Summit 2015, Austin TX
Monday & Tuesday, March 23-24, 2015
Session 2: Monday 11:30 IPO Room
Moderator: Kristél Pfeil Kemmerer
Tammy Donham
Assistant Professor, Recording Industry Department
Middle Tennessee State University
Artist Branding in the New Music Landscape: The Importance of Teaching Students How to Access this Non-Traditional Revenue Stream
With the rapid
changes in the music marketplace branding has become more important
than ever for not only record company marketing teams, but for managers
and artists alike. A strong brand increases an artist’s value to the
media, to fans, and to brand partners. An artist’s name may be
leveraged to generate sources of revenue from licensing deals,
endorsements, and even non-music business ventures where the artist has
ownership in the company. Today’s music industry professional needs to
be equipped with sufficient branding and positioning expertise outside
of the traditional music space to bring greater awareness and increased
opportunities for their represented artists. Not only crucial for
established artists, developing a strong brand is important to artists
and acts at every level including local artists who are attempting to
grow their audience and mid-sized acts that are on the cusp of breaking
out. This paper provides an overview of branding basics, the history of
branding, brand architecture and key terminology, as well as best
practices on developing and building an artist identity, and linking
brands to build equity. It also addresses the need to update student
learning outcomes in topics such as branding and partnership-based
marketing that will promote problem solving, critical thinking and
presentation skills. Exposing the students to the importance of
branding and its ability to change the trajectory of an artist’s career
is vital to every student that graduates from a music business program
today.
George Howard
Associate Professor
Berklee College of Music
Customer as Teacher: The Importance of Building Brand Equity By Providing Customers with Teaching Tools and Moments
We are all familiar
with the traditional idea that word of mouth is king, and that
brands/bands should aspire to shift the burden of promotion from
themselves to their customers/fans by encouraging evangelism. Yet, this
oft-repeated mantra rings hollow in the absence of an action-orientated
strategy. Brands/bands are left “knowing” that word of mouth marketing
is essential to success, and yet not having any idea how to actively
engage their constituents. We as educators know better than most how
the impulse to teach transcends beyond commerce, and enters into the
realm of spiritual, ethical, and/or just. We additionally, know the
power and authority that is proscribed to teachers. Brands who
recognize and foster this power of creating teachers/teaching amongst
their constituents catalyze their customers, and thus results in a
material impact with respect to brand/band building.
This paper will
examine the ways in which certain bands/brands provide their
constituents – in particular, their key early adopters/tastemakers –
with a unique set of skills/tools/knowledge that act as heuristics;
enabling and empowering these customers/fans, and providing them with
what I refer to as a “specialized cognitive surplus.” That is, these
specialized people carry with them knowledge related to a
product/service/band that leaves them with an information imbalance –
they are teachers. As they relate to post-dictive movies (The Sixth
Sense, The Usual Suspects), health movements (diets, yoga), religions,
humans who not only feel that they possess an information surplus, but
also feel they can improve their friends’ lives by sharing this
information are not to be deterred. As Socrates says, “Man by nature is
a social animals,” and humans with knowledge related to subject matter
that provides in them a sense of well-being are like an over-heated tea
kettle: actively seeking a release in order to release the pressure.
The presentation will
examine companies/artists that/who not only recognize the power of this
concept, but also actively seek to create teachers amongst their
constituents. The presentation will provide examples of how
companies/business structures — such as: MLMs (whose very nature
relates to creating layers of teachers); technology companies who
create teachers by providing information only to a select few key
influencers (for example, the rollout of the iPod, or Reddit/Wikipedia,
generally); artists who develop ritualized and arcane elements within
their artwork or lyrics, and leave it to their fans to
decipher/disseminate (The Grateful Dead, Coheed and Cambria, Rush, et
al.) — do not only create evangelists, but, rather, are create teachers.