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Ingraining a brand.

#21
I think the word you're looking for is "gimmick" . If I didn't actually like making music and just wanted fame and fortune, I'd have a social media manager and focus on brand synergy and audience engagement, I'd probably have a backstory that I was raised by a pack of wild wolves out in "parts unknown" and I'd fashion my brand image on live, laugh, love, candles and craft beer, I'd post on the 'gram twice a day listing the top twenty MOST INSANE VIEWS (number six will BLOW YOUR MIND!) and... do you see where I'm going with this?
 
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#25
WayOffBase said:
Hi everyone,

I was thinking about a couple of related things the other day. Ari Herstand asserts that your band must have "a story". I read somewhere that only one of the Beach Boys actually swam but they were very successful conveying the "musicians at the beach" brand in their visual imagery and their music. A local band is "Mustache Harbor". They specialize in the big Top 40 hits of the 1980s that everyone heard on the radio and they wear false mustaches when they perform. They successfully sell yacht captain hats and false mustaches at their concerts. The songs they perform have nothing to do with boating, the water, or being a captain but the audience loves the hits and, this is my point, the audience allows Mustache Harbor to create the image and the audience buys into it. Just like the audiences didn't care that only one of the Beach Boys actually swam, the audience just wants to be part of the brand. The audience likes identifying with a brand, even if they aren't like that in real life. It's similar to the audience following the "leather" performer when they don't usually where leather, or the performer dressing down during the performance when in real life they are running a music business and dress in business casual.

So the question is: Can a band stand out sufficiently compared to the other bands if they don't have a strong brand, image and story?

Thanks,
Ray
Click to expand...
Why would you want to emulate a local cover band? I find it really hard to believe anyone would buy band merchandise from a cover band, but if it's true, I'm going to guess their customers are their friends and family.
 
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#26
There's "brand," and then there's "gimmick." Wearing fake mustaches every show sounds like a gimmick. Not that there's anything wrong with that; the game is entertainment, and some gimmicks the crowd finds a lot of fun. A gimmick is kind of a quick, cheap, splashy way of signaling the brand. By the way, I'm going to guess from the mustaches and the captain's hats that the band you're talking about is playing "yacht rock," which is a recognizable genre - no it doesn't have much to do with boating in the actual music, but it's the kind of music you imagine someone playing for a party on their yacht. You can google playlists of the stuff - Jimmy Buffet and the like.

A brand doesn't have to be a gimmick. Nirvana's brand was built on their raw sound and lyrics and their unwashed clothes and greasy hair - especially remembering they broke out in an age of uber-groomed hair metal. Van Halen's brand was Eddie's guitar skills and their overall adolescent humor and playfulness. Morrissey's was an atmosphere of self-consciously intellectual melancholy. Brand is, in effect, the ability of people to hear your name and know what they're going to get - and to want it.

For a local cover band, brand is different from for a national original act trying to sell records and tour. In a lot of ways, my band Mugshot Monday is a pretty standard hard-rock bar band. We don't have all that unique of a look or sound and no gimmicks. But we know our local crowd, we know the music they like, and we deliver it really well with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. Cover bands fail to build a brand when they don't know the crowd and wind up going in too many different directions at once, or they do a half-butted job and never really commit to making it great. You never really feel that THIS is what this show is all about or that what they're delivering is all that great anyway.
 
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#27
IMO good music should sell records. But that's really not the world we live in anymore.

You need something to grab the crowds so they will hear you. For example, a local band here has a music shoe. Sound guys nightmare, but it's funny as hell and hilarious to see a guitarist soloing.. on a shoe. Everyone talks about the shoe. They wouldn't be as successful of course if their music wasn't up to scratch to back it up.

Same with Okilly Dokilly. They're funny and was something I had to see/hear. They're a great a band.
 
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#28
i reckon there's room for musical acts without gimmicks or a brand, but it's a much smaller market--populated entirely by other musicians. if you want folks besides musicians to be a part of your paying audience, you need to give them something besides music to latch onto.
 
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#29
matante said:
Why would you want to emulate a local cover band? I find it really hard to believe anyone would buy band merchandise from a cover band, but if it's true, I'm going to guess their customers are their friends and family.
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My cover band sells piles of tshirts, hoodies, can coozies, etc. We broke the thousand dollar mark on merch sales at a number of gigs over the summer. It's very doable.
 
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#31
WayOffBase said:
So the question is: Can a band stand out sufficiently compared to the other bands if they don't have a strong brand, image and story?
Click to expand...

I was in one band with a bit of success and we had a brand (complete with gimmicks and merch) and a genuine story to go with it.

I guess you have to ask yourself which one is worth talking about: the true story or a made-up gimmick, or the combination of both in some form.

If the band isn’t too interesting to be around, then folks won’t be interested.

Also, the idea of personal vs professional image isn’t a new one. I don’t dress the same at a bluegrass jam as I do in a committee meeting.
 
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#33
Gimmicks and branding are 2 different things. "Branding" means that everything your band puts out has a consistent look/feel that will appeal to your target audience. That means your logo, photos, videos, stage clothes, even instrument colors. If you're a grunge cover band and one of your guys insists on dressing for your photos in a tuxedo holding one of Prince's guitars, then that's a branding problem.
 
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#34
Branding is 101 ROCK'S the....????

101 starts inserting the "Best of Lawrence Welk" during the Morning Show with Dippy and Skippy with prize give-a-ways for two tickets to see Oral Roberts on Ice and that "branding" has been lost in the mix on the radio dial...!
 

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