demographic
Project Runway
Publication Type:
Magazine ArticleSource:
Billboard, Volume 20, p.2/20 (2010)Call Number:
FebruaryURL:
http://www.billboard.comFull Text:
Music and fashion share an illustrious history together, it's relationship is important but the tricks of the trade remain mysterious. These segments seek out expert advice on how to make the crossover.
How to Get a Fragrance Licensing Deal: The most important thing for launching your own fragrance as an artist is to know your fan base, and have a strong demographic that you can hone in on when developing the scent. Value your brand equity, it's something you can't entrust to just anyone so make sure the fragrance house really understands your brand and your fan base. Lastly of course comes promotion, just because you are a successful artist doesn't mean your fragrance will succeed, you will have to put some marketing dollars into getting the name of your new fragrance out there for it to have a shot at success.
How to Grow a Brand: Strategy is as important when you are releasing a new product as it is when you are releasing a new album, so for Gwen Stefani starting her L.A.M.B. brand with apparel then slowly branching out to handbags, shoes and fragrance is was good way to achieve growth without overextending herself. It's also a good idea to remember that the integrity of your brand and products should be more important than growing the brand. As an artist it's of great importance to stay in creative control.
How to Launch Your Own Fashion Line: If as an artist you want to launch your own fashion line, it's pretty important to have a real interest in fashion itself, not just growing your brand. Don't necessarily follow trends, make clothes you like, if neon is big but you hate it, put out a line in rich jewel tones, or whatever really grabs you. People respond well to products they can't get just anywhere, don't try to start a fashion empire, but keep your clothes personal, and your items "limited-edition", it will make fans who do buy into your product line feel really special.
How to Get Your Music Played on The Runway: Musicians often work with designers in order to get outfitted for special events, and usually designers that agree to work with artists like the artist's music too, it's a great way to make connections and a win-win for both the artist and designer for the artist's music to be played at the designers fashion shows as well as for the designer's clothes to be work at artist's live music shows and other public appearances. Pitching relevant tracks is also important, be familiar with what genre of music a designer normally plays at their shows.
How to Get a Synch in a Fashion TV Show: Give options when you're submitting music for consideration for placement in a TV Show, include a track with and without vocals, often times instrumental tracks are used where there is dialogue going on. Getting to know independent music supervisors and music supervisors at networks is also a great foot in the door to having one of your songs placed. Watch shows you think your music could be placed in and follow the trends, that way you'll know what the networks want, and if they want your music!
By The Dashboard Light
Publication Type:
Magazine ArticleSource:
Billboard, Volume 16, p.11/16 (2009)Call Number:
NovemberURL:
http://www.billboard.comFull Text:
Today digital music services play a huge role in helping artists and labels determine who is looking for their music and where. “Artist Dashboards” are just one form of compiling stats about digital music service users in terms of content they are seeking. These statistics can be extremely helpful in assessing the market as a whole if the right things are monitored and the user base is large enough. Trending data like the number of streams on a song or video is not enough, in order to create market intelligence detailed data about fans needs to be collected—it’s important to be able to pin down what demographics you are dealing with. MySpace is a great way to collect that kind of data, as friends of Artists can be tracked and then sorted by information in their profiles that is required by all users: age, gender and location related info. YouTube is another great way to track the demographic of users who stream specific music related videos and also those users that click the iTunes and Amazon store links to buy songs. There are many gaps still remaining in the system, and the biggest hole seems to be in iTunes. Apart from tracks sold Apple shares little information with labels. Also for digital streaming services that link to iTunes there remain no tallies because Apple also shares little to no information with these services. This is giving other digital music services a chance to compete and provide artists and labels with useful data in order to drive sales.
