|
What is the status of current label situation on the music market? (pg. 5)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Normie
Step outside the 'musical box' for a moment. Think like a PR/Ad guy. You are selling a product. You want that product to appeal to your target market. That market has preconcieved notions as to what is 'cool' expected acceptable etc.
When you see a laundry detergent commercial, you've watched mom in the laundry room with a smile and a little kid on her leg happily smiling through the virtues of Tide and how it's a revolution in clothes cleaning.
When you think of action movies, it's Arnie or Matt Damon or whoever with high tech goodies kicking loads of ass and saving the Princess.
The people making those products do certain things since thats what the market expects. Douchbag looking EDM dudes and Wannabee gangsta rapper thug life 4EvEr YO! idiots are an image created to sell a certain brand of 'cool'. The aloof EDM DJ type is one. The Blinged out rap punk is another. The Black soul diva, the dreadlocked jamacian Dub Ragga guy... they are archetypes of the genres.
And PR markets them as 'cool' And PR depts say if you do not conform of one of their test marketed and co-opted creations, you suck.
The industry has developed these 'models' of cool and spent years and billions of dollars ingraining them into the public conscience.
Not saying that's good, just an attempt at explaining 'why so serious." |
IMO that's just stupid lazy marketing.
Daft Punk and Deadmau5 did very well for themselves...creating an image that can never die.
There's no point in copying what everyone else, unless you want people to know you're just another generic producer/artist. |
|
|
| Looney4Clooney |
ya it isn't so simple anymore. People are not as easy to sell to. You can't appear to be trying to be cool while being cool anymore. Its funny because you will have a meeting with like 3 60 year olds and like cool experts explaining what is cool now. Marketing is sometimes really funny and sad.
For example youtube popularity is worth more than say a million dollar ad on prime time TV. A label cares more about how many hits you have than say selling 5000 copies on your own. Companies have already been spending lots of money to make youtube quality videos that are ads but don't appear to be selling anything. The prime market for most things ie teens and around that age can't be reached by TV anymore. |
|
|
| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
IMO that's just stupid lazy marketing.
Daft Punk and Deadmau5 did very well for themselves...creating an image that can never die.
There's no point in copying what everyone else, unless you want people to know you're just another `generic producer/artist. |
No, it's the way the PR world works and has worked forever. Talk to any PR/AD guy or Image consultant sometime if you don't believe it.
But I agree totally that people/products have to stand out to achieve great success. Thus my earlier 'boutique' comments.
Deadmau5/Daft: They created something unique...and -then- Corporate culture co-opted and mass-marketed it to the drooling masses it and now what do you see? 1,000 clones of their styles. Look back to all the copies of the Beatles/Stones. For every Superman, there will always be another company creating Captain Marvel. For every Disney 'classic' there will be a Chinese Wal Mart 'exclusive' version.
The 'original will always be the best as in Dead/Daft vs. their clones. None of their knock offs are going to surpass them as they follow a prefabbed model. It's like Bros/Emos/Hipsters and all the copys that came before - "I wanna be an individual! JUST LIKE ALL MY FRIENDS!!" But of course, Mom's credit card and a trip in the minivan to Hot Topic did never an individual make.
If there was no point in copying, explain the tens of thousands of 'moderately successful" copied 'products' over the years from Tide vs. WalMart generic Tide, to The Beatles vs. The Monkees.
There's money there and a bit of 'fame' to be had. And if that't all one wants, it can work very well. But Something truly 'original' (if that's even truly possible) will always stand out and grab the lion's share of the glory. |
|
|
| Looney4Clooney |
music changes too quick. By the time you've managed to become a copy cat, the trend is old. You have about a 2 month window. So it isn't like it used to be. And credibility matters even with those 12 old bieber fans. If a bieber twin was thrown in their faces, they wouldn't byte. They would see thru the obvious hardsell and it would backfire. Marketing is not what it used to be. Especially in the last 5 years, the game has become increasingly sohphisticated and none of those tried and true methods work. You can't copy the product, you copy the idea that inspires the product. A meta clone would work. PEople aren't that smart but smart enough to notice say a bieber wanna or a deadmau5 like monkey suit dj.
People need to buy into the artist more now than ever. That is why twitter is probably the single most important marketing tool despite how useless you might think it is. Allowing people to feel close to you and how that makes fans loyal is what matters. You aren't getting people to like your music, you are getting people to like you. |
|
|
| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
ya it isn't so simple anymore. People are not as easy to sell to. You can't appear to be trying to be cool while being cool anymore. Its funny because you will have a meeting with like 3 60 year olds and like cool experts explaining what is cool now. Marketing is sometimes really funny and sad.
|
Remember the women's 'lo rider' jeans fad of the early 2000s that gave rise to the 'muffin top'? The 60 YO coolmeisters of fashion eradicated normal jeans to such an extent that literally newspaper articles were written about women bitching they couldn't find normal jeans to wear.
They were the 'cool' thing since everyone wore them...but the truth was many women simply couldn't find 'normal' jeans anywhere. |
|
|
| Normie |
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
music changes too quick. By the time you've managed to become a copy cat, the trend is old. You have about a 2 month window. So it isn't like it used to be. And credibility matters even with those 12 old bieber fans. If a bieber twin was thrown in their faces, they wouldn't byte. They would see thru the obvious hardsell and it would backfire. Marketing is not what it used to be. Especially in the last 5 years, the game has become increasingly sohphisticated and none of those tried and true methods work. You can't copy the product, you copy the idea that inspires the product. A meta clone would work. PEople aren't that smart but smart enough to notice say a bieber wanna or a deadmau5 like monkey suit dj.
People need to buy into the artist more now than ever. That is why twitter is probably the single most important marketing tool despite how useless you might think it is. Allowing people to feel close to you and how that makes fans loyal is what matters. You aren't getting people to like your music, you are getting people to like you. [/QUOTte)
I'll give you a changing arena, granted, But things like twitter (I agree it is effective) are part of 'selling that image'. Kardashian or 50 cent get big bucks tweeting about nothing daily and people 'think' they are closer to their star/hero, but of course, most tweeting is either done by an aide ot when real, done to steer the tweetee into doing what? buying their 'product.
It's the same game, the players just play with different game pieces. |
|
|
| Looney4Clooney |
| it is completely different. You can't sell like you once could. That is pretty pivotal. You can't show people something awesome and say, look , this is awesome, buy it. And that is pretty significant. The selling has to be transparent. You have to sell without appearing to sell and that is unprecedented as a main marketing strategy, |
|
|
| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
it is completely different. You can't sell like you once could. That is pretty pivotal. You can't show people something awesome and say, look , this is awesome, buy it. And that is pretty significant. The selling has to be transparent. You have to sell without appearing to sell and that is unprecedented as a main marketing strategy, |
I agree part way. Things have changed. But the principles are the same. Look at top 40 radio 'stars' right now. Same type of schlock as ever. The PR depts may use a different set of tools, but we the consumer still get the same type of the same we always have and people somehow think they are 'educated and shrewd consumers.' People still follow every focus group tested trend the machine creates. People still buy the same political BS as ever and think it's a revelation an American Freedom. |
|
|
| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Normie
Step outside the 'musical box' for a moment. Think like a PR/Ad guy. You are selling a product. You want that product to appeal to your target market. That market has preconcieved notions as to what is 'cool' expected acceptable etc.
When you see a laundry detergent commercial, you've watched mom in the laundry room with a smile and a little kid on her leg happily smiling through the virtues of Tide and how it's a revolution in clothes cleaning.
When you think of action movies, it's Arnie or Matt Damon or whoever with high tech goodies kicking loads of ass and saving the Princess.
The people making those products do certain things since thats what the market expects. Douchbag looking EDM dudes and Wannabee gangsta rapper thug life 4EvEr YO! idiots are an image created to sell a certain brand of 'cool'. The aloof EDM DJ type is one. The Blinged out rap punk is another. The Black soul diva, the dreadlocked jamacian Dub Ragga guy... they are archetypes of the genres.
And PR markets them as 'cool' And PR depts say if you do not conform of one of their test marketed and co-opted creations, you suck.
The industry has developed these 'models' of cool and spent years and billions of dollars ingraining them into the public conscience.
Not saying that's good, just an attempt at explaining 'why so serious." |
True but you don't have to keep to the stereotypes.
For instance, you mentioned Tide - Read the book called The Method Method - It actually shows how a small home based product brand went against the grain in what was previously though of as a "set in stone" industry/form of marketing for household products dominated by massive corporations for decades, and they completely changed the market and consusmer expectations from that point forward.
Having said that there's reasons that those types exist; If you're making/dj'in dark prog, then it fits that you would have moody pics of youself, rather than looking like a complete fistpumping twat in LMFAO gear. Therfore if you're playing lowest common denominator clown house for the great unwashed in Las Vegas, your image will be the cliched party DJ type, with bejewelled beats by dre sitting below your coke filled double chin.
Back on topic - Richie is right and we've discussed this countless times in other threads - vinyl served as a filter for a lot of crap. Labels had to physically outlay money to produce a tangible object and they didn't want to waste money on a crap track that wouldn't sell. Now labels can take any old rubbish tune and put it out there with no fear of loss except a bit of time/man hours, therefore there's not that worry of losing money on something sub standard.
I don't know this is some kind of "news" about marketing you own, by yourself. I mentioned it in another thread a little while ago and got a lot of responses like "it's not that easy" and "what if you don't know how to do that marketing" etc. I get it - not everyone has marketing experience or knows how to bring a product to market, but it's really a case of figuring out who your consumers are, making a platform (your website), making it accessible (picking a decent name, making it SEO friendly (NOT FLASH), etc), then driving traffic to it with an easy purchasing mechanism.
How you do those can vary incredibly, but we have all the tools at our disposal; facebook, twitter, youtube, channels, soundcloud, myspace, itunes, forums...even live gigs with the right marketing can have a massive effect on sales.
I have a slight idea of what Storyteller is doing and I think (if I've understood it) will be the way forward, and probably a bunch of people will try to emulate it in the years to follow. |
|
|
| Vector A |
Earnest salesmanship is for the domain of laundry detergents, car dealerships, and mouthwash, not music. That is pretty much how it has always been. "Cool" has always been about the appearance of effortlessness. About getting people to say "I want to live in that person's world" and not just "I want to buy that album."
I mean yeah you have stuff like NOW compilations and ringtones that are sold in the traditional style. But most music has not been presented that way in a long time. |
|
|
| Normie |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
True but you don't have to keep to the stereotypes.
|
Overall I don't disagree with you or L4C on the vast majority of this stuff. At the very basis, what I am getting at is that yes, you can be successful if you have a good product and market it properly to your base. My whole thing is to NOT be or keep up to a stereotype but to be unique and to sell that uniqueness to people. If I was unclear, I apologize.
As I said above, the copy never lives up to the original, so why be the copy? Or one of a thousand? I totally support Trance and Story and what they want to do. Trying to beat a multinational corp at it's own game is the route to failure in 99.9% of the cases. I'd rather gamble on a unique take rather than being the .1% that might be the exception to the rule. |
|
|
| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Normie
As I said above, the copy never lives up to the original, so why be the copy? Or one of a thousand? I totally support Trance and Story and what they want to do. Trying to beat a multinational corp at it's own game is the route to failure in 99.9% of the cases. I'd rather gamble on a unique take rather than being the .1% that might be the exception to the rule. |
There was an article a while back that explained how whoever is at the top of the genre gets most of the cheese.
Everyone here making trance, techno, dubstep, whatever are helping to support their genre's leader.
So what if you make the best trance trance track ever? It'll go onto an Armin compilation and from then on it'll be associated with Armin's name.
There are some people that even mislabel several trance classics to Tiesto's credit, and all that does it help Tiesto and hurt the real artist. |
|
|
|
|
