Music Marketing Final Retrospective

 Music Marketing Final Retrospective

    Before production on the project began, me and my group were assigned the indie music genre, and chose The Man by The Killers as our song. The first thought that came to mind was that the song sounded very 80's, and that we would try to base our brand and marketing plan around it. But after that decision, it was a struggle to finds any other ideas for the campaign. Eventually, we landed on the idea that out music video would depict different genres (70's, 80's, 90's) through settings, wardrobes, and editing. However, this idea didn't have a set brand or reason behind it besides the fact that the song sounds very 80's inspired. At this time, the project felt as if it lacked direction.

    After doing research into indie artists like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes, I also researched other artists who have noticeable brands. For instance, the Spice Girls had every member represent a type of spice, that is their theme. The Blue Man Group were blue, that was their theme. The Man's lyrics depicted a character (or the singer) as someone who was full of themselves, a narcissist. After brainstorming, I was able to come up with the idea that the band would be centered around the seven deadly sins, with each album focusing on one of the sins. In this case, The Man would be about the pride sin (vainglory). With this brand idea, came the band's name Seven Sevens. Although worried that this idea wouldn't clash well with the group, considering we already had an idea for the music video, everyone seemed to like the idea and we made the change. Looking back, we should have found a brand before brainstorming ideas for the music video. Having a brand in mind would have made the process much smoother and with a clear direction.

(Google Doc of our brainstorming process)

    We had scheduled to record the music video on January 27th and 28th, as those were the days we were the most free, but before we could record, we had to storyboard. After brainstorming, we had come up with the idea that I would play the main character, who is a narcissistic, egotistical man who represents the pride sin. I had the idea to wear an oversized 80's-style suit, fitting with the song's overall aesthetic and representing the character's infatuation with himself as he wears a suit that's too big for him, but he believes fits him perfectly. Luisa, a member of my group, had an idea that money would be thrown on me, but it didn't make it into the final music video. The brainstorming ended with the idea that the music video would be a promo, and feature the 'Man' character interacting with objects or doing certain actions that emphasize his narcissistic personality. Some of these ideas were kissing and drooling over a photo of himself, calling himself on a telephone, and throwing money behind him as it's worthless to him because he views himself as being greater than money. We would film at my house for the 27th, then film at a trail in Regional Park on the 28th. 

    On the first day of filming, me and my group met at my house after school. We filmed most of the music video on this day. There was a shot where I had to sit in a car with the doors open and film some of the group members running down the road while the car drove beside them, we made sure to be safe and go slow during filming to avoid any accidents. We also asked one of my neighbors, who owned an old-yellow car if we could film in front of it since it fit with the aesthetic of the music video very well. We left a lot of the lip-syncing and the band performing together for the 28th, were we filmed on a trail near a small lake in Regional Park with the sunset in the background. There, we brought all of the instruments and outfits necessary. While on the 27th, I was the main subject being filmed, on the 28th the other band members took center stage. During both days, Gabi, another group member, took behind the scenes photos and videos for the Seven Sevens social media accounts, which consisted of Tiktok, Instagram, and Twitter. After filming, we packed our equipment and post-production began.

    Luisa wanted to handle the editing, so me and the rest of the group worked on the presentation, which we originally started on PowerPoint but moved to Canva. We tried to summarize our research on the indie genre, our marketing campaign, and the overall idea behind the brand in a concise and engaging way through the Canva presentation. One way we did this was limiting how much text is one on slide, and using what we say during the presentation as the main way to convey our information. Then it was presentation day, which I was extremely anxious about. Overall, I think the presentation went smoothly, we presented and discussed everything we wanted to and stayed on topic. As quickly as the presentation began, it had ended.

    In retrospect, I think the project went pretty well. At the start, I believe we could have planned it out a lot more, focusing on one thing at a time, preferably starting with a brand behind the band. Planning and having a clear focus on what to work on is something I learned from the project and something I want to apply to future projects. Additionally, I could have done better considering communication with my group partners, since there were times were I was confused what we were doing or what the plan was, though it didn't happen often. Applying this to the Cambridge portfolio, I will have to plan accordingly before starting any part of the portfolio and I will have to make sure what I'm doing is correct through communication with my peers or teacher.