Lets Make Music!

 Pop Central

By the luck of the draw, the music genre my group and I were assigned to research for our Music Marketing Project was pop! Out of the four songs we were given to choose from, we decided our best option would be choosing the song "Carry On" by the band FUN. We collectively felt that this song would perfectly encompass everything we would want to include in a music video in addition to our music brand. 

Research

Once selecting our song, it was time to get to work. The first step that our Music Marketing Project entailed was researching two record label companies along with four case studies of current artists within our pop genre. The two record labels we chose were Columbia Records and Republic Records. Clara and I pretty much worked on research of the history of these companies. When it came to the case study, we chose two singers under each record label and the four members of our group chose a singer to research. Nethumi was responsible for researching Beyonce, Clara researched Lil Nas X, Isa did The Weeknd, and I did Taylor Swift. We all focused on the history of the artist, their marketing tactics, and of course their distribution platforms. Once we finished, it looked a little like this: 

It was slightly difficult on deciphering which information would be useful enough to be included within our research charts but I feel that we compiled everything in an organized manner and successfully obtained the information we needed. After gathering all of the information that was necessary from these artists, we began to brainstorm for our own upcoming band. 

Building Our Brand

After we gathered a pretty sufficient background on the pop music industry, it was time to build our on platform for creating, marketing, and distributing a music video along with our band's platform. We all collectively researched different aesthetics and which would work best for the target audience we had decided on (teens to young adults of all gender identities) along with the essence of our chosen song. We came to the decision that "Carry On" is a slow moving yet positive, feel good type of song; so we must decide on an aesthetic that we felt went well. Although it is pop, "Carry On" is also marketed as indie and psychedelic rock. Knowing this, we built our brand off of that, making our band theme more retro-futuristic. By choosing this theme, we are encompassing a broad range of pop music styles, alluding to the idea that our band can cover a plethora of vibes for every mood. We started building a mood board to visually capture the vibes we want our music to give off. Here are some of our examples: 

Once we knew what style we wanted to adopt as our own, it was time to create a name for our band. After brainstorming for a while we came up with the name Senior Trip. We decided that Senior Trip had a nice ring to it while simultaneously matching our vibe. "I love Senior Trip!", we hear the fans in our heads exclaim! We knew this was a perfect match. Senior Trip exudes perfect relaxation and good, "trippy" vibes if you will; not only going well with the song "Carry On", but also our campaign. 

It was after this when we decided it was best to split some work up, get things done more efficiently. We chose a powerpoint template that we thought best matched Senior Trip's theming and then Isa and Clara began laying out designs and font styles, jotting down some basic information and speakers notes before we go further in depth. 

 Meanwhile, Nethumi began creating our logo and website. Our website would include all things Senior Trip including an "About Us" page giving Senior Trip's history, a "Tours" section including some pop-up concerts, and a "Store" section where we will be selling merchandise and of course, our music. In addition to that, Nethumi also designed our logo which we will use to promote our band. 

We really wanted our logo to go well with our name, a teenage journey, experiencing all types of situations from different walks of life while also creating a super chill and fun mood just by taking in the views and "enjoying the ride". By creating a logo fairly quickly, we will be able to use it to build our brand even further by creating a familiar look for our viewers and any new followers. We made our website and logo with the intention of keeping a consistent theme while also having reoccurring imagery with our future marketing tactics that we will be planning out as this project progresses. Isa helped by creating our social media for Senior Trip. An Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok were created with the username @seniortr1p as we all came to an agreement that these social media platforms would be the best for reaching our demographic. As we get further into the production of our music video, we plan to use these platforms for further marketing towards our audience. A screenshot of our Instagram can be viewed below: 

Storyboarding: 

After the backbone of our brand was created, we decided the next thing to do would be planning our music video shoot. Out of all of the different types of music videos out there, we felt that a "storytelling" music video would be the best fit for where our band is right now, popularity wise. With a smaller fandom, it wouldn't be the best choice to shoot a promotional or artistic music video since it would be more important to have a large following first. With a storytelling music video, you are given the potential to "go viral" without really needing a fanbase or previous popularity. With a storytelling music video, the ball is in anyones court. Now it's time to storyboard! We started by developing the message we want to get across to our viewers. We all listened to the song "Carry On" and read through the lyrics to get a clear understanding on the songs meaning, timing, pacing, lyricism, etc. We began brainstorming shortly after about a good plot to match with our message of carrying on and not giving up despite when times get tough. We developed the idea about a girl who lost one of her best friends from a car accident. Throughout the course of the music video, the protagonist will learn how to move on and realize how much better things can get after a tough time as long as you are in the right mindset. As the video continues, our goal is to have the protagonist spread this uplifting ideology to her other friends who are hurting as it concludes with all of them having a good time and moving on with life, making the most of it. Once we obtained this general understanding of what we wanted to accomplish, I began storyboarding by sketching out various scenes while including descriptions of specific camera shots we wanted to include along with specifying angles, the speed of the shots, and other techniques we thought would be important to include. For every frame I also included a general time stamp so we have the idea in advance of when we want each scene to occur. The first page of our storyboard looks like this:

What's Next?

Although this portion of the project was slightly difficult due to how time consuming it was since we wanted to make sure everything was up to our standards, it was fun having so much control over a hypothetical, new music group. We finished up this portion of the project by scheduling when we will be filming along with deciding on our locations, wardrobe, and other equipment we may need such as lighting and a camera. I am super happy with how everything has come along so far and I cannot wait to see our finished product by the end of this project!