Artist and Branding Research

  1 Taylor Swift:

One of pop's biggest stars of all time amassing 21 billion views on YouTube alone. Reinventing Herself for her album releases has been a staple for Taylor as she has done so for every album release including deleting all her Instagram posts to show herself as "unapologetic, ruthless and inspiring"

2 The 1975: 

They brand themselves with a rectangle surrounding their names "proving that keeping things clear and concise can work wonders. The shape has become the bands brand with fans tattooing it on themselves and the band using the shape for their merchandise.

3 Paramore:

reinvented their brand image from pop-kids style to a glossy 80's style group, " This new branding extended throughout their videos and merch, with the band also donning bright and bold jumpsuits in press imagery." Connecting colourful imagery to a serious album topic about mental health.

4 Slowthai

He engaged listeners by placing billboards around the UK showing facts about problems in the society such as the gender pay gap, homelessness, etc. and told fans to send him photos of the billboards this was a great way to interact with fans and to make people aware of the society around them.

5 Christine and Queens

They decided to change their stage names kind of so Christine became Chris as a sort of gender fluidity. Chris was teased with an album cover of Christine having the 'tine' crossed out to read Chris. They encourage a message of being yourself no matter what.

6 Ariana Grande

Ariana teased fans with her new album of no tears left to cry with a couple photos of her upside-down merch also came out with upside-down photos of her. Just by flipping the image, it made for an easy but successful campaign. she also adopted her own filter for the branding campaign which engaged the audience even more.

7 Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran took a break from singing in 2015 because he wanted to travel and have some time off, almost a year after he posted a blue square leaving fans wondering what it meant. After a full month, he finally posted again announcing the album. Having such a simple yet eye-catching design made it one of his most successful albums

When MTV was first introduced it was a way for artists to get their music videos to their audience the videos allowed them to convey the meaning of the song in a different way. Audiences could be exposed to a whole new era of music as they were able to get an even wider variety of music than they would hear on the radio. In the last few years as technology has evolved, it has become easier for the artist to get their music through services such as YouTube where they can share their music videos and people can view it whenever they want. Also, services such as these recommend other videos from the artist making it easier for people who view one music video from them to view another.

Music videos are easier to be shared through social media platforms. 'The shareable nature of the internet is what artist these days rely on'. Today anything can go viral in a matter of hours the internet is so connected that a viral clip can see millions of people in one day something that wasn't possible a few years ago. Justin Bieber's music video for "As Long As You Love Me" shows him pursuing a girl but the girls father beats him he performed with bruises on his face and sings to the song this was the first time Bieber had made a music video like this.

DRAKE

Drake is a viral rapper and singer who has been releasing music since 2006 with his debut mixtape "room for improvement" although he didn't gain immediate success from that his first major success was at the release of his album in 2010 that reached number one on the US billboard 200. Since then he has become the person with the most top 100 hits in history and he released a number of albums in his 14 years in the music industry.

These are a few of his album covers from some of his albums they all have him as the center of the attention meaning that his main branding point might be himself and from the first cover to the third there is a significant trend of growth he physically looks older in each one which can show how he is growing with each album.

He has 76.7 million followers on his Instagram and 39.3 million on twitter which is a huge fan base which can easily be shown as branding, in every post he is dressed up in expensive clothes or showing his insanely expensive possessions he is showing himself as a cool, rich, well dressed artist and this is very good for his image because people look up to him and essentially want what he has which makes people pay attention. His target audience would obviously people who live the rap culture because he dresses the way that they wish they could and he lives such a lavish life but also he appeals to multiple different groups of people as he has dabbled into R&B music which shows his diversity.

I think drake serves as a great example of how to actively keep your audience engaged in what you are doing and to keep active just like he does constantly posting and doing podcasts etc. for me personally I will try portray Demi Lovato as a strong character who has grown over time on my digipack and show how she has overcome many things