by, in his own words, “putting Toronto on the map”.
One of the songs on the Views was called One Dance which was more of an indie/alternative dance track which was something new for Drake. I feel this song was “testing the waters” to expand his market further through a different genre. One Dance went straight to Number 1 after it was released which I believe was the start of his next transition in the music industry. Drake announced another album which he called a playlist instead of an album or mixtape. The More Life playlist was Drake’s usual style of RnB and HipHop but in a different way continuing on from One Dance, expanding his music into a new genre and in-turn expanding his demographic market. More Life, just like Views went straight to Number 1 and went platinum within 4 days of its release.
Kanye West
I know what you’re all thinking; Kanye West is an arrogant narcissistic asshole who only cares about himself. However, I will say this here and now that I believe the arrogant self-obsessed Kanye is nothing more than a publicity stunt for his brand image.
Firstly, Kanye was already established as a successful hip hop artist both lyrically and an ear for music beat and talent. Many believe the fame had gotten to Kanye’s head, particularly after ruining a young Taylor Swift’s awards night for best female album or whatever. I personally believe this is the image that Kanye wants to be perceived as.
Let’s look at the facts…
Kanye was already a big name in the music industry.
Since being an arrogant asshole both on stage and on social media his popularity has soared and cemented him as one of the greatest artists certainly of my own generation.
You may disagree, but tell me anyone these days who doesn’t know who Kanye West is…
I’m not sure how genuine these facts are, but I’ve read articles online about teachers comments about celebrities at school and Kanye had multiple reports of being a nice, polite student who strived to do well in his studies. Not exactly what you expected for Kanye.
Last year he blew up on twitter saying he was $50 million in debt and having arguments with other artists such as Wiz Khalifa. Let’s look at this logically…
Everyone couldn’t stop talking about Kanye for the following week.
He’s married to Kim Kardashian; do you really think she’d be with him if he was that much in debt?
He’s a song writer, music producer and clothing label designer, as if he could be in that much debt.
Kanye rarely used Twitter ever; his last post was 6 months before all this happened.
Rarely using Twitter and posting multiple posts in a week?
Kanye is an example of how any publicity is good publicity, showcasing that you can post negative stuff on Facebook, be an asshole on stage, etc… and it will garner you publicity. After the twitter rants, the radio, TV and social media blew up and you couldn’t stop hearing about him. Exactly one week later he released “The Life of Pablo” exclusively to an online store called Tidal and his album went platinum within the following week. Kanye posted on twitter those controversial posts to garner attention from the media and public before he released his album, textbook marketing right there. Furthermore, Kanye underwent rebranding with his music changing from hiphop to a more alternative genre with his album Yeezus.
DJ Khaled
DJ Khaled isn’t as well-known as the previous artists I’ve discussed but he has made a name for himself in the HipHop genre without ever actually singing or rapping in a verse. Khaled is a music producer who provides tracks with a collaboration of artists and yells his name and the album title all over the start and end of songs. I’m impressed for someone who only yells his name at the start of his songs to have come as far as DJ Khaled has in the hiphop industry, becoming one of the most sought out producers in the genre.
Marketing in Music
As you can see there are a number of successful examples of marketing strategies in the music industry, whether it’s rebranding the artists image, promoting their album or utilising their publicity. A lot of people don’t understand how prevalent marketing is in the music industry outside making and selling music. The industry’s development can be contributed to the expansion of technology which has increased the need for marketing practices. Aside from publicity, digital marketing such as social media has impacted a lot of these artist’s careers through articles, memes and viral videos. While some of these may be considered negative publicity, they’ve provided positive impacts to the artist’s careers cementing some of which as icons in present day pop culture. You’ll find that sex symbolism has had a massive impact on the careers of female artists in particular, proving that no matter how advanced we become technologically, humans are still run by their basic primal instincts.
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