Task 1C: Purpose of Music Videos

To sell the song

The purpose of a music video is to build an image for the music artists. They are promoted to emphasis the music artist. Another purpose of a music video is to sell the song and leaves people to remember it. It is to entertain people by showing off their talents. To sell the song it need to create a memorable visualization in able to increase its sale. There are bunch of different ways for artist to sell their song such as monetization. YouTube is a way to monetize music videos, once the video is eligible for monetization you will be able to earn money from it and get paid. Once it is monetized, you will start seeing ads before and/or in between the video. They’ll make roughly about $2 (£1.50) per 1,000 views. There are other distributions such as SoundCloud and Spotify etc.

An example, Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth, it has over 2 billion views (2,055,713,949) on YouTube, which made over $4 million in revenue (2,000,000,000 ÷ 1000 x 2). This video gone viral as it is a tribute to the late Paul Walker, who died in a single-vehicle accident on November 30, 2013 in Valencia, California. The song was commissioned for the soundtrack of the 2015 action film Furious 7, Paul Walker played a main role in six of the Fast & Furious' seven installments. See You Again was the best selling-song of 2015 worldwide.




Promotional for the artist

Music videos have become a key promotional tool for the artists as it help create an image for the artists. There are many ways to promote an artist, you can promote them through social media such as Sound Cloud, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. It can allow people to hear the artist's song. There are others promotional ways such as Print-based media such as magazine, billboards and newspaper

This is especially important if the artist new to the industry, they will need to gain exposure as it will help them to promote through different platforms, this will make more money for the artist themselves and also the record company. Making the music video controversial could possibly get the public talking about this new artist.

Exposure and Expansion of the Artist

Exposure for any new or current artist is hugely important. Music Videos play a vital part in the exposure of an artist because it shows the audience the image of the artist. Star image is important because their image will portray their personality and style, and who they are, their individual uniqueness. What an artist wears, their attitude. Their music tell a story about them and help creates their unique/fake image. Their unique/fake image would help them gained more audience and revenue as some of their viewers may look up to the artists or relate to the artists.

To sell the song, invoke a reaction from the audience

Some music videos are designed solely for this purpose. They are often used for new and upcoming artists to promote themselves and get many people interested and talking about this new and upcoming artist. This also generates more money for the artist themselves and more importantly the record label. An example of this type of music video is Zayn ~ Pillowtalk.This was his debut solo single after he left One Direction which left fans around the world shocked and surprised back in 2015. This attracted a lot of attention as it is his debut music video after leaving his band of 5 years, this music video has got over 600 million views.

To give the audience a better understanding of the song

Often songs have a meaning. Music Videos are often used to develop the meaning behind the song and use a visualisation to create an image for the artist and give the audience better understanding of the song from a visual perspective and from a different outlet. The benefits of this is that the audience can relate to them and therefore they can relate to the song more. Example of this would be Selena Gomez - The Heart Wants What It Wants. In the lyrics, Selena was explaining her account of her relationship with Justin Bieber (although she doesn’t actually name him), and was seemingly justifying why she remained with him for so long. The music video demonstrates the lyric.



Product Placement

Product placement is used in almost all Entertainment outlets as a way to increase revenue. Product placement is selling and promoting products of the specific company in which are usually inserted into a music video, it's basically an advertising technique used by companies to promote their own products. Product placement is not only in music videos, they are also seen in TV, magazines, billboards, newspapers and Social Media.

Product placement in music videos are very popular, especially Beats by Dre's Headphone/Pill. Nearly all artist will use this technique within their videos as companies will pay a lot of money to see an promote their product to their audiences. Companies would like extremely popular artists to promote their product as it make the product more desirable to customers while watching the music video.

An example of this a music video, Little Mix ~ Black Magic. At 0:42, you could see two out of the four girls wearing Beats by Dre's Wireless Headphone. When one of the girls took the wireless headphone off and place it on the table (0:46), it changed camera shot to Extreme Close-Up onto the wireless headphone. This is example of promoting a product such as Beats by Dre. This music video has over 200 million views, many viewers may have like and brought the product because of the artists promoting them.

 


Promotion for Music and Album

Promotion of an artists music or album is hugely important for the success of that product, so the music video will need to have something that will be remembered by viewers/audience (viral etc.) so the viewers/audience will shared the music video with other people on all popular Social Media, this way will allow the artist to gain popularity and more fans and receive more revenue.

The video below is a good example of promoting your music and album. This video features music from G-Eazy's latest album When It's Dark Out. It contains different clips of his performances, making songs in the studio, behind-the-scenes footage etc. The artist is promoting his upcoming music and album through an album trailer.

Synergy

Synergy is when two companies or product decide to work and combine together to make a video, and use the video as a platform to give them success. For example a music video could be made to increase publicity for a film. An example of an synergy music video, Gangsta, the official music video for a film Suicide Squad (2016) which sung by Kehlani. The music video contain scenes from the film. As this movie looks successful as it grossed over $300 million, this helped to increase sales of the song, the music video has now over 50 million views on YouTube.

As this video is currently being shown on YouTube, there’s advertisements in the beginning, this show it’s currently being monetized and this would give them synergy though the video as they would be associated with the video and hope to improve publicity.

The music video also helps to provide synergy for the artist who starred in it as a popular music video helps to expand their audience.

.

Promotion of film

Often artist will write songs that are specifically for a film, the music videos for these songs then often feature scenes from the film. This is done to help increase the sales of the song and the movie together. When the audience watch the music video, they will see couple scenes from the film which make the viewers aware of the film, this may make them want to go and watch the film.

An example of a music video that aims to promote a film, Alicia Keys ~ It’s On Again ft. Kendrick Lamar. As you can see in the music video, it show bunch of clips/scenes from the movie The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Promote festivals

Music videos are often used to promote other music related products. In the last decade Festivals and tours have become more important because it allow artists to gain popularity and promote themselves and get wider exposure which can help them getting a bigger fan base and receive more revenue. For example, The Wireless Festival is a music festival in England that takes place every year in London. They had big artists like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kanye West, David Guetta etc. There will be artists you may never heard of or don't really listened to, this festival will allow them to promote their songs which will help them gain popularity and create bigger fan base.

For example, Bryson Tiller is an singer, songwriter and rapper. Some people may never heard of him as Bryson Tiller only started getting recognition last year (2015). He has won awards such as BET's Best New Artist and Best Male R&B/Pop Artist. Festivals like this has helped Bryson Tiller to gain more popularity and bigger fan-base. He has almost the whole crowd singing, this may lead other people who haven't listened to Bryson Tiller yet to search up his songs and also become a fan (if they liked him).




Opens up new market

Music videos opens up new markets for the Artists and Record Companies to sell their songs by promoting their image and creating bigger fan base through other outlets such as YouTube/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook or collaborating with films/television show (synergy). This increase in outlets, which increases the amount of people who are likely to hear/see the song and buy it, therefore making it successful.

This music video  is an example of a video that opened up an artist to a new market. Lose Yourself is a song by Eminem, a lead single soundtrack from 2002 motion picture 8 Mile. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003, making it the first ever rap song to have received this accolade.



Generates new market for Record Company

With major record labels like Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. They will use music videos as an extension of income for the song. They do this by making the music video as widely accessible as possible on as many different outlets such as YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify etc. For example, posting music videos on YouTube will help promote the artist's music. Through monetisation, it will also make more money for the artist and their record label. As of today, social media has become a way to reach fans and market as the Internet is now a place to sell music.

Example: This music video below, Silento ~ Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae), it has over 1 billion views which made over $2 million in revenue. This music video went viral due to popular dances of today. In the music video, there is a combination of two popular dances which mentioned in the title, Whip & Nae Nae. This music video is example of a way to sell a song (viral/trend).

Selling an Image

Music videos are a way to help artists to sell their image, artists will often sell their image and looks to increase their income by attracting the target audience to appeal wider audience. They may want change their image because they want to stay relevant and keep up with the new audience today as the new music videos today are more powerful and wanted more than the song itself. We are now to the point where the music video become more important than the song.

Miley Cyrus is an example, she has changed her image dramatically to enlarge her audience (from innocent Disney star to provocative pop star), you can see two music videos below that she changed genre from Country, Rock and Pop to R&B and Hip-Hop. Not only she changed her genres, she changed her looks and attitude, this caused many people to dislike her new image as we all remember the new Miley as Hannah Montana/ Old Miley and she was innocent back then and wasn't provocative then as she is now. Many people thought of her as a role model to young girls as she was an huge Disney Channel star. Although she changed her character/image, she is still the same person as she was before, she is just growing up just like her audience as well. Since Miley changed her image, she have been getting publicity for her new image which help her sells her albums and songs.

When the music video We Can't Stop was released, it reached 10.7 million views in the first 24 hours, this broke the record for having the most views in that time-frame. The music video also broke another record after reaching 100 million views within thirty-seven days for being the faster music video to attain Vevo certification. Both records were broken by another music video of Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball. Both music videos have gone viral due to Miley Cyrus, who were once an innocent girl, changed her image into provocative pop star. This viral has helped her increase her income and attract her target audience.

Old Miley Cyrus


New Miley Cyrus