B&W audio Publicity Machine (CIU212)

Now that B&W audio has started recording the B&W Funk Brothers EP, it's time to put some thought into how l can promote the EP which we are creating. This is interesting time with the new laws of social isolation due to COVID-19. All social events for bands are no longer available for the artist to promote their music live anymore.

For example:

• Festivals

• Pub gigs

• Celebration - e.g. weddings and birthdays.

• Outdoor events

This is just a basic list idea (above) on what avenues we used to have, but now have been put into lockdown. Consequently, we need to come up with new ideas on how we can promote ourselves during the COVID-19 isolation laws. What do we need for starts to grab people’s attention? Firstly, we need to get our artwork ideas sorted out for our Logo/Branding. Now as I’m talking about artwork, Phil just uploaded some of Samara’s artwork designs for us.

I like this logo because it looks like B&W audio blasting out of a speaker.

To the right is B&W Funk Bros Logo.

Well, it looks like we now have a couple of draft logo sketches to work with. We can use them both for logos and the artwork for the EP.

For a good market strategy to promote the EP, we can still use basic building blocks, but we might have to adapt it to the current environment. We have to think outside the square as this might be the new way of living for a while and therefore adapt the promotion plan for online exposure, as live promotion could now be dead for some time.

So how do we release the EP and what are the main steps to take?

Having a good publicity campaign will help expose us to a broader market. Right at this moment, we don’t have a website purely allocated for B&W audio. If we did, we could use it to run our online business. The website would control all of our publicity. For example, we would use the site for business, and the artist:

• Information on B&W audio

• What B&W Audio do as a recording studio.

• History and experience the co-founders have.

• Artist advertising

• Photos

• Information on their artist B&W Funk Brothers

• Video Clips

• Contact detail - etc

Multimedia awareness.

We would link and create a multimedia profile presence through sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media connection sites.

Video streaming.

I have to a couple of video accounts that we can use to stream our video’s though and

once the songs are mastered, I will use the B&W Funk Brother’s artwork as an EP cover on all the songs and create the video’s with iMovie. By keeping the artwork for each song, the same and change the song titles in the artwork, is really cheap way to get the songs out into the public domain quickly.

Radio and Internet radio.

There seems to be a big following for Funk music on the internet and radio. Here are some examples of local (Brisbane), Australian and International radio stations the support the Funk genre. Gauging by how many radio stations say that they play Funk music, indicates to me there is a niche audience that follows the funk genre through radio.

Local / Australian / Directories

www.radio-directory.me/country/soul/funk

Australian onlineradiobox.com/au/genre/funk

Now that B&W audio has started recording the B&W Funk Brothers EP, it's time to put some thought into how l can promote the EP which we are creating. This is an interesting time with the new laws of social isolation due to COVID-19. All social events for bands are no longer available for the artist to promote their music live anymore.

International / Directories

tunein.com/radio/Funk

https://www.radio.net/genre/funk

Marketing

All marketing will be done through the website for the EP.

In this 2018 sales chart don’t list funk music at all. I think they must categorise it under a couple of music genres. This makes it challenging on how we should market the songs we are going to create.

Outsourcing project – Coroda

I’m looking forward to being creative by using sound designing techniques to create the ‘sea sounds’ that are required, along with searching for free online samples as well.

Conclusion about the main project

When we are songwriting, we are going to be cautious that the songs don’t sound too funky, which is going to be hard to do. Funk genre as a main, does no longer exists anymore on the main genre sales marketing chart. But It still has a niche audience underground that is still following the Funk groove. It’s sad that the niche audience is no longer recognised as being profitable.

When l was running through the radio playlist of the local stations, funk never appeared in the genre playlist. My conclusion; Funk music is a sub-genre and is amalgamated into other main genre family trees. For example R&B genre.

References

Hutchison, T. (2012). Web marketing for the music business. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Watson, A. (2019, August 9). Music album consumption in the U.S. by genre 2018. Retrieved April 13, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/310746/share-music-album-sales-us-genre/