Research of VOK and X Ambassadors music campaigns

 

In today's lesson we researched professional musical campaigns to get a better understanding of its content - promotion of artists by the sponsoring companies through elements of website, albums/singles and music videos. I was given a dream-pop/indie-electronica band VOK, formed in 2013 in Reykjavik, Iceland. The main convention shared between the three elements of their music campaign is presentation of the band as distanced and creative individuals. The website and the album covers share surrealistic designs. The music videos have dark and moody mise-en-scenes with colourful and low key lightings, picturesque locations and peculiar costumes.

Their appearance raises interest in the audience as it has high expectations from the musicians of extraordinary outlooks, based on the earlier figures with expressive styles such as David Bowie and Prince. The design for Vok's products reflects their slow paced electronic music, therefore straight a way attracting attention of the target audience - the fans of the genre. 

Designs of the posters and music videos differ from one another, but keep the same artistic and gloomy atmosphere. This is to upkeep the audience's interest by variation.

I believe that this is an example of a successful campaign. Being a relatively young group, based in a Nordic country in which the size of music industry is limited, they grew a lot. The last achievement was invitation to join the international label Network Music Group. They have three professionally made music videos and four albums with fifteen songs. I would say it is a good pace for a recently formed band and that their campaign is doing well. 

The second band, X Ambassadors, was researched by Aidan Murphy, the second member of our group. Here is the presentation he created about them:

X ambassadors from George Papazov

Music

I don't really have a favourite music genre and enjoy any composition if it affects my emotions. I think that there are artists in all musical areas who reached the highest levels of quality in their work, so it doesn't really matter for me in what style they write. Some of my favourite bands and artists include Kasabian, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jil, Moby, Alt-J and Gessafelstein. They all have some sense of purpose to their works, wether it is an obvious message to the audience (e.g. Another Brick In The Wall) or a way they express their thoughts and feelings through the sound (e.g. Viol).

Pink Floyd 1960s



I also like the music videos of these artists, especially those of Alt-J and Jil who asked for help from amateur, independent filmmakers and ended up with amazing results. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of these groups live, only prototypes of them made of admiring musicians. I own their albums online, but didn't purchase any physical, hardware copies of their songs, as do many fans who buy discs and record readers. 

The first Jil's music video was directed by Anton Tammi, an aspiring filmmaker 

All of these performers are world famous and have websites with all the information about themselves. All the sites are creatively designed and turn the audience's focus to the music rather than to the artists themselves. Humility is one of the things I like and respect the most about these songwriters, while many celebrities try to stay in the centre of attention these individuals present their work first. 

Alt-J's website doesn't have much information on the band itself

A2 Media Studies

This year the course of media studies will be on the music industry. We will create a music promoting campaign, design a website and shoot a music video. Like the last year, we will record our progress on Blogger.

The last year I learned the importance of time management in keeping a blog. If I wrote one too early I couldn't cover all the content discussed in the class later. If I started it too late I risked missing the deadline.

I made videos for some of the last year blogs and will carry on doing it this year. However, I didn't use every opportunity to film one, so this year I will make as many of the video reports as possible.

My main goal for the next year is to create a high quality music video. I will also aim to make an impressive website and campaign for our chosen music product. The blogs will be started on the day they are set, developed through the week as we will cover more content in class.