Music Marketing Blog Post #1

My Team's Marketing Campaign

     This project began with receiving our assigned genre, which was pop, and chose our song (Send My Love (To Your New Lover) by Adele). With that, as a group, we were put to research about this genre and learn a lot about it. We created case studies, which are very crucial for our campaign and learned about companies and artists surrounding pop. This research I find immensely important as it gives us a stronger and better understanding of the pop genre, something we need when building our campaign. The artists chosen (Adele, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles) are very successful. The strategies that they use or have been using show great results and inspire us on our own campaign project. Here I will include a part of our research done. 

     Now that we knew more about the genre we decided to start brainstorming the look of our brand, with a bigger focus on the music video. We knew that our song held a feminine look. After kind of analyzing the song we knew it was about a guy who could not commit or try to be in a relationship, someone immature. We agreed, for now, on having our music video be a mix of promo and storytelling as a way to really grasp people's attention. We want to show the acts of a man who isn't mature and how that ruined a relationship. I do believe this was one of our biggest challenges. At first, it was just hard to think of something that made sense with the song and correlated with our brand. Then it was challenging just choosing one idea and seeing what flowed better. We were able to create a good storyboard to help us sort these ideas out.

     The final part involves creating a presentation. However, this requires a lot of careful planning, which we are still in the process of doing. We face many challenges, especially when it comes to marketing and distribution that will work with our brand and lead to success. One of the critical areas we had to focus on was our brand, which we all had to agree on. We wanted our brand to be unique and targeted towards our specific audience. The presentation is the most challenging part of this project since we, as a group, have to come up with specific details that will resonate with our audience. The strategies we use in our campaign must be well thought out and make sense while tying everything together. We have to ensure that our presentation is enough to get our audiences' attention. While we are still thinking about more specific marketing like with products and collaborations, we have a good idea of our campaign as a whole, and I hope that in our presentation we can put that all together.

Representation in Coco

   

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The 2017 Disney movie Coco (cover shown in image 1) does a great job of representing various important aspects seen everywhere. It represents Mexican culture, and it also has representation of genders and stereotypes. This film is based around "Los Días de los Muertos", or "Day of the Dead", a very important Mexican tradition in which people get to honor those who have passed. Throughout this movie, the audience can learn about Mexican culture. The creators of Coco most definitely took the time to research and fully understand this tradition and with that, they were able to break the norms made by society. This movie broke gender roles, and Mexican stereotypes, and promoted diversity. (The main character, Miguel Rivera, and his grandma, Mama Coco, can be seen in image 2 in front of the ofrenda or alter made for their relatives.)

Representing different cultures in media is immensely important. This is because media can affect how people perceive things, and this can easily impact how cultures are perceived as well. Hollywood has often depicted people of color with horrible stereotypes. Stereotypes like that have tormented Hispanic culture, but Coco was a big change in that. Coco accurately represents how meaningful Mexican culture is. The storyline of this film helps very well in understanding the purpose and meaning behind the Day of the Dead. This film showed how media is, finally, becoming more diverse. Coco was perfect for promoting the diversity needed since it can educate individuals.

Although it was meant to represent people of color who are proud of their culture there were some criticisms. The film did not show how Mexican people can be of different complexions, lighter complexions. Coco's characters were of slightly darker complexion. This was something that caught people off guard but it is still very important to appreciate that this movie was a step in the correct direction of diversity.

A very important aspect of this movie was breaking traditional gender roles. Hispanic cultures are usually known for having very male-led families with the women just doing housework. Miguel's great-great-grandmother (Mamá Imelda: shown in image 3) took matters into her own hands when creating her own business as a single mother. This is very uncommon to see. But this movie took the perfect opportunity to empower women, especially women of color. This shows that women can be independent and strong even if their culture says the opposite. Even after Mama Imelda passed away, the Rivera family stayed a very successful matriarchy.

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Ultimately, representation is extremely crucial in the media world. Coco was a wonderful example of how cultures can be represented in the right way. This film represents the Mexican culture while breaking gender roles and also keeping it educational and entertaining. The entertainment part, which was done by the addition of music (an example of some of the music used is below), tied the film up really well and gave it that light-hearted aspect in needed. The success of this film shows a step in the right direction in having more diverse and correct representations of people of color in media.

Genre Research Activity

The comedy genre aims to make people laugh and provide entertainment. It relies on humorous content to achieve this goal. Two great directors in this genre are Wes Anderson and the Farrelly Brothers, known for their comedy films. 

Over time, comedy has evolved and created several new subgenres, each with its own target audience. Children's comedy is geared towards kids between the ages of 5 and 12, while parody comedy appeals to a younger audience of 15-30-year-old men. Romantic comedy, on the other hand, is a genre that is more popular among women aged 13-24 due to their connection with romance. A great example of these subgenres would be Freaky Friday (2003) a children's comedy. This is a classic comedy movie geared toward a younger audience. Scary Movie (2000) is on the complete other side, meaning it is for a completely different age group. A very popular romance comedy is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), this movie was a hit for the target audience and still is often talked about to this day. 

We never stop and think about what truly makes comedy, comedy. In the film industry, comedy usually includes a very positive outlook, everything in this film would be light-hearted to contribute to the genre. Another key content in comedy is personal experiences. Most situations in this genre come from familiar and personal events, having the audience make humorous connections with said situation. Happy endings are also frequently found in comedy. The point is not to disappoint the audience with a controversial ending, it is better to have the audience enjoy the ending as much as the whole film. Having simple and understandable plots, for all ages and cultures, is a very important characteristic of a comedy. Lastly, this genre is all about clever writing at a fast pace. The humor is often sarcastic which is enjoyed by the audience, as well as the fast pace. Keeping the audience engaged is just what the fast pacing does, this genre is all about having the viewers enjoy the film and not get bored of it.

Production is a really big part of this genre. This is because the choices in the production can make or break the film. Timing is a key technique for comedy. It is essential for the delivery of punch lines and is responsible for the audience's reaction. Another technique is messing with people's expectations. Comedy is meant to catch people off guard and have unexpected turns of events, this captivates these individuals much more. 

Comedy is the ideal genre for marketing campaigns. The marking of this genre is in complete correlation with the genre itself. Comedy movies can be marketed in such humorous and silly ways, just as the movies are, meaning those influenced by the marketing will get what they expected and signed up for. An example of marketing in a comedy movie is Deadpool (2016). The advertising for the movie perfectly conveyed the genre. One of the marketing decisions was the many billboards around towns and cities, these billboards ranged from funny quotes or a ninja figure doing odd poses. A very memorable marketing technique was for The Simpsons Movie (2007). This movie transformed a famous convenience store, 7-Eleven, into Kwik-E-Marts (a convenience store in the Simpsons world). They were able to advertise their movie uniquely, by using famous convenience stores. Some truly believe that this marketing was funnier, more creative, and better than the actual movie.

Film Sample #1: Good Boys (2019)

Good Boys is a film about three sixth-grade boys who are Max, Lucas, and Thor. This is a 2019 film directed by Gene Stupnitsky, and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. In this film We see the three characters going on the journey of wanting to learn how to kiss, this is to impress their crushes at a party. This film is all about exploring the complications and challenges of growing up throughout middle school and managing friendships. The comedy or humor is the most important element in the film as it can engage and entertain the viewers. This also helps in being able to tackle those uncomfortable but relatable moments and experiences growing up. The humor helps balance out the more serious parts of the movie with some comedy that fits in with the overall context. Overall, this film can use comedy to make it have a less serious tone. It does involve some issues a lot of people go through and this comedy helps viewers relate and be able to see they’re not alone. This genre gives a lighter mood, which is very necessary with the topic talked about throughout the film.

Film Sample #2: Clueless (1995)

Clueless is a film about the life of Cher Horowitz. She is a high schooler known for being very rich and beautiful, and of course popular. It is known that Cher has just about everything she wants, but the only thing she can't seem to find is love. She and those around her are very self-centered but this film shows her progress. Her evolution of learning empathy and how to not be selfish. This comedy is very classic and is full of many humorous moments. The most important thing about this film is that they use comedy to convey the lesson in the film. The message in this film is all about evolving and having new morals in life. Cher was able to acknowledge her selfishness and was capable of fixing it as well. With the humor in the film, we can relate to the characters and their personal moments. The film's humor is what makes it such an enjoyable film to this day. 

Sound Project

For this sound project, we had to convey and tell a story using sound effects and techniques. We could use sound effect databases and also sounds made by random objects or a foley. All of this had to be done in 1 to 2 minutes.

To develop this project, me and my partner first chose and made a story. We decided to do our project on Halloween. First, we began by making an outline for our planning to be more organized. The outline is linked here Outline. We then went on to find sounds on the sound databases we were given. We started downloading the sounds we needed to make our story, sounds that fit and made sense all together. These sounds we ended up stacking up to make a natural soundscape. Here is a link showing some of our downloaded sounds being put together Sound1, Sound2, Sound3. 

We put a lot of thought into it while selecting the sounds we needed. I believe we really put sounds that one would often forget about. A lot of background or environmental sounds are forgotten and we tried our best to include as much as we could remember. It was still quite tough to capture all the sounds. Our story needed a lot of background sounds especially on such a loud event like Halloween. I thought this project was very fun, especially in the developing process. Thinking of what sounds to use and how to implement them into the project was tricky but enjoyable. Here is the link for the project Final Project.

Camera Shots & Angles

 For this camera shots and angles activity we were asked to create a story while using different shot types for us to convey the idea and the corresponding tone. We were able to use inanimate objects to make a visual story all within 15 shots that had to have certain shots or angles.

For this partner project, my partner and I decided to approach this activity with a common storyline in school, the topic of exclusivity. Our objects were makers, glue sticks, and chapsticks. To create this story, we wanted to go more into the characters' feelings by drawing different emotions on the inanimate objects. 

I believe that in this activity I did well on the objects and the storyline. I think I could have improved the labeling of the shots since I did have some incorrect labeling due to confusion. I do think with more practice, especially on the shots, an activity like this could become an easier task in the future.