Music Promo Introduction

Music Promo Introduction

                                       

What is a Music Promo?

      A music promo can be a promotional video to advertise a band, group or solo artist. This could be done by using different methods of advertisement. Product placement is a likely one and is often subtly done in rock/band instrumentation videos to advertise musical equipment, such as a Marshall amplifier or Epiphone guitar. These are usually included as musicians have endorsement deals with the manufacturers of the product meaning that equipment is free of cost for them if the amplifier or guitar, etc., is shown in their music promo.
     However this is not the only form of advertisement for a promotional music video and could also be to promote the artist performing in it. This is one possibility to publicise a new single, upcoming album or even just to give an artist more exposure. In this way the music video can be seen as a catalogue of reference; viewers can use the video to see what members are part of the group/band.

     Another way of looking at a music promo video is as a short film. This can be seen as an artist expressing themselves in the form of a short story. One example of this is “Handwritten” by the Gaslight Anthem. This video shows the lifetime of a record being created, produced and then being passed on from person to person.
Finally, the new era of technology allowing promotional music videos to be posted on online for fans and audiences to see is essentially a modern theatre. When music was originally done to be performed to an audience it was carried out in a theatre for people to watch and artists to gain exposure. YouTube may be viewed as the modern day replacement for this in that when an artist has music to be listened to by others they can simply post a video online.

What is the Purpose of a Music Video?

Where can music videos be viewed and how has digital technology impacted on the consumption of them?

             Music videos can be viewed across several platforms and devices, as well as the worldwide web. YouTube is a likely candidate for the most popular place to watch a video as the site is widely accessible and it is free to upload a video. In this way the site is advantageous, however it does have downsides. Advertisement is one of these as videos often have short adverts played prior to the actual music promo or in pop-up form. However, the same can be said for television; another form of watching a music video. Channels like MTV and others too often play music promos for everyday viewers. In spite of this, watching a specific video on this device is near impossible as only chart videos and promos in a playlist are played meaning that the audience has to wait for their desired video to be broadcast. In addition, advertisement is another disadvantage of watching a music channel. Television adverts are played in between sections of the playlist and can last up to around 5 minutes; considerably longer than on a website such as YouTube. Television does have upsides though of which are; the service is free and the viewer does not have to keep selecting a new video to be played. Unlike the Internet though, channels often have a closing time where no music is played or teleshopping is broadcast, etc.

Due to the proliferation of technological devices such as smartphones and tablets it is now possible to watch a music video almost anywhere. Users can watch YouTube on their phones or other sites like Vimeo when they are travelling on the bus in the morning or simply sat at home. 3G, and now 4G, allows a smart device user to do this, however furthermore,  there is an increasing number of public areas and services, i.e., McDonalds, that offer free Wifi to customers (and non-customers). This enables people to load the video quickly and in good quality which is definitely a factor in reeling people to watch more videos whilst on the go.

Finally, a candidate, in conjunction with smartphones, is music stores such as iTunes. These services allow smartphone, tablet and Mac/PC users to purchase the music promo from their device and save it locally. This means that the viewer does not need to stream or download the video when they would like to watch it. It also allows the user to purchase it on one device and then view/download it on others free of charge thus obviously being a benefit to buying the video rather than watching it online.

As mentioned above, the Internet plays a large role in allowing someone to view a music promo. However it does not only do this but search engines such as Google can tailor the advertisements viewed next to search results to ones that relate to your music taste. This ensures that a larger audience is reached by the production company/artist who are releasing the video. Furthermore social media is another method used by artists to communicate and connect with their fans. Facebook or Twitter, for example, allow users to post links to videos and even play the video straight from a specific post. Both sites have an additional feature called ‘hash-tagging’. This lets the artist and fans use a word to talk about the video by creating a sub-link. Users of the site can then see all posts about the music promo (or anything) and share or like each one thus creating more talk and promotion for the video.