BY: ISAAC OH

Welcome to my super-serious guide where we will demystify artist branding and walk you through practical steps to develop yours tuhday!

When consulting, I find that artists, especially at the early stages of their careers, tend to have little to weak grasps on the concept of branding. I mean, they understand its effects subconsciously — they know they either prefer Coke or Pepsi and they’ll love to death any and all singles by Zedd when they only really know Clarity— but they rarely know how to take advantage, for themselves, the magical aurora of branding.

Without further ado, take a seat in my fun-van. We’re about to go on a secret, magical journey 🤫

And awaaaaay we go!

The Complete History of Artist Branding

In the beginning, God created classical music. Now classical music had no drops and was full of composers whose names were too hard to pronounce.

And God said, “Let there be Capitol Records,” and so The Beatles was formed. Now The Beatles were cool but their hair.

And God said, “Let there be Instagram babes,” and so the first social media accounts registered and PSY’s Gangnam Style made history on YouTube. And God saw that it was good.

When, during this timeline, did artist branding emerge?

Trick question! Branding has been prevalent throughout history and you will understand why later on. However, the importance of branding for your success is now greater than ever.

During the classical era, in order for you to compete for attention in the “music industry,” you had to either be born into a family that was knowledgeable about music and wasn’t starving or you could take the Mozart route and show extreme talent to a wealthy patron who could hook you up with all the necessary resources.

During the era of major record labels, where indie labels did not have the means for distribution and marketing, the attention of the music industry audience was only accessible if you honed your talent, created marketable mainstream music and aesthetic, and THEN you had to be lucky enough to be picked up by a label executive who was in a good mood and liked your stuff.

Now, in the age of the internet and social media, there is practically no barrier for getting the attention of music listeners. While in the past, you may have been rejected at the door ten times by a major label’s secretary and the only way to access the head honcho was ambushing him in the elevator, nowadays, you can reach him in ten seconds on Twitter. Further, the same distribution platforms that Justin Beiber used to reach millions of views/plays (YouTube, Spotify) is open to any artist FOR FREE!

This new opportunity for attention has empowered infinitely more people to find success. Justin Beiber, Carly Rae Jepsen, Susan Boyle, Shawn Mendes. All stars who owe their discovery and entire early careers to YouTube.

However, this brought up an issue: The audience has become information-saturated. There is so much noise in the market that people are now too busy to consider every one of them. Think of how many people put out songs every day and call themselves artists. You are at war with every single one of them to capture the attention of your audience.

Breaking the Noise, Winning the War

So, Isaac, how do I break through the noise?

Well, let’s play a game of Would You Rather? Assuming that each of these choices have equal opportunity costs, I want you to choose one over the other.

Would you rather:

Eat Panda Express or Chipotle? See Porter Robinson or Martin Garrix? Wear Supreme or Burberry?

Whatever answers you chose, you chose them because you have a certain level of trust with the company, artist, or product. You trust them to deliver, better (subjectively) than the other, for whatever reason you engage with them. In this case, it’s your preferred taste in food, music, and fashion.

Developing this level of trust with the audience — whether in your ability to kill a performance, create unique and beautiful music, design fashionable merch — must be the basis of your brand. This will organically lead to raving fanbases, getting booked at large festivals, and having distribution platforms host your music.

Taylor Swift is an example of someone who broke the trust of her audience who expected a certain genre of music. Luckily, she had already cultivated a strong following, recovered masterfully, and can now be considered an example of a successful rebranding.

Trust is how you break the noise and win the war.

What’s a Brand?

So, Isaac, how do I develop this trust that you speak of?

Well, reader, I’m glad you asked! This is where your branding comes in.

The Chainsmokers, Excision, the Illenium logo. Are these brands?

Well, yes and no.

Brands are NOT the performers. Brands are NOT their logos. Brands are NOT the type of music they make. Paraphrasing Marty Neumeier’s definition,

Artist Brand: An individual’s gut feeling about the artist.

Let’s break this down. Your brand is not what you tell everyone it is. Neither is it determined by a group of people in Hollywood who meet smoking cigars. It’s determined at the individual level. Further, at the individual level, we’re all emotional beings no matter how rational we try to be and emotion is the primary source of our decisions. An artist’s brand is therefore “made” when enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling.

As an artist, you cannot control your brand. The only control you have is your engagement with the individuals where you can influence their gut feelings by communicating qualities about yourself. This process is called brand management.

If branding is so important today and the only control we have is our communication with the audience, it’s obvious that every aspect of our communication must be meaningful. Later on, we will identify exactly where you are communicating whether you know it or not and how we can optimize your message.

What Does a Brand Do?

Brands serve to differentiate. Think of how many people choose branded over-the-counter meds in Walgreens over the cheaper generic ones that yield identical results. Even Morton Salt through proper brand management of their umbrella girl, is able to sell their salt, the commodity of all commodities, at a premium. I’m sure you have various gut feelings of various artists who you will choose to listen to or see perform at a show depending on your mood.

Biologically, our brains are wired to notice what is different. If our brain processed every single information as soon as we opened our eyes, we would be resigned to sitting in a wheelchair with dilated pupils and drool dripping down our mouths. By filtering out trivialities, our brain’s reticular activation system focuses on what we consider to be important and allows us to function. Differentiating yourself allows you to stand out of the crowd, giving you the chance to build trust.

A lack of awareness does not mean there is no gut feeling. We are also wired to feel skepticism or fear the unknown so there is immediately a negative disposition towards the unknown artist — at best, those who have developed open minds will be neutral. Thus, brand awareness must go hand in hand with differentiation but that’s for another article.

You can be different in so many ways, some more effective than others. Trust me, you’ll be different if you strip down, stand on the deck, and do the helicopter at every show. I haven’t tested out the effectiveness of this, but honestly can we agree that there’s a right way to be different?

Let’s look more at how to differentiate yourself properly.

Properly Different = Authentic + Aesthetic

You don’t want to be merely unique; anyone can be unique with a gimmick. You want to be radically authentic.

If you are truly authentic, you are automatically unique because no one has lived your life and has had your exact same experiences. The trap is attempting to be someone or something you are not. The other trap is thinking that your unique story is not good enough. Well Lil Dicky’s thesis in Professional Rapper proves otherwise.

If you can truly own yourself, you will be infinitely more effective than trying to be someone else. I believe in you! So do you ❤️

This isn’t to say that there is no value is learning from others in the beginning. Even creative genius Kanye West was creating music that was influenced by Dr. Dre until he developed the skills to tap into himself and release something truly authentic and earth-shattering like Yeezus.

Hate to say it but, we’ve been conditioned by society to behave a certain way and fit a certain mold. So, you’re not gonna just wake up one day completely authentic. It’s a process you have to habitually engage in until if becomes your default source of communication. But don’t worry! You’ll get there if you continually operate from a place of great purpose.

Finding Your Purpose

I recommend that all artists identify their unique life purpose at the beginning of their careers.

Authentic brands have purposes larger than fame, pleasure, and profit. If you truly internalize your purpose, your actions change and you operate in alignment with your authentic self. This is getting a bit “out there” yet I could go on about the importance of knowing your life purpose so instead think something like Simon Sinek’s, Start With Why, TED Talk which I highly recommend watching.

Start With Why

When I work with someone to find their life purpose, it usually takes around 3 hours of one-on-one work and I still don’t think that’s enough. This is not even close to serious life purpose identification but I find that it’s a suitable start.

3 Questions to Purpose

Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter?

Your Why? must be extremely compelling for your fans. If you don’t have a Why?, then you must seriously consider this before moving on or your brand will have no foundation to develop on.

Here’s an example from one of our artists, BEAUZ.

Blood-brother producer duo with a background in asian culture and western influences. Produce original future-pop music. Cross established boundaries through love, create a revolutionary community, and ultimately empower our listeners.

Now that’s powerful and something people can get behind if communicated properly.

Daily live out your Why? and soon, you’ll be a pure expression of authenticity.