Q3. HOW DO YOUR PRODUCTS ENGAGE WITH THE AUDIENCE AND HOW WOULD THEY BE DISTRIBUTED AS REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

By: Muhammad Faraz Malik

Branding is an operation that includes making a unique name and image for a product, service or company in the customers’ mind. This is used to establish a notable difference from other products that may be alike. Branding is mostly done through publicizing and if done correctly will create a coalition to the organisation through the consumer seeing a logo or name.

Artists and bands create branding for the soul purpose of being recognised by the consumer when equivocal with other artists and bands. By having a strong brand image it adds value to the product, builds trust and loyal customers and this may cause it to become the natural choice for the novice customer and creates a recognisable product. In the music industry a strong brand image will allow the artist/band to be seen in a positive way by the target audience, the audience will link specific characteristics to the artist/band and it will become what the artist/band is known for.

Similarly, my products also follow a similar theme and layout to create strong branding for my singer, Omar Mukhtar. We also wanted to create a strong sense of branding to shape our audience's expectations for our singer's work and to create a unique, distinctive bond which would go beyond the buying-selling relationship. While researching, my group and I realied that there are many features that go on to build a strong brand image.

These include: representation of the artist, type of songs, type of videos, house style, makeup, costume ,imagery, promotion, merchandise

All these work together to promote and present the identity and star image of the artist/band which goes to create a strong sense of branding that the audience can easily recognise and identify. We made sure that we focused greatly on these features during our production and post-production.

In all our products, the singer and the main actress can be identified and seen. We made use of close-ups, long shots and mid shots in our music video to create a sense of recognition. Moreover, in our digipack, the front cover contains an image of the main singer giving him the importance. Similarly, our website also includes full details of the singer, tour dates, album songs etc.

Audience Engagement

Concept: The message and concept behind our video were successfully and positively conveyed to the audience. We got immense feedback on what we incorporated into our video, The audience was extremely attracted to the social issue stressed upon in our video. Most of our audience members could relate this issue with their own life as it shines light on mainly women empowerment and how women suppress themselves due to male dominancy. The audience was extremely attracted to the social issue stressed upon in our video. Most of our audience members could relate to the hardships they face due to being a female in our society.

Camerawork: The audience loved the various angles and shots we included which made them adapt to the environment and feel the atmosphere of the music video. Most of them told us that they felt a part of the whole video. The various shot used during the ridding and the conference scene were the top favourites among the audience.

Performance: Our entire performance was praised, especially the role of the lead female. One or two people did comment on how the male lead was not singing with a lot of emotion and feel, but aside from that, all the other comments regarding the performance were positive which shows that the audience enjoyed it. We used close-ups of all the members and gave equal importance to them.The digipak was very vibrant and psychedelic which immediately grabbed the attention of the audience. All his helped promote the star image of our band which will help us sell their work.

Images: We used close-ups of all the members and gave equal importance to them.The digipak was very vibrant and psychedelic which immediately grabbed the attention of the audience. All this helped promote the star image of our band which will help us sell their work.

Colour palette: The use of similar colours in all of our products created a connection which made it easier for the audience to recognise our band's work

Layout: The layout of the digipak and website was constructed and developed in such a way that our whole concept and ideology could be easily identified on both of them. This helped create a stronger connection between our products which the audience easily engaged with.

Website: Our website has a navigation bar along with interactive sliders which the audience loved. All the different web pages made it easier for them to go to the page they wished to see. They also had news regarding what is current and what is happening. All our band's work was present in one place which helped the audience immensely. The subscription option let the audience subscribe to updates, whereas the social media links gave them the opportunity to follow the band on different platforms so they remain updated with their life. Along with that, new fans also had the option to go through the band's biography on the website. Furthermore, there was also a store section for the audience to buy official merchandise.

Digipak: Our digipak is very graphic, stimulating and vibrant which will help attract the audience. The patterns, designs and colours are present in all three products. In this too, we used dark colours with a little mix of green and yellow, which depicts happiness and hope, so it shows with every struggle and move you make there is something good, there's always a light of hope.All these colours bring harmony even though they are contrasting.Dark and dull colours were used on the cover to create an effect of mystery and which gives a meaning to the video, and the tracklist on the back gave them the opportunity to see what the digipak contains.

Our audience easily developed a sense of brand after viewing all of our products and applauded our work. They could easily identify the concept, genre and ideology behind.

Distribution

Our record label and distribution company are T-Series which will make the album available all across Pakistan as well as some foreign countries.

Hardcopies in Stores: Our digipak will be available in nearby music stores, record stores and gift shops such as Shahzad's Liberty, Shahzad's Fortress, and Haroon's. There will be special racks for the promotion of the album. Even though digital download is the preferred manner of listening to music, some fans still like collecting digipaks as a collectable item. Moreover, this is the most convenient way of distributing our product.

Digital Download: Nowadays, the easiest method of listening to music and buying an album is digitally. Therefore, our album will also be promoted on iTunes, YouTube, Dailymotion and Soundcloud.

Distribution

Our product will be distributed in many ways:

Social Sites: Almost everyone uses social media today which is why it is an effective way to promote our band's work. We will be promoting our album on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter (hashtags and tweets will be used to keep it trending). Our official app and website will also keep the audience updated with latest news, music and tour information.

Billboards, Posters, Screens and Banners: The whole country will have various billboards, posters, banners, and screens in public places for further promotion of the album.

TV Channels: Extremely popular and leading music channels will showcase our music video and songs, for example, ARY Musik, MTV, 8XM, and Aag TV. Our music video will also be shown after every three hours on leading news channels as the concept and idea of our video highlights the women empowerment and male suppression.

Distribution

Blogs: We will also reach out to several popular music blogs for promotion.

Radio: City FM 89, Suno Pakistan 89.4 are the two leading radio channels. We will also be promoting our band's song on these throughout the day.

Merchandise: Autographed digipaks, CDs, posters and shirts can be used to allure the audience and further promote sales.

Distribution

Launch party: We will also hold a launch party for the release of the album. Popular artists and music directors will be invited, as well as celebrities. Along with that, media reporters and paparazzi will be called to further promote the event and album.

Meet and greet: Several meet and greets will be held in shopping malls such as Jade Cafe, 'Coffee, Bean and Tea Leaf', JayBees, Emporium Mall, Packages Mall, Mall of Lahore where the fans can meet the band and have their merchandise or album signed.

Billboards, Posters, Screens and Banners: The whole country will have various billboards, posters, banners, and screens in public places for further promotion of the album.

Interviews: Our band will also go on different shows to promote the album through interviews.

Distribution

On Twitter, there’s enough good data out there to inform your social media promotion efforts and help you maximize the effectiveness of each and every tweet.
First, schedule your tweets at peak hours to get them in front of the most eyes. Second, you want to write tweets that encourage action (retweeting, purchasing, replying, etc.)
To promote our product and singer, we used twitter, promotion through twitter, create a seperate album page and post on our singer's page consistently.

Distribution

Twitter

To promote our brand we also used youtube and uploaded our music video there. So basically youtube was the first app where we uploaded our video, it was easier to promote our video then as we directly uploaded the video's link on our other social platforms to raise awareness.

Distribution

Facebook has become one of the top social media platforms these days and there are numerous advantages associated with it. Not only can people use it personally for connecting with friends and family, but it has also turned out to be a handy tool for promoting and advertising.  
So, our product was also promoted through the app of facebook. We attached the link of the video on youtube and posted on our newsfeed so everyone could see it and give in their reviews.

Distribution