Marketing and PR Presentation

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Band Profile

Name: The Power Plant

Age: 19

Album: Possibly Adopt Them

Previous releases: When The Dam Fell (1997); Judgement of Others (2004); This World Is Collapsing (2007); Kokoro [EP] (2010) Storm Rover (2012)

Genre: Shoegaze; Post-Rock

Style: Slow and melodic with an emphasis on atmosphere. Most of their songs lack lyrics. Songs that contain lyrics have themes of loneliness, loss and personal grief. The Power Plant consider themselves underground though they are well known and popular. They do not perform live often but often appear at concerts to promote new albums.

Contemporaries: Slowdive; Explosions In The Sky; Les Discrets

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Objectives

What I want to achieve during this project is promote the band’s new album to the general public and achieve around 10,000 retail and digital sales of their record. I believe that this number is suitable because usual sales of the band’s albums reach around 8,000 at peak in the first few weeks, and I believe that with a strong marketing campaign that number can be pushed up by 2,000. There are a lot of people that still listen to and enjoy The Power Plant and with a strong push into big, well covered concerts the band can be introduced to a lot of new people who can form the basis of a new core audience, as well as appealing to the aging die-hard fans with legacy material such as covers of their older songs. Therefore, it is not unrealistic to expect 10,000 sales if the band already reaches 8,000 with each new release. I am aiming to primarily target young adults with this band who are often drawn to alternative, emotional bands similar to The Power Plant. In addition to this, the older fans (In their mid to late twenties) will be targeted. In terms of timeframes we will be looking to achieve at least 6,000 record sales in the first four weeks of release, supported by heavy marketing on social media and in music communities and a tour to promote the release. By the end of February we hope to have achieved our goal of 10,000 total album sales.

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Audience

Our core audience for The Power Plant in the 2010s is primarily young adults, with an age range of 15-20. Our audience marketing is focused on a market of young adults who are quieter than the rest and are not really fans of the more popular music aimed at their demographic, such as hip-hop, R&B and pop music. Our audience consider themselves more laid back and chilled out and enjoy quieter and artistic hobbies such as drawing, writing and composing music. The dress code of the intended market is a little different than the common norm of teenagers in 2015, and while they dress similarly to them, fans of The Power Plant dress more modestly and aim not to stand out too much, lacking popular accessories such as piercings and excessive jewellery. Tattoos however are quite common. Fans of the band tend to have an interest in softer and more emotional genres such as post-rock, blues, progressive/atmospheric rock and sometimes even ambient. The audience has quite a large artistic talent and imaginative approach to our music, as artwork and fan-fiction of the band’s lyrical content (which can be combined to form a larger story) is popular in fan circles on the internet.

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Media

With The Power Plant’s marketing campaign for their new album I will be looking to use a lot of music-based outlets in order to get the best possible coverage. I believe that while The Power Plant does not really hold the mass-market appeal to appear on prime time television I believe that an appearance on a dedicated music channel such as MTV or 4Music would be sufficient and appeal to those who wish to discover something new. The popularity of these channels with young adults and teenagers will also help to reach out to my intended audience. In terms of print-based media I would like to again aim towards more interest based music publications that focus mainly on rock, which is the band’s genre, such as Q, Kerrang! and Rolling Stone. Although I do not think that The Power Plant will warrant any front page articles, a new album release that is being heavily promoted will receive a sizable article or interview with the editorial staff in one of these magazines. Similarly on the radio, while The Power Plant may get some of their headline songs from the new album played on one of the big radio stations such as Radio 1 or Capital FM, I believe that most playings of their songs will be relegated to smaller scale and genre-based stations.

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Media

To advertise and promote The Power Plant’s new album and whereabouts I will make use of several different social media platforms to put across news, advertisements, and event information. The biggest outlet would be Facebook, thanks to its simplicity, a billion plus users and the fact that it is used extensively by teenagers and young adults, who are my target audience. An officially managed and owned Facebook page would give Facebook users one true page to find all of the latest information and dates for upcoming events and gigs, instead of having the possibility of being misled by fan pages who have false information. A verified account will have all the correct information and be a trusted source for fans and will be a great outlet to directly interact with the fanbase, by answering comments and posting pictures and videos of the band. Because of it’s younger user base and artistic style that is similar to ours, we will also use Instagram as a social media outlet that would be mainly related to posting band pictures and imagery, often with a more personal side by showing members of the band in daily life and when not on tour. In addition to this, a verified band Twitter account would be useful in reaching a much more general audience thanks to the variety of people who use the service. Using Twitter would allow to post information that can be circled quickly and efficiently around the fanbase with the use of hashtags.

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Merchandise

What merchandise would you use to promote this band?The primary merchandise I would like to produce for the band would revolve around clothing, the staple merchandise for bands, as it is an easy way to get recognition for the act and also allow fans to express their love for us in a non-blatant and passive manner. Such items would likely include T shirts, hoodies, beanie hats, messenger bags and a limited edition model of the power station, the band’s namesake and spoken of in the band lyrics, available in a batch of thirty to bring out the biggest fans of The Power Plant. In terms of other merchandise I would also offer sales of band posters and banners, which is more likely to be successful as my target audience, young adults, are bigger users of posters which they put up in their bedrooms as opposed to mature adults. For collectors in the fandom we will also offer hard-pressed 12” vinyl records of our albums, which are more collectable than CDs and appeal to older and more long-term fans of the band. All of this would be able through a dedicated internet store that would be linked via our social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter.

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Manage the message

What is the message you want to communicate about this band?With The Power Plant’s new 2015 release, I want to include a very specific message that will help people remember the former glory days from decades ago and create a unique selling point for the older demographic. With the newest release, the band’s former lead guitarist and vocalist has returned to the band following a departure in 2004, after the release of the second and critically acclaimed studio album Judgement of Others. While also attracting older fans who will be excited to see an old member return to the front of the band, this move will hopefully create a selling point among our younger fans because of a fact that the band now has a new addition to the lineup, making them eager to hear and see something new.To support this occasion, my advertising will be revolving around the lead guitarist’s return, featuring him prominently in promotional material and advertising and also using lots of quotes from magazines and critics to support the return, with an example being ‘The Power Plant’s driving force is back.’ and also ‘With Possibly Adopt Them, The Power Plant re-adopted band legend Stephen Smith for their most emotional release yet.’

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Hyperbole

In The Power Plant’s marketing campaign, hyperbole will be mainly used to generate hype for the new release and excite fans for the eventual album drop. In particular, many of the taglines that will accompany posters and internet adverts will label the release as ‘a heart-wrenchingly beautiful landscape of echoes and harmonies’ or ‘a huge, emotionally charged picture painted with quivering, guilt-ridden lyrics.’ The hyperbole used in the campaign will be focused mainly on the band’s emotional and dark, tragic lyrics that will be used to invoke personal feelings within the fans by using themes found in the lyrics that they can relate to, such as personal loss or grieving. The language used for the campaign is aimed to be quite poetic and form a narrative, which links in to the band’s signature lyrical style and overarching canon that spans their studio releases and philosophy. Words such as spiritual, astonishing, revolutionary and breathtaking are examples of emotive language and can often generate a sense of excitement within the reader if they are used to describe an upcoming product.

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Events

What events would you put on as part of the promotion of this band and album?In terms of events to promote The Power Plant, I would like to go for a variety of different events which would result in increased publicity, recognition and hype for the band and its upcoming album. Firstly, I believe that the band would benefit greatly from having a signing session at a music/record shop, such as WHSmith or HMV, where they can autograph CDs of the new album for fans when they first go on sale. This also gives fans a chance to meet with the band members and interact with them, as well as the band getting a lot of photo and video opportunities for increased publicity. In addition to this, while the band lacks the mainstream appeal to appear in a flagship music event such as Glastonbury or the Pitchfork Music Festival, they may possibly perform at a smaller scale event that while wont’ draw in as many attendees as the two previously mentioned events, but will be more focused on bigger fans of the band and thus help them get more exposure. Finally, while not directly related to music, The Power Plant will attend a charity event that supports adoption and other child-caring agencies, as a deliberate tie-in to their new album name, Possibly Adopt Them. This kind of event will paint the band members in a good light of being caring, charitable individuals.

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Internal motivation

What is the motivation behind this project?Our internal motivation behind this marketing campaign is the fact that we personally believe that thanks to The Power Plant’s success and popularity among younger listeners, there is a large and untapped market that could quite possibly result in a lot of revenue and publicity for both the band and our record company. By ensuring that the band’s new release is marketed and hyped to the right people, we believe that we can easily bring the band from a niche audience into a much more mainstream appeal, which will result in increased sales and opportunities for expansion in the musical world. The band’s personal motivation behind the marketing campaign is their desire to market themselves towards a much wider audience and in turn share their creations with millions of new fans. Despite having 19 years of musical experience under their belt and a line of successful releases, the band feels as if they can do better than their current small audience. Their personal motivation is that there is a massive new audience out there that can only be reached with a successful and extensive marketing campaign.

Motivation of media

Why would the media be interested in this project?We believe that the media may take an interest in our marketing campaign because of the fact that a band that many people know but not a lot listen to, are making a much bigger push to ensure success with their new 2015 release. This is particularly down to the fact that we are pushing for at least 10,000 sales of the album, which is about 2,000 more than what The Power Plant’s records usually sell. And while many releases do break even, the media may take interest in the fact that this will be the first time the band is actively pursuing financial success with this new record. In terms of media products that may take an interest in our marketing campaign, we believe that music magazines and genre-specific radio stations will cover this report much more prominently than others. However, thanks to our more mainstream target this time around, we are hoping for coverage from more well-known and nationwide stations, such as BBC Radio 1 and Capital FM. We believe that stations such as these may be motivated by the fact that a band that has usually kept quiet on the scene is now making a much larger push into the market, using their creative talent to ensure that their new album sells more records than ever before.

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Promotional Materials

Now you have the plans in place, choose some of the following items to produce for your band:

• Album packaging

• T-shirt design

• Tour poster

• Web site mock up

• Social Media Mock up