Intro - Music promo questions

What is a music promo?

A music promo is a form of advertising that used by bands or artists. Most modern music videos use music promo's as a source of marketing to increase the sales of the record or the bands popularity through new technology such as TV, Phones/iPods, Tablets and Computers. The music promo often uses art and expression to create a short film which fits with the lyrics of the song. This is the new style of theatre where the film allows for the viewers to see what members of the band play and it also allows for products placement, E.g. Guitar brands and Amp makes.

What is the purpose / function of a music promo?

The purpose of a music promo is to entertain, inform, advertise, campaign and shock the viewers who are watching the promo. Here are some artists who do these five things:

Lady Gaga is a stocker with her music promos. When she first released her chart hitting song, everybody was taking about it because it was different.
Michael Jackson is a campaigner and informer. When he released his song 'Earth Song' he was campaigning about how the earth is being destroyed and getting damaged by humans.
Robbie Williams is an advertiser. He releases songs that advertise for different reasons e.g. Children in need and other charitable causes.
1 Direction make entertaining music promo's because of the massive amount of views they get and the shows they put on.

Where can music promos be viewed and how has digital technology impacted on the exhibition / consumption of music promos?

Music promos can now be accessed by Mobile phones, iPods/Tablets, Computers, Cinemas and Music channels so people can watch their favourite artist perform their song. The most common of all devices is Mobile Phones; in today’s society everybody has a mobile phone that has access to the internet. This means that the majority of the population can view the artist’s song which will increase the popularity of the artist, but Wi-Fi or 3G coverage is still developing across the UK and in some places the internet might be available so the artist's song won’t be able to be viewed.
iPods/Tablets also have the ability to connect to Wi-Fi and some can get 3G, this allows for people to watch music promos on the go increasing the artists popularity, but again without any Wi-Fi to connect to iPods/Tablets cannot be used to search for the music promos.
Computers can be used to view music promos but rely on the connecting to the internet to do so, as well some computers can connect to mobile phones and use the data from the other device to search the web. But some computers aren't that portable, they have to be connected to a plug socket to work.
Cinemas also show music promos in a short amount of time but give enough detail for the viewer to go and search the artist or the song but, you would have to pay to go see the film and the music promo.
Music Channels are also used to watch music on and they are on 24 hours a day so you can watch them all the time increasing the popularity of artists when their song is played but recently the music channels have had an increase in the amount of adverts on the channels making them very boring when song aren't being played.