Many music festivals have began to expand in scope; today some of the largest festivals may have over 100 performers. Due to this, it is oftentimes hard for performers to convey their own brand identity as well as their album identity when they are performing. However, it is vital to do so, because when there are numerous artists performing at the same time, if an artist is not careful he/she will be lost in the crowd. The potential brand awareness and brand sentiment will be wasted. Many artists today will even go as far as to argue that image is more important than the actual music itself. However, I feel it needs to be a carefully cultivated balance for performers.
Some ways that performers can better present their personal/album brand image are as follows...
Physical Appearance
This tactic is as old as it gets, but still to this day works. Many performers will have a distinctive look or way they dress to separate them from the crowd. One of the most iconic bands that did this was KISS, and it still is used today. Sia, the famous Australian singer, is known to do this with her black and white wig. She even has herself and others in this wig on her album covers to better convey this trend cross-platforms. Lady Gaga also used to do this with her obscure clothes that eventually became early 2000's icons, and many argue that her controversial apparel is what got people talking about her (creating brand awareness) and ultimately contributed to her success.
Special Effects
Today, many artists use special effects and pyrotechnics to create an imprint in their audience's mind. They can help strengthen the brand identity especially for an album. For example, the Arctic Monkeys to promote their album 'AM' at festivals, used to start a large A and M on fire on the stage when singing their famous song 'Do I Wanna Know?'. By creating a visual such as this, it not only grabs the audience's attention, but it also creates a visual that the audience will remember after the show. Even some of the most famous celebrities have added special effects to their show to try to create more of an experience tied to their songs to increase brand sentiment. Katy Perry did this for her song 'Firework' as she had actual fireworks timed to the song go off at certain performances. In addition, at a recent concert I went to, Celine Dion used special effects for her famous performance 'My Heart Will Go On'. She was lifted up on a platform with a waterfall of actual water surrounding her as she sang this heart-wrenching song from 'The Titanic' with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet shown in the backdrop. Due to these special effects, people automatically begin to feel a connection with the music and instead of it being solely a song, view it as an experience, which overall creates a 'love-mark' or positive brand sentiment.
Technology
As we approach this digital dawn, many artists have begun infusing technology into their performances to better help their brand identity, and the crowd seems to love it. This seems to go hand-in-hand with special effects. A great example of this is when I went to a Tiesto concert this past summer, throughout the show Tiesto kept throwing out white wrist bands that said 'PlayClub with Tiesto' on them. Everyone wore them, not fully understanding the purpose. However, when it came time to his current album's most popular song and album title 'Red Lights', the wrist bands lit up in sync with the music, and was even timed so half of the crowd's bracelets would go off and then the other half based on location of the bracelets. This not only helped tie perfectly into the album brand identity, but it also created an experience for the listeners, which made the brand strength that much stronger. In addition, today many are using holograms at performances. One of the first and most famous performers to do this was Michael Jackson. The key role that this has begun to play is that it is playing a lot on nostalgia. Overall, if one can play on nostalgia and bring up positive feelings or experiences from the audience's past, the brand sentiment is believed to improve, as people develop a deeper connection with the artist and ultimately correlate it with their prior happy experience. It will be interesting to see the new technological improvements that occur and how they play in the purpose of music festivals and concerts.
Music Festival and Sponsorship Alignment
A common problem to this day for artists and corporations, is their failure to appropriately align a brand sponsor to their brand identity. When an artist is deciding on whether or not they should accept a gig at a music festival, they should look at the overall brand of the festival (to ensure it is compatible with their own personal and album brand), and also they should look at the other performers to ensure these are people they would like to be associated with. For example, it would be a wasted gig for Snoop Dog to perform at Country USA and could overall hurt his brand identity as his followers may be concerned with where he is aligning himself. It could also be harmful to the brand of Country USA as well, as some of the audience may feel hurt that it is not all country music. In addition, being a top name performer performing at a small state fair festival could also hurt how people view an artist and their brand, as this will create an association between the performer and a sub-par event. Therefore, artists and festivals need to be selective and careful when selecting what gigs to undertake. In addition, artists need to be careful when considering to be sponsored or not. When deciding this it is important for artists to pick a brand sponsor that aligns with their music and their own identity. For example, the country group, Zac Brown Band has recently decided to partner with Jack Daniels (the American whiskey). As Jack Daniels is frequently mentioned throughout several of their country songs and the lead singer, Zac Brown, loves to drink Jack, this sponsorship makes sense. Many of the band's fans are even excited about it, and some Jack Daniels die hard fans have started listening to Zac Brown Band because of it. However, if they had been sponsored by a leading soccer company for example, many of the fans would have been upset and confused (as soccer is never mentioned in any of their songs). In addition to being careful about selecting sponsors, it is important to note that many people today, millennials in particular, are very turned off by anything corporatised or sponsored. They want to feel more like the band or performer is one of them and relatable, and with the sponsorship, oftentimes they then feel the performer is not relatable. Therefore, artists need to be very careful and should consider maybe not taking a sponsor (even if it may mean losing money in the short term), because it can ultimately impact brand image and sentiment which could hurt them in the long term.
Social Media
As social media is growing more and more integrated with our everyday lives, it is important to integrate it appropriately in music festivals. Today, most performers at music festivals will have their own twitter handle as well as encourage the audience to share pictures of themselves at the concert on all social media platforms and tagging the band in it. Often, many performers will give out meet and greet passes if their photo or post gets selected. This is ultimately just a marketing strategy to get the audience talking and ultimately have their friends learn more about the artist/band. This is a great way to create brand awareness and get the audience involved, and it is also very inexpensive.
Audience Experience
This has been somewhat mentioned throughout the prior sections, but is still important to note; the audience loves listening to their favourite performers. However, if they can feel as though they are a part of an experience (versus just feeling like they are strictly being sang to), they tend to incorporate that with higher brand sentiment. This is why often you will see artists throwing guitar pics, shirts and even beers to the crowd, to help build the bridge between the audience and the stage. This is why performers will oftentimes run through the crowd, bring people on stage to sing with them and even show pictures of random people in the crowd on the big screen. The more personalised a concert can get, the better. If there is also a creative way to tie in the album identity as well , this too can be of great benefit to the artist (as I mentioned before like Tiesto's 'Red Lights' bracelets). This is because the crowd then feels the performer is more connected to them. Personalisation is a great way to increase brand sentiment and in the few ways I mentioned prior, can create a much more positive brand identity for the performer and the album they are promoting. This overall in turn, will create positive brand sentiment and awareness for the festival itself as well.
As one can see, it is vital that music artists and bands appropriately market themselves and their album, as one small branding mistake could hurt their career by great measures. By correctly using their physical appearance, special effects, technology, sponsorship, social media, and audience experience, they can create a unique and unforgettable experience for their fans, which will ultimately increase their brand awareness while also increasing their brand sentiment. By doing so, they are setting themselves up for great success and a large and passionate fan base, and in return they are overall helping the brand sentiment of the festival as well.