SIBELIUS ACADEMY IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SONG The Praxis of Artist Branding In the Finnish Recording Industry Master’s Thesis Tuulikki Haaranen Arts Management Programme September 2005 X Thesis SIBELIUS ACADEMY Essay Name of the Thesis/Essay Number of Pages It’s All About The Song – The Praxis of Artist Branding In the Finnish 118 Recording Industry Author Term Tuulikki Haaranen Autumn 2005 Study Programme Major Subject Arts Management Arts Management Abstract In this thesis I will examine how the major record companies create and manage artists’ images and artist brands for the purposes of selling popular music in the Finnish market. I will define the components of the artist’s image and the artist brand together with the processes of artist image management and artist branding. I will also discuss the role of publicity in the creation and development of artist brands. Because of the lack of tradition and a common language with which the record companies’ personnel would deal with artist brands and image related questions, I have also felt the need to present the conceptions of how the recording industry workers perceive the concepts of ‘artist’s image’ and ‘artist brand’. I will discuss the research questions in the contexts of the Digital Experience Economy and celebrity culture. I will reveal how the digital business environment and Experience Economy principles have affected and are expected to affect artist image management and artist brands. The Digital Experience Economy is defined through the theories of Joseph B. Pine and James H. Gilmore together with David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard. The celebrity culture I will examine mainly through the hypotheses of Chris Rojek. The theories of image management and image formation I base for the most parts on the notions of Elisa Ikävalko and Erkki Karvonen. The theories of branding and marketing communications rely mainly on the conceptions of David A. Aaker, Erich Joachimsthaler and Philip Kotler. The empiric part of the study is conducted as a qualitative research. I have interviewed seven record company employees that have had a key role in the development of current Finnish artist brands. The interview data has been analysed using the methods of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. The study results show that the Finnish recording industry workers conceive an artist’s image as a preliminary stage of an artist brand. An image is developed to a brand as a result of the artist’s consequent behaviour and the consequent marketing communications from the record company’s part. The study results also show that record companies cannot control the publicity or the formation of the artist’s image and artist brand. The only person who can have a significant effect on the formation of the image and the brand is the artist himself. However two different lines of branding processes were discovered: branding-from-the-inside and branding-from-the-outside. In the branding-from-the-inside record companies let the artist brand to develop on its own. This method is mostly used with singer-songwriters and artists that aim for long careers. The branding-from-the-outside method is more frequently used with phenomenon artists and artists that suddenly gain publicity. In the branding-from-the-outside method record companies take a more active role in advising the artists. In both the branding methods the role of the musical content was emphasised. All the interviewees underlined the importance of a good song in the success of an artist. Otherwise no single formula of building artist brands was found. The study results indicate that artists cannot be branded in the same way as traditional products. This fact was also demonstrated in the application of brand theories to the interview data. The brand theories I had selected for this study proved to be difficult to apply to the praxis of artist branding. Key Words Artist brands, artist image management, publicity management, brand marketing, digital experience economy. Additional Information TABLE OF CONTENT 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Why Study Artist Image Management and Artist Brands? 1 2. RESEARCH BACKGROUND 6 2.1. Theoretical Orientation 6 2.2. Research Objectives and Limitations 8 2.3. Research Material and Research Methodology 10 2.3.1. Discourse analysis of the interview data 13 2.4. Previous Research 16 3. IMAGE MANAGEMENT AND BRANDING IN THEORY 19 3.1. Central Concepts Around Image 19 3.2. How Are Images Born? 20 3.3. How Can Images Be Constructed? 20 3.3.1. Celetoids and fraudulent artist images 24 3.4. Artists As Brands 25 3.4.1. The Brand Identity System 27 3.5. Marketing Artist Brands 32 3.5.1. Advertising and music video 34 3.5.2. Managing media and publicity 35 3.6. The Future of Brand Marketing 38 3.6.1. The significance of dialogue in marketing 41 3.6.2. The Internet as a dialogue and a brand-building medium 42 3.6.3. What has changed? 42 4. IMAGE MANAGEMENT AND BRANDING IN PRACTICE 45 4.1. Defining the Artist Brand and Artist’s Image 46 4.1.1 The difference between the artist’s image and the artist brand 47 4.2. How Is an Artist Brand Formed? 48 4.2.1. The components of an artist brand 48 4.2.2. Music in the core of artist brands 54 4.2.3. Brand requires clarity and strong symbols 56 4.2.4. Artists with long careers and artists as phenomena 58 4.2.5. Alternative artist brand cores 61 4.3. The Process of Artist Branding 63 4.3.1. The development of HIM’s Love Metal brand 66 4.3.2. PMMP – From Popstars to the rock record of the year 67 4.3.3. Anne Mattila – brand building by touring 69 4.4. Developing an Artist Brand 70 4.4.1. From marginal to mainstream 70 4.4.2. Reinvention of artist brands 71 4.5. The Differences of Artist Brands and Product Based Brands 73 4.6. Marketing Artist Brands 76 4.6.1. The promotion process 77 4.6.2. Finding the target audience 79 4.6.3. The role of advertising on television 80 4.7. The Role of the Media in the Formation of Artist Brands 81 4.7.1. Cracking the headline cycle 83 4.7.2. The creation of brand credibility 85 4.7.3. The Finns want true stories 86 4.8. The Future of Artist Brands 87 4.8.1. Can brands beat piracy? 90 4.8.2. The rise of fast-food music consumerism 90 5. THE PRAXIS OF FINNISH ARTIST BRANDING 92 6. CONCLUSIONS 99 6.1. Do Theory and Practice Meet? 102 6.2. Reflections On the Interview Methodology and Analysis 106 6.3. Suggestions For Further Research 108 BIBLIOGRAPHY 110 APPENDIX 116 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: The four layers of the theoretical orientation 7 Figure 2: Brand Identity System according to Aaker and Joachimsthaler 28 Figure 3: Components of the artist brand inspired by Aaker and Joachimsthaler 51 Figure 4: Brand Identity Model in the Recording Industry according to Valtanen 53 Figure 5: The brand identity structure according to Aaker and Joachimsthaler 103 Figure 6: Brand Identity Model in the Recording Industry according to Valtanen 104 1. INTRODUCTION In this thesis I will examine how Finnish record companies create and manage artists’ images and artist brands for the purposes of selling popular music. It seems to be rather common that when examining popular culture and its products, we easily engage ourselves in a discussion about the relationship between art and commercialism, as if they were contradictory forms of existence. Commercialised art products are often seen as lacking artistic quality. But as John Fiske (1989: 23) points out, even though popular culture is industrialised, and its commodities are produced and distributed by a profit-motivated industry, popular culture cannot only be defined in terms of consumption, it can also be perceived as an active process of generating and circulating meaning and pleasure within a social system. All through this thesis my approach in understanding music industry includes both aspirations, i.e. the artistic and commercial objectives that must be taken into consideration when aiming to develop artist brands. 1.1. Why Study Artist Image Management and Artist Brands? Before going any further in presenting image management and branding theories it is necessary to explain why I have chosen the ‘artist’ as a branding object instead of music and records. What makes artists so significant for the recording industry? Already in his 1987 writings Peter Wicke (1987: 133) noted that a star cult brings capital to the music industry. He argued that since a record only has a life cycle of around 60 to 120 days and sales over longer periods are an exception, the image conception should primarily be concentrated on the personality of the musician or the collective personality of the band, for their commercial viability is normally higher. According to Wicke it is easier in the long run to run a star with assured sales than to have to work on a series of one-offs. If the band has a stable image, this can be carried over onto each of its records, which considerably reduces costs. Also Maiju Varilo (2003: 48) argues that star culture is one of the most important standardisation methods with which the recording industry can affect the usage value of its products. Stardom most likely guarantees the success of a record. Thus it is an important task of the producers to find star material in new artists so that the artist’s potential can be utilised in a profitable way.