Marketing your band

In this term, we have been studying media. During this time, we have created a band as our ‘product’. My band has been targeted at teenagers and young adults. The image I aimed create for my band, was a ‘bad-boy’ or ‘gangster’ image. The name I have given to my band was ‘Bad Behaviour’, this portrays the image given, – that they behave badly, bringing across a gangster similarity. Their profile also puts across their image, because of their; age, where they grew up, their style, and the way they speak (street talk). The words which detonate their band name, such as trouble, and sexy, also depict their ‘bad – boy’, ‘gangster’ image.

Having decided on an image, and created a ‘product’, I took steps to create and gain publicity for my band. To start off I created a leaflet, advertising a gig where the band would be performing, including where and when it would be. I made my leaflet colourful, so that it stood out to passers by, our second step was to gain publicity for the band. To do this, I thought of a stunt for my band, I decided to have them pull up outside the gates of Walton Prison in Liverpool, and perform some of their tracks.

Later, we wrote some newspaper reports publicising the facts of the incident, which was all good free publicity. We created reviews, commenting on their new single that they were bringing out, which would also create publicity, as it would be placed in a popular teen magazine such as ‘smash hits’, so this might tempt people to go out and buy their debut single. Our final publicity stunt was to get our band on a local radio station. We worked in groups and pretended tointerviewour band. This would gain publicity as well, because listeners to that radio station would hear about the band and theirmusic, using recommendations from the radio dj, and from the image the band put across from their first, to last publicity stunts, which may get the band their first fans.

My band has recorded their debut single, my review reflects this. The review reinforces the image of my band because it refers to bands that play the similar music, who also have influenced my band. This is where their influences originally grew from. The image that my band puts across is a ‘bad – boy’ image which their influential bands, like So Solid crew, and Blazin’ Squad also have.

After creating and marketing my band, I am aware that famous bands don’t just appear with their fame andmoney, they have to earn it. They take careful steps in order to ensure that they are a success. A lot ofhard workis needed in order to complete these steps. It is very important to work towards a specific target audience, because peoples taste in music differs as they get older. This means that you would need to include ranges of different types of music in your single, which would be incredibly difficult to achieve music that a majority of people all like.