Play-Back and Jam

The music marketing project that Jonathan Giat and I created was for a band by the name of Play-Back and Jam. The project entailed creating a music video for the band, a plan to distribute and market the band's music, and a vocal/visual presentation in front of our class.

The first step in such a project revolved around doing research to understand what types of music are associated with certain target audiences. In doing so we created a chart detailing a production company and two species bands that are signed to the label. The production company was Fueled By Ramen. We learned that it signed multiple artists along the lines of Paramore, fun., Fall Out Boy, and many more. The two we focused on were Twenty One Pilots(TOP)and Panic! At the Disco.

I focused specifically on TOP and their social media as for their target audience, 18-29 years old, it was dominant in everything that I saw. This meant that looking at their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages I was able to come to understand what was common and necessary for an upcoming and similar band. I learned that on all their pages there was something different and this was brought into our project too. Along with this, I learned that it was necessary to be active and have fan interaction to establish a brand.

The most important thing I learned was retention. Through research of various websites and how long people spend every day on social media, it was vital to incorporate it. According to Statista, Social media sites average 135 minutes daily as of 2017, seen here. 

Taking all of this information that we both gathered, we started working on our band ourselves.

This stemmed to the creation of everything that could be done to market the band and what was needed creatively such as the music video and a logo.

The first part stems from our social media pages and any tours, merchandise, or anything else necessary. The social media sites that we created were Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and a hub website under the Weebly domain. Each of these followed TOP and had original content on each. Twitter was focused on fan interaction with Q&As. Instagram was for behind the scenes and more quirky content. Facebook was for serious and mostly info regarding upcoming dates, sales, and music. The website served as the hub and linked everything and allowed for purchases of music, merchandise, and tour tickets.

The second part revolved around creating the music video and the persona and look of the band. This led to a hand-drawn design, seen here. The letters are P, B, and J which lead to our name Play-Back and Jam. An easy and memorable name that we came up to abbreviate the band was PB&J and this also followed up in TOP’s footsteps with the easily recognizable icon and the name. This icon is present in the music video as well which is the introduction of the band as a whole and launches all of their marketing that is seen on all social media sites and the website.

As a whole what I learned from this project and how it will impact my portfolio project in the future is quite simple. It is heavily evident to me that before doing anything and making any major decisions that there must be a heavy basis of research that allow us to have motive and understanding behind a decision. If we want to create a specific shot or have a heavy theme present throughout then it must be evident that it goes towards the genre or target audience we are using for the film opening.