BRANDinG

The Artist and Their Brand

The Weeknd

Like many pop music artists, he uses a stage name to create persona. It is spelled specially, not because he want it to, but because a Canadian band has already used ‘The Weekend’ and he wasn’t famous enough back then so due to copyright, he could not use it. However, the special spelling of the name better fits his music genre of pop music. 

His music style turned from underground singer to a hybrid of dark R&B and Synth Pop. His creative approach to music is uniquely appealing because he offers a form of escapism, he is able to transport you to the exact moments he sings about through his use of explicit detail. 

He represents the social group that uses their own talent, voice, and effort in music to become famous. He does not have a very happy childhood, his father left the family at an early age and he does not have a lot of music sources in his early career so his great success is an idol for many other people who are working towards their dream. He is also a representation of non english native people who has created impact on a wider society as many of his songs went viral all around the world. 

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Initial Thoughts on Creation

 My attempt to recreate a MV for his song, would want to give another interpretation for the song as I feel that the original MV did not convey the meaning of the lyrics clear enough.

I will want to create a narrative based on the lyrics of the song and emphasize the “Die For You” in the MV. I will want to have a contrast of black and white (when single) and color (when together) in my Digipak to show the difference of being alone and having someone there for you.

 

Initial Thoughts on Distribution

My digipak ideally would want to be distributed both online and offline because they serve very different uses. The offline physical digipak targets the loyal fans who wants it as a collection while the online digipak is to help spread my influence and popularity over the internet. The marketing strategy I want to use is to target people’s psychological side with the phrase  “limited edition”. I would limit the amount of physical digipaks distributed and mark each and every one of them with the number they’re produced out of the total number. As for the online ones, I would make the price very low, so a wider audience would be able to afford it. 

 

Audience

1. Our first target audience is people who are going through relationship and emotional problems. In recent years, as he has been in many relationships, many of his songs are written around the theme of love and heartbreak. This targets people who are in a relationship and people who just broke up. Die For You specifically is referring to this long-distance kind of relationship where the two love each other deeply but they could not spend time together. Narrowing it down, our targeted audience would be people who are also experiencing this relationship as they may relate to the lyrics a lot.

2. Our second group of target audience is people who are heavily in love. I believe Die For You influences the people who are going through their “crazy for love” days because the lyrics such as “Baby I would die for you”shows that they view love more than anything

3. Our third group of target audience is in the demographic of the age 16-35. Some parts of the song would be inappropriate for under 16s and it would be hard to find people with emotional problems over the age of 35 as most people are already settled down with their life. The age between 16-35 is the age where people are young and vibrant. The Weeknd himself is in this demographic so his song is the mood of people at that age.

4. The fourth group is females. I believe our MV would touch a lot of females as it is narrated in a girl’s perspective. Nowadays, girls love seeing pretty girls more than seeing handsome boys so using Shirley as our actor could attract a lot of female audience.

5. The fifth group would be people from an English native environment. This is because it would be hard for other people to understand the meaning of the lyrics. It has many symbolism which non-natives won’t get, even if it got translated

6. The sixth group is the people who plays social networks. The song goes viral on platforms like TikTok and Instagram so many people who plays social media may recognize it by instant.  

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Promotion

Our product would be promoted through the following ways:

-Interviews

-Tweets

-Fan interaction

-Friends and relationships

-Collaborations

Our MV will be promoted by our digipak’s cover as it would be a shot in our MV. It would also be posted onto our official website and social media accounts.