Product Placement

 I think the most effective way to get my music video across to my audience would be virally, through a YouTube channel.  I found out from researching on BBC news that 15-24 year olds are more likely to watch a music video on YouTube than a dedicated music channel(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7967908.stm) I therefore need to consider this when deciding where to display my music video, as my target audience are both genders from the age of 15-25. To get my music promo watched I therefore need to ensure there are dedicated fans, an easy way of doing this would be for the artist to make a personal Youtube account and upload music promos from there first. This would also allow the artist to bond with fans, as my artist could upload videos answering fan-mail or keeping fans up to date with what they have planned. I think this would be an effective way of building a stronger relationship with fans, and allowing your target audience to see you in a more personal light, which would make it easier for your audience to connect with you. All of this would make an artist a lot more likeable, as audiences really appreciate having their attention. As well as having a positive effect on the fans, it would also allow the artist to promote themselves by keeping their audience up to date with new single or album releases as well as tour dates. As well as a Youtube channel using other social media sites, such as twitter would also have a great effect on widening the artist’s audience as the artist could include a link to a new single through a tweet, which would then hopefully be retweeted by many others helping it become more well known. I think it’s important that my artist was connected with almost all the social networking sites, as this would allow them to have as wide an audience as possible. It’s also very important that these website are kept up to date with all new releases, including features such as countdowns until album releases or videos would be particularly effective to create more of a hype over the artist.

I found out from my questionnaire that my target audience is both male and females that fall into the Indie genre of music, therefore I’ve thought about what music channel my Indie artist would feature on to allow them to be seen by the right target audience. However, it is disappointing that there is not a music channel dedicated to Indie/Alternative music. So I have decided the best possible music channel for my artist to feature on would be MTV Rock, as this channel features more indie and alternative music than rock, so it will get across to my target audience. As my target audience are between the ages of 15-25 I have carefully thought about the best time for them to be watching a music channel, so that I know when my music promo is most likely to be seen. I have asked many people around sixth form who are between the ages of 16-19 when they watch music channels most, which gives me a rough idea of what time people prefer even though I did not manage to ask all of my target audience. The outcome was between the hours of 4-8 which work well with young adults as those are the times that they have either just finished education or even work. This would therefore be the best time for my artist to attract people from the age of 15-25 through music channels such as MTV Rock.

I need to ensure my DigiPak is also featured in the right place to get across to my target market, I think the most effective way of doing this would be to allow the artists album to be downloaded through ITunes, as this is one of the most common ways young adults buy their music and is therefore essential. It would also be easy to advertise this when the album is first released by having the artist feature a link on their social media sites, allowing their audience to click the link and be shown the new Digipak on iTunes, ready for them to purchase. It would be sensible to also have other ways of downloading online, for example through websites such as Amazon and Ebay as this would allow people to buy the album while shopping for clothes and other things.  As well as downloading the artists album, It’s important to remember many people still purchase things in shops for instance specialist music shops such as HMV. There has also been an increased number of album purchases from food stores such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s so selling my DigiPak there would also be effective.

When it comes to advertising the DigiPak, I need to consider the best place to put my posters. For this, I need to take into account the genre of music, and think about where my audience would find it most effective. One of the best places for me to advertise my DigiPak would be in an Indie or Alternative music magazine, such as NME. I think this would help sell my DigiPak, as music magazines are still very popular today especially with people that fall into my target audience. As well as this another effective place to advertise would be on the radio and on trains, as young adults tend to travel a lot and having adverts on both these things ensures my artist will get across to a wider audience.  Radio is still a popular way to listen to music for young adults, so it’s important that I keep this in mind when trying to promote my artist. Radio stations that best fit the genre of my artist would probably be stations such as Radio 1 as they include a lot of new artists as well as alternative genres.