Music Marketing Blog Post #1

 The first thing one needs to create good marketing strategies is to create a clear idea of what is being marketed. In our case, for the music marketing project, we had to all have the same visualization of the singer. First, to know who the singer was, we started listening several times to the song “Royals” and each group teammate started visualizing some video clip ideas that this song would be related to its beat and lyrics. After, we decided to continue talking about the main things that characterize a singer by always connecting the relation with her audience and the given song. After we had a clear view of the singer, we also had to have a plan for the video clip to know what we were marketing, so we did a storyboard of it. Finally, we decided that we were ready to start creating our marketing plan. 

We researched 2 different companies and 2 artists, and they talked about their marketing strategies, audience connection, and distribution practices. This information helped us give us ideas of what strategies could be applied to our singers and which ones would benefit us, considering that these practices work differently for different artists depending on their purpose. Each member started writing their ideas on their papers and at the end we all shared them to have a wider knowledge and understanding. We then considered choosing the best ones for our artist and started creating our presentation on Canva. We had to keep in mind that the overall view of the presentation had to match the characteristics of the artist, so we started choosing a template to not lose track. We then added the titles of the most important things on each slide to be more organized, while talking about the overview of distribution trends, target audience, genre marketing, the brand identity, the steps of our campaign, the music video link with the explanation of how it well promotes our artist, album covers, her social media, website, and others. After having everything well distributed, we started to choose slides where we had more knowledge and added information that we discussed before. We created her “fake” social media accounts, website, album covers, and everything that needs more artwork so that we can add them to the slide. 

It sounds easier than it was, but we also faced many challenges. We were 4 in a group, and we all had amazing ideas, but we had a tough time deciding which ones were better, agreeing with some peers, or even saying “no” to those ideas that did not fit in with the artist. I would recommend always considering ideas but making sure to always advance and never stay stuck on one single point. Which leads me to my next challenge. Time. As we loved discussing the best things that would match the song and artist, we limited our time to adding accurate information and overthinking it all. Yet, we got to get all the information necessary to add to the presentation and it was a significant help to think about and analyze how she became famous and the past research of other celebrities. Listing all the ideas and even graphing them helped the other peers understand the point shared because sometimes it was easier to write it on paper as choosing the right words to explain was also a challenge. Our next step is now to learn all the information and perfectly understand each slide so that our presentation is a 10/10.  

Here are some pictures of our brainstorming so that we have a better idea of how the process went and you are encouraged to create something similar. 

Representation Analysis Blog Post

The TV show Gentefied is a big illustration of Mexican Americans struggling for the American dream as they show how they fight together to accomplish their goals and be successful. The symbol of “Mama Fina’s Taco” on the door of the restaurant represents the Hispanic community because of the use of Spanish words in Los Angeles and the combination of yellow, red, and blue colors which are bright colors that highlight the culture of Mexico or Latinos. When the restaurant’s owner enters the place, their costumes differentiate from the workers as they are wearing simple clothes with a red apron and the owners wear formal suits which highlights some kind of irony as they are not in a much elegant restaurant but the opposite. In this scene, the owner asks for his paycheck, but they are not ready, which shows how they struggle to keep up the money. In addition, the establishing shot of the view from the street outside the restaurant with the tall Los Angeles buildings in the back is used to represent the difference between a rich place and those who live in the same state but are not as rich. Also, the modern colors with the light focusing more on that part of the buildings are contrasted with the dark lighting of the red colors of the city's short stores. This represents the fight for the American dream being hard and dark but having a good outcome.  

In comparison, the film MacFarland is an inspiring representation of overcoming adversity with triumphs and challenges of young athletes to find their paths to success. They use a representation of breaking stereotypes when they say that they have 6 in the team and need 7 but not Danny Diaz because they think that because of his weight he will slow them down but with demanding work and the Coach’s help, he shows them wrong, surprising them. This highlights the fact that being fat does not stop one from achieving successful goals. The film contrasts the themes of economic and social differences by showing how the cross-country runners in a Latino community in McFarland, California differentiate from the other teams with more bright colors in clean uniforms like white with green lines to show the wealthy and private schools where they come from compared to their uniforms of grey with red colors that also highlight the anger but braveness that they have in themselves and leave it on the race. A representation of equality is also shown as the team’s coach is the opposite of their physical characteristics of darkish color and dark brown hair as he has fair hair, and he is white. Equality is seen because they disregard their jokes about their differences, they still fight together in each race and outside of the track.  

Here are some of McFarland's posters from when it was published on February 20, 2015

Sometimes no matter if it is a film or a TV show they can have both positive and negative effects on their audience. Gentefied and McFarland both show different perspectives of what could be considered the “American Dream”. They can see it as a place where one must work a lot more than in their original countries and even like this, things are still economically hard. But they can also see America as a country of new opportunities and risks to take that could lead one somewhere far and amazing. One can also have another point of view about the Hispanic people being shown in the TV show as they are taken out from their cultural spots like adding LGBTQ+ and other races that can somehow be unrespectful for them.

Clip of McFarland

In contrast, the film does well in demonstrating the respect the runners have for their families and cultures as they work hard on the farms with a humble mind. This typical representation of Latin families does well in teaching to keep humbleness, respect toward others, and perseverance toward hard work because this can have beautiful effects on a community and themselves. Although it is needed to highlight their possible views of these subjects, it is important to state that times are changing and so should people’s thoughts so that there is inclusivity, respect, and equality. Viewers should consider this so that they can rise above adversity and not let these media define them completely or create a strategy for media progression to specifically understand the possible effects of their production on their audience so that they can wisely choose the best option. 

Gentefied:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mFgMyqHZCE

McFarland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-VAOlHGE6Q
Above there are the links for the official trailers of Gentefied and McFarland.