Case Study : Social Media : Arctic Monkeys

So as part of my blog I'm going to be running a 'Case Study' segment, looking at different artist / brands / products and how they use PR and etc. I believe that by looking through work from other people you can pick up on good ideas and see what sort of everyone else likes and what is popular. I thought I'd start with Arctic Monkeys, looking at how they brand themselves and use PR tactics to promote themselves.

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Before releasing their first fully marketed single they had built up a largely devoted fan base by using the power of the internet to reach the younger fans. While the record industry is struggling due to the rise in piracy and online streaming, Arctic Monkeys are one of the few bands who are using this to their advantage by sharing their music/lyrics on myspace.

As a generalisation the old music industry that was made up of record labels, dinghy tour vans playing vinyls and hours sat at a 4 track record machine to make one crackled recording is over, and we've moved into the digital age. The market for CDs is at an all time low, and you cannot deny how accessible, cheaper and easier it is to save a playlist on Spotify until you grow bored of the album. In 2003 the album sales were around 800m whereas a decade later it's reached 316. Analysts are blaming free streaming sites such as Spotify, youtube and grooveshark, iTunes have fallen 4% in their digital downloads for the first time since they were launched so it looks like the consumers really just don't want to pay. As music becomes more and more focused around the digital era and studies have shown that the most dominant consumers are the 15-25 year olds, using media apps more than 75% more than any other age group. There are multiple big reasons as to why the music industry has moved from analogue to digital, mainly the discovery of music, the supply of music, and the demand of music.

Arctic Monkeys grew their fame via websites like Soundcloud and myspace where they gained popularity and fans. This meant they went onto do bigger tours and soon enough were signed onto indie label Domino. their current myspace has 23,418 connections to others with 245,461 people connected to them. They also have their latest album (AM, 2014) on their myspace account suggesting they're still active. However the classic way of starting a band at fifteen, playing some grimy pubs and getting picked up by an agent or repeatedly sending off your demo to record labels is not the way bands are discovered anymore. Take aside the classic stories of Justin Bieber or the automatically signed artists from tv programmes such as One Direction, many artists are now found by someone sat behind a computer screen scrolling through youtube. For the big boy music companies, why pay to send someone to watch a band which may or may not be good at a local venue when you watch many more artists with no cost sat in the office? And on a smaller scale, small fan bases can be built up now from sources on the internet. Take a 12 year old Cody Simpson, he was signed to Atlantic Records after Shawn Cambell spotted him on youtube.

Arctic Monkeys were known before their music was officially released and sold, which is a likely reason as to why their debut album went straight to number one in the UK charts. They burned their own music onto cds and handed them out at gigs, they then got shared on the internet to reach a greater audience. Their demo was released as "Beneath the Boardwalk" in 2004 under the attitude that it was better to have an audience who knew the words and could make it better. In a 2005 interview with Prefix Magazine, Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders said: "We used to record demos and then just burn them onto CDs and give them away at gigs. Obviously there weren't many demos available, so people used to share them on the Internet, which was a good way for everyone to hear it. So we used to share — not us personally, we don't even know how to do it — but fans did.” In terms of investment it's not a financial gain, but a gain of time and fans which slowly add up to make financial gain. The current digital age makes it so easy to make music to supply the demand. 'Somebody That I Used to Know' by Gotye was a self produced track, this reached number one on more than 23 national charts. All that's needed to make a modern track and to be able to stick it onto a platform like Soundcloud is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as Logic Pro or Cubase. These pieces of software contain virtual instruments using MIDI data, pianos, synths, drums on plugins such as haLion, Kontakt and Reaktor. After watching video tutorials and experimenting for a while anybody could learn to use it, without even having to hold a physical instrument. An example of this is animals by Martin Garrix. It reached the top of the charts in more than 10 countries, Made in the bedroom of the 17 year old it’s a supreme display of homemade music. Additionally to an easier production of music, it’s also far easily to put it out there. The charts are dominated by the bigger labels and bigger names but every now and again a grassroots song does appear on our charts. Arctic monkeys are key in success of grassroots.

The music industry has suffered over the last few years, a rise in piracy, streaming services, iTunes taking a 30% cut being some examples. But the music industry isn't all dancing in a microphone to the latest indie track it is a business. It follows the latest trends and the popular music, and why? Because it's a business industry like any other. This is a problem for the industry because the group of people who listen to the most music is the millennials and we just don't want to pay. Why buy an album when you can just sync it to your Spotify until you've listened to it too much and get rid of it and save a different album? This being said, millennials love events. Everyone loves the idea of sticking on a pair of wellies and camping in a tent for a weekend to listen to their favourite bands live rather that on a cd. Companies put billions of pounds into sponsoring music events such as venues and festivals such as amg's Academies being partnered with O2 communications company to make the O2 Academies. This can be seen in the growth of Arctic Monkeys, they started with their own technology doing what they wanted their music to be whereas more currently they fit more into the mainstream music genre.