Proving Brand Image Matters: Music Artists

It’s a month today when I wrote the last Proving Brand Image Matters article, and in that article I discussed why brand image was important and why it matters on small things, such as eBay.

Today I would like to move onto why brand image may not matter too much. As you have probably guessed by looking at the title, I will be looking at music artists.

Why Music Artists?

Well, music artists are one of those brands which people don’t think about as being a brand. They are people, single, or a collection of people who make music (obviously) and then sell their music and their image to people around the world. Therefore they are a product, a service which people will buy; a brand has been attached to them.

So Why Doesn’t Brand Matter for Artists?

It does matter, but for starters I would like to explain why it isn’t as important, or doesn’t seem as important. Music is one of those products that we buy because we like it, it doesn’t really affect us if they look like weirdoes (Lady Gaga), eat birds heads (Ozzy Osbourne) or take drugs (quite a few of them). We don’t let that affect our liking of the music, so we still buy it.

Of course different artists will dress differently, act differently and do different types of music to make a brand around them, but apart from the type of music, not much else affects people’s opinions of music.

How Does An Artists Brand Affect Its Popularity?

I have just said why their brand doesn’t affect their popularity too much, but obviously it does in some ways. For me, I will listen to whatever I like to listen to, but for some people the people behind the band are just as important and that means you have to make a brand which people will like. For example, bands like Rise Against whose members are very into stopping animal cruelty and such. I’m sure most of their fans wouldn’t really care if they were like that or not, but in some ways this is also a USP which could make more people like them, as they stand for something.

Another example of how brand image matters in music are the Jonas Brothers. Musicians like these three, who are mainly aiming at the children’s audience, need a good brand image so that parents go out and buy their albums for their children, so that people are willing to allow their children to go and see them in concert.

What I am getting at here is that brand image is relative to what you are trying to achieve. The above example in the previous paragraph is clearly a brand made to be a brand and make money. When other bands, such as Rise Against are made because they love music so much and luckily they make money from it. Therefore they won’t really strive to make a brand which everyone will love; they will do what they want to do.

Everything Changes

However, brand images are becoming a lot more important in the industry; sales are falling in music and therefore musicians need a brand to be able to sell merchandise and concert tickets. This shows how important brand image is becoming in all lines of business, so even if it doesn’t seem like the top objective in your business, make sure that you pay some attention to it