The finished pitch
video of the pitch being presented:
Presentation script and PowerPoint:
First Slide – Price Productions
Change slide – About Us
We have been leaders in the music industry for more than 20 years, working with a diverse range of bands and singers. In this time, we have distributed over 170 different music videos for artists across the world, including the UK and USA. And because of our ability to work with a diverse range of artists from different countries, we have a network of worldwide facilities. In places such as, London, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and Paris.
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Change slide - …
Change slide – History of Music Videos
The first music video is an argumentative subject; and opinions vary. From our research, we know that the influence of music videos dates back to the 1890’s – with illustrated songs. This then led to the creation of short music videos. In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claimed to have created "the first music video", which included footage of him walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, edited to the soundtrack "Stranger in Paradise". The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on a variety of programmes.
Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (1975) started a whole new era of music videos as promotional tools. It was a landmark in the music video industry, with performance mixed with visual effects. The single topped the charts for 9 weeks, arguably as a result of the video’s popularity. In 1983, some say the most iconic music video of all time was released: the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". Which is still considered the most successful music video of all time. |
Change slide – History of Music Video Distribution
Distribution has also come a long way since the days of sheet music. After the manufacture of vinyl records it remained the dominant format until the 1970’s, until it was superseded by cassette tapes and eventually CD’s. The 1980s saw the emergence of MTV which played music videos 24 hours a day. With this new platform, the music video would grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Then as the internet improved – the illegal sharing of music became more popular.
2003 introduced the rapid rise of Apple’s iTunes, providing a legal alternative to downloading music. Spotify then launched in 2008 allowing users to stream from a huge catalogue of uninterrupted music of their choice. But to this day, YouTube remains the biggest music streaming platform overall across the world, which is why (if you choose us to make your music video) we will be uploading it there. |
Change Slide - How is distribution changing?
Distribution is going through a massive upheaval as TV programmes such as MTV and Top of the Pops are not the primary paradigm for music videos anymore. In the past the only reason audiences would watch these channels is that there would be nothing else on to watch.
Nowadays, tens of millions of fans actively seek out and share their favourite music videos online each month through YouTube and Spotify. Even more so with the explosion of the video-enabled smartphone market. Because of these adjustments, audiences have changed from a passive audience to an active one. At Price Productions, we believe that in the future music videos will go viral even faster as more fans turn to the screen in their hand to discover new music. |
Change slide - Why should you make a music video?
In today’s society, the music video industry is more important than ever before. Currently, a songs popularity isn’t purely just based on how good it is but also how popular its music video is. One example of which is ‘Despacito’ by Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee – with 5.5 billion views on YouTube. This shows that YouTube’s popularity is forever increasing. There was a time when nobody thought that any artist would overtake Psy’s Gangnam Style – with 3.2 billion views. Despacito also demonstrates how YouTube is now a global phenomenon as it is sung in Spanish.
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Change Slide – Knowing Your Audience
By knowing your audience, it will enable us to focus the branding, promotion (and overall your brands identity) to them, ensuring that people don’t feel left out. Here at Price Productions we will help you to understand your demographics; ethnicity, age and gender, also considering psychographics.
This is an example of a breakdown of demographics we used for Troye Sivan. As you can see we found out that 76% of his audience were female and 24% were male. This means we must alter our promotional tactics to incorporate these statistics. |
Change slide – Why do you need branding?
We interact with brands all the time. In its simplest form it is a logo, along with a name, tagline, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes it from its rivals in the eyes of their fans. Branding is also ingrained in our minds and as human we tend to gravitate towards familiar ones.
Brands are visual representations of identity. Some of the best artists in history are all about identity and identifying with their audience. So, as a musical artist either starting out in your career or well known - YOU are already a brand. Renowned artists have understood that being a successful artist is about more than having well-crafted songs. For example, remember Madonna’s cone bra and Lady Gaga’s crazy, well, everything? All those quirks and styles helped create their image and brand as an artist. So, if you want help finding your trademark style, we’ve got you covered. One method we use to make sure your branding is the most effective it can be, is by reaching out to your fanbase by asking your followers for feedback and seeing if they have any ideas. It will also help you foster a sense of community. |
Change Slide - The ‘3 E’s of Branding
The 3 E’s stand for:
These things don’t just apply to the logo design and colour palettes, but are used to inform everything from imagery choices to the artists tone of voice. This is shown by the codes and conventions of the artist. A example of this is shown stereotypically by rock bands with their black clothing, tattoos and piercings, and overall dark mood. This theme is then carried through to their music videos. This still was taken from the music video for Hozier’s song Take me to church. You can sense the dark atmosphere through the use of low key lighting in the mise-en-scene. The band green day uses makeup in their appearance meaning they fit into some of the stereotypical codes and conventions of a rock band. We aren’t saying that these principals will always be applicable to every artist, but they help give an idea of how we will approach branding your artist. |
Change Slide - Who have we worked with?
As you can see behind me, we have worked with many artists such as: Miley Cyrus, Troye Sivan, James Vincent McMorrow, Foster the People, The Script and Panic at The Disco.
Now these artists haven’t just achieved this amount of fame and popularity from their music and their music videos, but also from their strong sense of branding. |
Change slide – What have we done for these artists?
With the artists we have created personal and exclusive music videos that have taken their unique styles and shared them to a wide audience. We have also adapted the common music video so that a wider range of people can view them. One example in which we have done this is for The Script’s song The End Where I Begin. For this song we created a sign video so that people with hearing disabilities can connect with the music and the band. The video was released onto YouTube on August 8th 2018, and already has over 980,000 views.
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Change Slide – Genre
A way we can increase the size of your audience is by combining different music genres. For example, a pop song with a rap section in it. This will combine the fans of these genres allowing those artists to reach out to a larger fan base.
One example of this, which was demonstrated by one of our clients, is Miley Cyrus (who is typically a pop singer) with her song 23, which was released in 2013. In the song she collaborated with Wiz Khalifa (a popular rap artist). The music video now has over 798 million views on YouTube. |
Change Slide – Synergy
A way that we can also increase the amount of views on your videos is by using star appeal and synergy.
Synergy, is where two or more different forms of media combine to create a promotional video. In this case it would be the music video and film clips. We have the ability to do this through our connections with multiple production companies. An example of one of our music videos that uses synergy is Follow You Down to The Red Oak Tree by James Vincent McMorrow. The film this song featured in was Third Star, which was released in 2010. Because of our ties with the production companies Western Edge Pictures and Cinema One (who worked on the film), it enabled us to put forward our client for this film. By using this technique our clients were able to gain thousands more views, as fans from both the artist, the star or movie would come together to watch the video. |
Change Slide – Social Media
Most platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have audio muted by default, so you need audiences to unmute the video to hear the song. Which means that the music video not only has to attract audiences purely through the song but also through the video. Simply unmuting the video may not seem like a significant action, but getting people to take notice of social media content is something that we want to help you achieve so you can gain more views on your music video. Ways we can help you are by looking at the demographic your band is most popular with and focusing the promotion for the video to them. For example, if your audience is mostly teenagers, then we suggest a lot of promotion on Instagram or Snapchat. As these social medias are most popular with this age range - which is shown on the graph.
On these different forms of social media many artists post short clips of the music video with the comment reading the amount of days left until its release, and then when the music video is out they post a different clip with the link to the video – making it easier for fans to find it. This example is from Troye Sivan’s Instagram page. He is promoting the song Bloom - which is shown by the hashtag. In the comments he has included when the video will be released, with a short clip of the music video. |
Change slide – Product Placement
We can see product placement in almost every entertainment outlet, from television shows to movies it has been around since the 1920's. Over the last few decades, brands have been focusing on integrating into the powerful platform of music videos. With the expansion of the digital world, the opportunities are unlimited, for example on YouTube or Vevo.
Brands pay to be included in an artist’s most recent video. The bigger the artist, the higher the cost. But at the same time - the higher the consumer reach. The brand gets exposure, and your artist would make money that typically goes directly back into producing the music video. One of our well-known clients who most people remember using product placement is Miley Cyrus in her music video of We Can’t Stop. From our connections with eos and Beats Electronics – they made an appearance in the video.
For upcoming artists there are also many benefits when using product placement. Some artists will have mutual agreements with a company, where the brand gets exposure in a music video and the artist receives free products from the brand. The brand may also assist the artist in reaching more consumers through the brand's own marketing efforts promoting the music video. |
Change slide – Controversy
If these previous methods aren’t what you and the artist have in mind there is also the option of using controversy in your music video. Certain videos in the past have caused a stir when they debuted, and many received restrictions or bans by broadcast networks and YouTube.
Music videos that caused controversy did so through violence, nudity, questionable moral acts or all of the above. So you may be wondering why would we want to promote these to our artists fans? Well as these videos can cause such repercussions more people will want to view them, increasing the videos views, increasing the long term revenue. One of the most controversial music videos is Do What You Want by Lady Gaga, featuring R. Kelly, which shows a somewhat playful endorsement of rape. On YouTube it currently has over 187,000 views. |
Change slide – Every artist is different
Change Slide - Snowball Effect and Cryptomnesia
Your audience will start to increase due to the snowball effect. This is where more and more people share the artist with their friends, building the artists fanbase and video views.
So it starts with one person listening to the band then sharing it with their friend. This friend then starts listening to the band and then shares it with their friends. And so on and so on. After this effect has taken place, cryptomnesia may occur. Cryptomnesia is where a person forgets where they first got an idea or thought. In this case, fans may forget how they got introduced to the artist. |
Change Slide – Viral Marketing
YouTube has over 4 billion views every day and nearly 1 out of every 2 people on the Internet visits the site, so the opportunity for exposure is tremendous. But don't be fooled. Just because the video is on YouTube and you think it's great doesn't mean it'll capture the kind of attention you are hoping for.
Sharing is a form of communication. When something big happens, everyone wants to have their say, people like to show they’re in the know. So by including something current in your video it could make it viral. To ensure that we keep intriguing your fans, our strategy is to release behind the scenes videos from the production of the music video and also release footage from any press conferences or interviews that the artist does. This is a shot from behind the scenes of Foster the People’s music video for Doing it for the money. In the post-production, visual effects were added to this scene. |
Change Slide - Gaining a Wider Audience
Change Slide - Finding new music in the algorithm age
Personalised recommendations, sponsored playlists, and the dominance of streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have changed the experience of music discovery for all of us. Whereas magazines, radio, and MTV once offered diverse avenues of exploration for music fans. Then followed the heyday of music blogs and music piracy websites like Napster. The algorithm now looms over everyone.
So what does this mean for up and coming artists? With these algorithms will they get the level of publicity that they need? |
Change slide - Ways in which we can help you avoid the algorithms but still get your music out:
If these suggestions are used effectively it will increase your artists fanbase. |
Change Slide - On the other hand
Change Slide - So why should you choose us?
So, as you know your purpose for making this music video is to sell your artists song to a wide audience and to get the song stuck in your listeners heads. Our aim at Price Productions is to entertain people by showing off the artists talents to the whole world by creating a unique aesthetic for the music video. Hence creating world-wide recognition. By creating a memorable visual for the song, it will increase its chances to sell, making more of an income. Increasing sales in the short-term and increasing revenue in the long-term. We also want to give the audience a better understanding of the song but also the upcoming album.
Using our knowledge of the history of music videos, and our experience of making previous music videos we will allow the audience to get to know the artist through the video. Taking this into account, we will carefully hire a suitable director to complement and capture your artists style and make the video unique to their audience. |
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