What Is Your Creative Brand?

Artists and authors are talking about creative branding. But what exactly is a brand? And do you have to have one?

As a label and publisher, we get a lot of questions about artist branding. After marketing nearly 100 releases, we understand the importance of branding to an artist’s success. The differences between good and bad branding are as important as the differences between good and bad music. And it isn’t just about the packaging.

Your creative brand = who you are + what you do. It is the transmission of your creative identity to an audience. And yes, you need it.

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The Artist Compensation Storm

As sure as dark clouds gather in hurricane season, a storm is brewing around artist compensation. Art and technology are at odds. However, it wasn’t always that way.

From the advent of cassette multitracks in the ’80s, to the arrival of digital multitracks in the ’90s, to the maturation of digital audio workstations in the ’00s, affordable, cutting-edge technology enabled recording artists to seize the means of production. The rise of the internet enabled them to marshal the means of distribution. Without those home studios, without a free internet, artists would still be trying to catch the ear of some well-connected impresario who could foot the bill for commercial studio time and old-media publicity. It’s a plain fact: thanks to technology, producing and distributing music is a lot easier than it used to be. And artists have reaped the benefits.

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Why Facebook Is Not Your Marketing Hub

You spend a lot of time on Facebook. You’re spreading the word about your latest project, uploading songs and videos, networking with new friends. You’re building relationships with listeners or readers, and having great conversations you otherwise might have missed. In doing so, you’re creating a mountain of content — media, demographics, dialogue. The more you add to it, the more time you spend building and nurturing it, the more it is worth to you. And the closer to indispensable it becomes to you.

And as its value grows and grows… you control none of it.

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Kickstarter vs. NEA: Paths to Indie Funding

Have an album you’re ready to record and release? A film you want to produce and screen at festivals? How are you going to pay for it?

Talking Points Memo (TPM) reported this week that Kickstarter, the popular crowdsourcing platform, will likely distribute more funds to creators this year than the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). As amazing as that sounds, and in some ways is, these two organizations are “apples and oranges,” with different missions and modes of operation.

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