Degree Project: Week 1

Shit son, school started already? Where the fuck did my summer go? Oh right, I didn’t have one. Now onto the biggest project of my life: degree project. I need to pass this to graduate so it’d better be good. Damn good. Here’s the first draft of my topic.

SELLING CRAP

In today’s Hong Kong music industry, a no-talent hack can sell more albums than a true musician. What the fuck? How is this happening?

There are still talented musicians in the HK music scene but they are not ones who are selling. Majority of the sales come from shitty artists who can barely sing. These artists have behind-the-scene musicians writing songs for them. And the songs are usually trendy and catchy. They range from pop, RnB, to mainstream rap. Once the artists have the songs, they will rely on the marketing team to do the rest. The HK music audience are mostly in the teen and pre-teen age. They are easy targets because they will buy whatever is considered “cool” or “in”.

There are a couple tricks the marketing does for these artists, one is selling the image. If the artists have good looks, the marketing would have them appear sexy because sex always sells. Other than sex, they can also sell cuteness. Young HK people are suckers for anything cute. Also, if the artist has some connection with other famous people, the marketing would use that as the biggest selling point.

Another trick the marketing team would use is overly excessive album packaging. A typical mainstream album would come with tons of added values. It’s never packaged inside just a jewel case. It usually comes in an irregular size. And the extras stuff that comes with the packaging range from bonus dvd with music videos and behind the scene clips, posters, clothings, action figures, to LP records. Also, more usual than not, an album comes out in a number of different versions. Each version with different design and extra stuff. It’s double dipping, but people are still buying.

I want to apply these marketing tricks to my degree project. This is what I want to do: Create a marketing campaign for an up and coming ficticious artist’s debut album. The artist has no musical talents but has good looks/image and marketable songs/formulaic guaranteed hits written for him. The designer must promote the artist by mentioning anything but his musical talents. The marketing materials should utilize a variety of mediums which include billboards, posters, album packaging, online downloads/sales, and social networks.

I hope to apply humors to my project and parody the marketing for HK mainstream music.

Example of HK no-talent hacks:

Twins' album with 4 different covers, double dipping assholes.

~ by mikemai on September 11, 2008.