Video Production and Promotions

In today’s online world, videos are a key part of any well-crafted marketing plan of a record label. Music videos create another dimension to the song and its lyrics by adding a visual element to the musical performance of the artist. The video should create strong, memorable images to pique the passion of viewers and get them more involved in the music. Ultimately, the marketer’s objective is to elevate that passion into the need to possess the music in the form of a purchased CD or download.

From the point of the record label, the three functions of a music video are:

• Promotion and publicity for recordings and other aspects of the artist’s career
• Licensed content for online and wireless entertainment providers, including video sites that generate revenue for the label by sharing advertising income
• A product offered for sale

Music videos are just one component of the video marketing of an artist or album. This chapter is focused on gaining a better understanding of all uses of video, how they fit into a marketing plan, and how they are used strategically to stimulate retail sales of a recording, ticketed performances, merchandise sales, and the sale of ancillary products.

History of the Music Video

The earliest form of video promotion of music began in 1890. From then on and through the next 25 years, “illustrated songs” became the rage of thousands of large and small theaters across America, and were credited with selling millions of copies of sheet music. In these theaters, vocalists accompanied by bands or small orchestras would perform songs, while hand-painted glass slides were sequenced and projected on a screen depicting the story of the lyrics. Often, a vocalist would then lead the audiences in singing the song as the lyrics were projected (Norman, 2014).

When radio was introduced in the 1920s, music promotion changed. One of the earliest radio deejays was an announcer named Al Jarvis who worked in the 1930s at a radio station in Los Angeles. He created a radio show featuring recorded music mixed with chatter. It was also Al Jarvis who went on television in early 1950s with a program that featured recordings, guests, and information, which made him one of the original video deejays. His program was replicated in numerous other television markets, and became a staple of many major broadcast companies. By the mid-1950s, video deejay programs were prominent in all top 50 U.S. media markets.

Some of these early television shows featured what was known as a soundie. A soundie was a video creation by the Mills Novelty Company that featured performances by bands, and was used in coin-operated video machines. In the early l940s, Mills Novelty created over 2,000 promotional soundies. In the early 1950s, producer Louis Snader created 750 “visual records,” and Screen Gems and United Artists began creating their versions of early music videos.

The granddaddy of video deejay television shows was Bandstand, which began airing in Philadelphia in 1952 with host Bob Horn. In 1956, Dick Clark replaced Horn, and the show soon became American Bandstand on the ABC Television Network. In 1964, Clark moved the show from Philadelphia to Los Angeles “to be closer to the seat of the television industry” (Fontenot, 2014). In 1970, Soul Train became the first music television show to showcase black artists.

Television in the 1960s and early 1970s featured many shows that included musical performances, most notably, the Monkees, but it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that artists like Queen and Rod Stewart created videos designed specifically to assist in the promotion of their recorded music projects. Shows like “Rock Concert” and “Midnight Special” became staples of Saturday night programming, but mostly they featured concert performance footage, not the story-based video we are used to seeing today. As disco rose to prominence, even more shows appeared. Even Casey Kasem brought a pared-down version of his top 40 radio show to television. But the link of the music video to record promotion caught fire when cable television began to flourish in the early 1980s. Among the first to begin using music videos was a program called “Night Flight” on the USA Network. Soon, scores of cable channels and hundreds of regional and local shows began to regularly feature music videos as part of their entertainment programming (McCourt and Zuberi, 2009). The most famous, of course, was MTV, which launched on August 1, 1981, with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the British new wave band, the Buggles.

The use of music videos by cable channels has declined considerably for a number of reasons. Long before YouTube and Vevo, MTV switched their programming away from 24/7 music videos to half hour and longer programs in order to get the ratings points needed to be able to charge enough for advertising and keep the network afloat. High-speed internet has made on-demand music video capabilities provided by Vevo, MySpace, Daily Motion, YouTube, MuchMusic, Vimeo, Yahoo, and others the preferred choice for video viewing. Cable programmers realize they are unable to compete with video users who are unwilling to wait for a video to be played on television since music fans have numerous choices to find any video when they want it and where they want it. With the growth of broadband and its penetration into more than 70% of the homes in the U.S. (Broadband), the Internet has become a preferred choice for video entertainment for many music fans.

The Music Video Today

Music videos are their own kind of entertainment and are valued far beyond their value of promoting recordings and an artist’s career. Unlike in the 1980s and 1990s when video cable channels were given free and unlimited use of music videos for their programming, music videos are now licensed content to those who want to use them. Labels that create videos license their use to sites that feature music video. The license is granted in exchange for payments based on the size of the audience that views the videos, or it is based on the advertising income that the website earns from featuring the video. Depending on the online video service, advertising rates associated with music videos generate three to eight dollars for every thousand times the video’s page is loaded onto someone’s browser (Bruno, 2009; Miller, 2009). Forbes magazine estimated that streaming “Gangnam Style” cost YouTube $296,360 but earned them $348,285 in advertising revenue (Prabhu, 2012). By this admittedly rough estimate, YouTube made $51,925 before royalties.

According to ASCAP “… record companies normally charge between $15,000 and $70,000 for the use of existing master recordings in a major studio film but, depending on the stature of the artist, the length of the use, the music budget and how the recording is being used, these fees can be greater or less.” (Brabec and Brabec, 2014). The television show Glee pays from $10,000 to $50,000 per song, but this is only a synchronization license. In other words, only the publisher and the writer of the song get paid. The artist and the record label make nothing because the show does not use their recording of the song (Gajewski, 2011).

In the early days of music videos the labels paid the entire cost of the video, but in 1983 that changed as labels looked to reduce costs and demand for expensive videos (Denisoff, 1991). At that point, labels paid the upfront cost of the video and then recouped a percentage, usually 50%, from album royalties and sales of the video. Unfortunately, music videos seldom sell enough copies to pay for themselves, although their availability on iTunes has probably increased sales. When the video does sell well, the label will recoup 100% of the video costs from the sales of the video before paying the artist a royalty. The royalty rate typically starts around nine percent and escalates with each new album release.

Nowadays, artists are signed under multiple rights recording contracts and the expense of a music video is treated like any other advance against royalties. The artist earns a percentage of the net profits generated from the sale and licensing of music video and, as with traditional recording contracts, that percentage usually escalates with each new album.

Nearly every social networking website gives the opportunity for members to define themselves by the kind of music they enjoy which has helped create a culture that defines individuals far beyond the answer to the question, “What’s your sign?” YouTube and the links to its videos underscore the impact of music video and how it reaches potential buyers of the video, concert tickets, and related products: as of February 2014, nine of the top ten videos on youtube.com are music videos. And the growth continues—estimates are that YouTube generates 100 hours of new video content … every minute (Statistics, 2014)!

Budgeting and Producing the Music Video

In the past, artists and their record labels may have shot two or more videos before the first single was released. In these leaner times, labels are less willing to invest in more than one video at a time. Production budgets have also been cut. Gone are the days of million dollar videos, but since the Viacom music outlets (MTV, VH1, CMT, BET, etc.) are no longer the primary outlets for music videos, lower budget videos are getting plenty of exposure, mostly on the Internet.

Record labels recognize the importance of investing in a music video as an essential promotional piece for the artist and their recordings. Music videos are a strong branding device designed to promote the label’s interests in an artist, but it also places the image of the artist in the eyes of concert ticket buyers, too. There are instances where the music and its images are inseparable, and a video is a necessity. At other times, for whatever reason(i.e. the artist may not be camera-friendly), the decision to create a video will include images that do not feature or focus on the image of the artist.

The general kinds of music videos created can be classified as shown in Table 14.1.

From the record company’s perspective, a number of factors are considered in the decision to make a video, but profit is not usually one of them. Creating a budget that stays within available funds is the first step in creating the music video. The budget will be determined by the stature of the artist, the genre of music and the expectations of the fans. The label will typically request proposals from video production houses for storyboards or “treatments” for a single and ask them to include their suggested concepts for the video. Video producers and production companies will propose the budget necessary to produce the video based on the suggested concept. The label either accepts the idea and its budget, or it may negotiate for a larger or smaller production and accompanying budget. Any music video that the label produces must at least be comparable to production elements used by those that make video for competing artists. You probably know of a very low-budget music videos shot on an iPhone and edited on the artist’s laptop that received thousands of views, but instances like that are still rare; the label must create a music video that meets the level of creative and technical quality that matches or exceeds those currently being viewed by fans. If the goal is to get the video on a major cable channel, then the quality must meet their standards as well, and that rarely includes iPhone or consumer quality equipment. A professional quality music video can be shot and edited for a few thousand dollars, especially if the video is of the artist performing live. The more complicated the story, the more actors and set changes and edits, the more expensive the video. “Creative” can be inexpensive provided that the elements of the video production connect with the target fan of the video. For example, encouraging fans to assemble their own music video with images and video clips from their wireless devices can energize the community around an artist, but these videos will be relegated to YouTube and other Internet sites.

Budgets for music videos produced by labels rarely reach the million-dollar level these days, though that was relatively common in the past. Big budget music videos are now in the area of $200,000 to $500,000, and labels are producing fewer of them (Rosen, 2013; Anderman, 2008). And it is important to understand that professionally produced music videos represent 54% of Web streams, but they generate 94% of advertising revenue for websites—part of which is then shared with the label that produced the video. According to the Diffusion Group, user-generated music videos account for only 4% of a site’s advertising (Bruno, 2009).

Uses for the Music Video

In a perfect world it would be a simple matter to create a music video and be able to determine the impact it has had in supporting the sale of a recorded music project. Certainly a bump in sales figures can often be seen in SoundScan data when a music video has been added to websites and into the rotation of a video channel or local cable program, but there are other opportunities for use of the video to support the project. Often, it is difficult to measure the impact of these other uses for the video, but following are some of those additional opportunities the music video offers the record label.

The publicity department and the independent publicist rely on a video to help them garner media attention for the artist. When a new artist is being pitched to a journalist or a blog for a story, the video is helpful by associating faces and performances with the music. The publicist also uses the video when vying for a performance opportunity on network television shows, including “Saturday Night Live,” “Today Show,” or “Ellen.” This added tool gives the gatekeepers of these television shows a view of what they might expect when the artist appears.

The radio promotion staff may find the video useful, especially if the artist is new. Radio programmers are sent a link to a new artist’s video as a way to initially introduce the artist, and then the station is urged to link the video to their own online website when they begin to program the recording on the radio station.

Social media departments at record labels use the video to create a presence on the Internet. Many social networking websites feature music, music samples, and links to videos posted around the Internet. The label’s website includes either the video or a link to the video on the artist’s site. Artist management companies that maintain an active web presence will also include links to either the label’s or the artist’s site to give music fans the experience of the music video.

The Importance of Video in Viral Marketing

You need look no further than the top 10 You Tube videos to see the importance of video to viral marketing. Remember, viral marketing is getting somebody else to promote your product for you. We do that every time we share something on Facebook or retweet a message on Twitter. Now that the Billboard Hot 100 chart includes video spins in its formula, video is even more important. Case in point, Harlem Shake by Bauer. The song had been released and uploaded to SoundCloud for eight months before a video blogger, Filthy Frank, and a few friends created a quirky, 35-second video of themselves dancing to the song. The concept was replicated on the Sunny Coast Skate YouTube page and then hundreds of times by college students, military units, talk show hosts, racecar drivers and even college administrators (Sherburne, 2013, Harlem Shake, 2014).

Inclusion of a song in a television show, a movie, or commercial can introduce an artist to millions of potential fans and boosts sales. In these cases, the advertising often pays all or part of the cost of shooting a music video at the same time the advertisement is filmed. In the case of the film or television show, everyone involved in the writing and production of the original recording my enjoy a nice boost to their income while the song receives massive exposure. Sting, Sheryl Crow, Jet, Fun, and Bob Seger have all enjoyed the benefits of having their song used by a major advertiser (Viral Video, 2014).

Sales and Licensing

The marketing department also has specialized uses for the music video by including it as part of a “value added” feature of the release of a physical CD. It is not uncommon for CD jewel cases to display an added bonus for the consumer in the form of video performances as a separate DVD. Packaging music video performances as part of the experience the consumer purchases with a music CD adds value to the product, and positions it to better compete with movie DVDs, which regularly include added features.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the industry trade association, and it annually tracks the shipment and value of various configurations of recordings. Figure 14.1 shows that since the economic downturn of 2008, the number of videos shipped and downloaded decreased despite the availability of inexpensive video downloads.

The SoundScan numbers (Figure 14.2) report actual sales of videos at retail whereas the RIAA reports only shipments. Music fans no longer need

Figure 14.1 Music video shipments (in millions)

Source: RIAA

Figure 14.2 Music video sales

Source: SoundScan

to own a video if they are willing to view ads before and during the video. For those who want to own the video, iTunes is the dominant source to download video singles that can be played on wireless devices, game consoles, and computers.

We have already seen how music video licensing is quickly becoming an important source of income for the record label. While the chart above shows the steep decline in sales of music videos, income from licensing within some companies is growing at an annual rate of 80% (Chmielewski, 2008).

Video Streaming as a Source of Income

Video on-demand streaming increased 35.2% from 2013 to 2014 to over36.6 million, according to Nielsen’s 2014 year-end report. There has been great improvement in the handling of user generated content (UGC) in recent years. Google’s ContentID system along with other systems used by various platforms have made it much easier to identify and differentiate mashups created by users that have helped for licensing along with monetization of streaming, instead of having these valuable “tools” removed for infringing copyright. YouTube created TrueView that helps IDed user generated content, producing more revenue now than that of official videos.

But the streaming of official videos, be it concept videos or simple lyric videos—add up too. These marketing elements of creating awareness are now vital to the bottom line as revenue producers, with ad-generated monies flowing to record labels coffers through licensing agreement formed between various streaming portals and label imprints (IFPI, 2014).

Programming

The penetration of music videos into American households through cable and satellite channels is growing each year. Cable and satellite channels that use music videos to program part of their broadcast day continue to thrive, though videos have become an increasingly smaller part of the entertainment they offer to viewers. The proliferation of online and wireless on-demand sources for music videos has reduced television viewer interest in favor of other forms of entertainment. Video channels which program music videos as part of their entertainment offerings are listed in Billboard each week along with their charts for videos they are programming.

Label Staffing

Labels do not do their own music video production, preferring to hire outside firms that are specialists in the field. However, all labels have someone on staff, often in the creative services department, who coordinates the creation of music videos as one of their job responsibilities. Depending on the label, video coordination may be a stand-alone job or it could be part of the creative, publicity or marketing department.

Coordination of the creation of a music video involves working with the artist, their management, A&R, and others involved in the development and branding of the artist. Once produced, publicity, marketing, radio promotion, and new media must coordinate the effort to maximize the video’s exposure to the target audience. Smaller labels will hire outside companies like Aristomedia to distribute and market the video.

Contracting with an outside music video promotion company can be efficient for many record labels because the video promotion function is not one that is done on a full-time basis at most labels. Video promotion takes on many of the features of radio promotion of a single. Independent music video promotion company, AristoMedia has a 12-week program for its music video promotion clients. The company takes new music videos to cable channels and pitches them to the programming staff; puts videos on a compilation DVD or file called a video pool; services local, regional, and national video outlets; follows up with video programmers; creates tracking sheets so they know the frequency the video appears on each of the outlets to which they promote; follows the charts of each of the music video outlets; always promotes for the heaviest rotation possible.

Among the services offered by some independent video promoters is a semimonthly creation of genre-specific compilation discs, sometimes referred to as video pools, which are sent to video channels. A promotion like this is fee-based, but it is an efficient method to distribute music videos to hundreds of music video outlets. Independent video promoters also offer new media promotion services for labels that do not have staffing available to create the necessary web presence for their music videos (AristoMedia, 2009).

Beyond the Music Video

Music videos are great for branding and exposing an artist, but they are only one way to use video to market an artist. If we broaden our definition of video to include more than music videos, then we can include all television and film appearances, as well as fan-created videos. While getting your artist interviewed on a talk show may be the responsibility of the publicist, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take advantage of the appearance in every possible way. Getting permission to post or link to the interview from the artist’s website is a start. Including the interview, if it is a good one, as part of the EPK may lead to even more opportunities.

Weekly or daily posting on a video blog is another great use of video that keeps the fans engaged and returning to the artist’s website. According to Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research, one minute of video is the equivalent of 1.8 million words or 3,600 Web pages (Follett, 2012). Additionally, nearly every social media allows videos of some sort and visuals, including static pictures, attract, on average, 94% more total views than content with no image (“Its All About the Image”). This additional attention translates to more “Likes” and more comments (Corliss, 2012). Studies have shown that including a video in your Facebook posting significantly increases the chances of it being shared or reposted. According to Michael Stelzner, president of Social Media Examiner, people retain visual content 500% faster than text (Livingston, 2014)!

Videos can be a great basis for contests and to get fans involved. Asking them to upload their own covers of a song or a video entry into a contest creates an interaction between the artist and fan and may create even more exposure for the artist beyond the existing fan base.

If the artist has any acting skills, then a cameo or larger role in film or television can help create interest in their music, too. Dwight Yoakam has appeared in movies (i.e., Slingblade), as well as television (Under the Dome), along with other famous musicians such as Beyoncé, Harry Con-nick, Jr., Eminem, Dolly Parton, Ice Cube, Jennifer Hudson, and Will Smith, just to name a few.

Video is Everywhere

Music videos are not limited to television and computers either. Bars and restaurants, airplanes, hotel lobbies, amusement parks, and entertainment centers like Times Square and Las Vegas are all outlets for your artist’s video. Many of the outlets for music videos are regional or local programs. Although not as well known as their national competition many have a substantial number of loyal viewers. A well-established video distributor like Virool or Aristomedia will maintain and service a current list of these types of outlets as well as video pools and military service outlets. With the roll out of technology like Google Glass and GoPro cameras, the future of music and video will probably be mobile and interactive.