Research into other band (marketing and promotions)

To gain a wider understanding and to expand our ideas for our own music video, it is important that we analyse a similar band or artist. This way we can see how they have been represented in their music video and other areas in which they promote their band and either use or develop their techniques and apply it to our own work. The band that I will be researching is Kasabian, as they are also an established alternative rock band and fairly similar to New found glory and our band House.

In Kasabians' music video 'Underdog' it is evident that the main focus is performance, we see a variety of clips from their live concerts and how they are back stage and on tour. I believe the main aim of this video is to promote the band by showing how good they are at performing and how they interact with the crowd. The band are very energetic through out and this video really makes you want to go to their live performance - which goes to show they are achieving what they have aimed for.
Mes-en-scene:

Throughout the whole of this music video, we see Kasabian perform at a number of concerts with very large crowds. You see on screen what you'd expect to see from any live Rock performances - large, energetic crowds jumping to the music, screaming girl fans, arms in the air, typical rock star poses, flashing lights behind the band, casual rock star clothing (not very clean cut or smart), jumping around on stage, press and cameras to which the band are happy to pose for and general band connection. All of these factors are brought together and made to look very energetic and fun by using clever cinematography and editing. Again, to show off the band we see a wide range of close up shots of the band playing their instruments, singing or looking into the crowd - we usually see shots of band players by them selves rocking out on stage, it could be suggested this technique is used to show them as individual 'rock gods' - or their is no particular band leader, whereas there is always very wide shots of the crowd to show how big their fan base is. To emphasise this point further, camera angles usually tilt upward when focus is on the band and tilts downward when on the crowd. Lights are interestingly used in this video, we see a number of one point lighting with quite a dark overall scene which looks quite effective when focus is on one band member. Flashing lights are also used which emphasise the concert feel to the video.

After watching and analysing this video, it has helped me come up with a few ideas on how we can portray our bands performance by generating the same sort of energy. On promoting a band, i think it is important to show how they perform and interact not only with each other, but also their fans - so we will try and create this image for them by using similar techniques. Unfortunately it will be impossible to record our band performing in front of a crowd of this size, if any crowd at all - so instead we can make it out like they are at band practice and show how they would act. It would be easier for us to use similar sort of lighting in our studio - so we could use a range of one point lighting and strobe lighting.

Kasabian: By Emily Stansfield.

New found glory-marketing and promotions.

Newfound glory- their marketing and promotions.

From the marketing sides of things if you weren’t already aware of newfound glory then it has clearly been brought across that they are a highly energetic live band through their motif fronted t-shirts and fridge magnets. One t-shirt even shows two characters fighting with the slogan bruised and broken which to me suggests how there gigs must end up.
Amongst their cd covers its hard to tell what image they are trying to express due to the diversity of their cd covers as they are never following on from a previous images or cd names where as, for instance kanye west uses high school themes for his such as college dropout, late registration and graduation.
Alongside availability of wearing your favourite bands logo, which in itself is a brilliant form of advertising due to the amount of people who’ll see the bands name, they have also delved into internet promotion through my space which as can be remembered helped Lilly Allen rise to fame due to the popularity of the internet in itself. It enables anyone/anywhere to be able to access anything especially music therefore being a brilliant source of marketing. Within their myspace page they have streamed their upcoming songs and videos which are therefore available to be listened to free of charge.
As well as this you can now follow them amongst face book by requesting a friendship which again is great for the band. This way they can promote their album releases or upcoming tour dates within their statuses and every fan can therefore read it.

Their labels are also an aid to their advertising. For instance Geffen (one of their past labels) is owned by universal music group which is a subsidiary of Vivendi. This means that the past promotions of the band were possible through two other large global companies and not from just Geffen itself.
Geffen was originally seen as a great label to be able to promote their bands but it has been seen that they hadn’t managed to do as much for newfound glory after its consumption of their previous label MCA. This could be one of their reasons for not becoming as popular as a usual band of their genre..

What has also help promote them as a band is that their guitarist Chad Gilbert is dating Hayley Williams who is the lead singer of Paramore and who has a very large fan base, mainly for her good music but also her good looks are an added bonus. A recent tour called the Honda civic tour Paramore were the main headlining band with newfound glory and others as the support. This again helps promote the band to people who may not be there for them or have heard them which in turn can creates more fans and an increase of word of mouth promotion as well as using hayley to make guest appearances within their live shows which helps boost ticket sales

 

 

New Found Glory: By Josh Featherstone