{Music Advertising

The History

There are many different forms of music advertising

The two main forms are print media (posters, magazines, newspapers) and electronic media (internet, radio, TV)

Music Adverts

Print media was the first form of advertising

First it was in the form of newspapers, then posters, then magazines

Print Media

The first print music advert dates back to the 19th century when music was advertised in Short Broadsheets

Before the introduction of adverts, Short Broadsheets had only one source of income which came from subscriptions to the paper

These adverts were usually about local piano recitals and other similar concerts

First Music Advert

In 1870, the print media further developed with the introduction of the printing industry perfecting colour lithography which made mass production possible

Posters were still advertising events such as live music performances at this time because recorded music hadn’t yet been introduced

When posters were first introduced, audiences said that there was a huge collision between the two worlds of art and advertising

Posters

Around this period of time, Thomas Edison had perfected his own invention of the phonograph

To test it, Edison recorded the first ever song: Mary Had a Little Lamb

First Song Recording

Thomas Edison’s phonograph was in large competition with Chichester Bell’s graphophone

In this decade, many songs were being released and posters were being put up for the records being produced

1880-1890

In 1903, Verdi’s opera Ernani was released as the first 12 inch record on the Monarch record label

This is one of the first recordings where there is proof of print media used to advertise it

Ernani

The main increase of posters was in the 1970s when the first fully established inkjet printer was introduced

This meant that anyone who owned a computer could advertise their own music being sold which was very common with the introduction of the cassette tape

Development

The first, recorded, music magazine was originally a newspaper

Melody Maker was introduced in 1926 and was the only newspaper of its type

It saw a wide range of music advertising It included articles, interviews, performance

dates: all new forms of music advertising Melody Maker saw their first source of

competition in the 50s with NME, which had more of a youth following and appealed to an audience who were more into rock n’ roll than jazz

By this time audiences were seeing pictures of the artist(s) also being printed into these papers, advertising bands and artists further

Music Magazines

The Face was introduced in the 80s which lead to the revolution of all music magazines

Kerrang! was first published in 1981 and Q in 1986

Print advertising grew even larger with the growth of music magazines, thus reaching an even larger audience than before

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Electronic media wasn’t introduced until 1921, when the radio was introduced, followed by the television and the internet

Electronic Media

‘Voice Over The Air’ radio (the radio we know today) was introduced in 1921

This was a huge step in the music advertising industry as now music could be advertised even more widely to different audiences

In 1922, ‘toll casting’ was introduced. Toll casting meant that for a price, slots of air time could be sold to advertisers so that they could sell their product to the audience

The first toll broadcast was believed to have from the Queensboro Cooperation, selling new apartment complexes

Radio

Music was first introduced onto the radio in the 30s

The producers would choose to use certain clips of music to gain the audience’s attention

After the phenomenon of radio had died down, advertising ended up decreasing

This meant that the producers had 5 minute slots, sometimes up to an hour, to fill up on un-purchased air time as businesses no longer wanted to advertise

To fill this space they decided to add music

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Music being introduced onto the radio ended up being a big hit

Artists who were having their music placed saw that their record sales were going up

This was one of the first real forms of music advertising on radio

Artists would then pay radio stations to play their music and some artists even gave radio stations payment based on commission

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Following the large success of music being played on the radio, stations decided to introduce interviews with the artists

Interviews were introduced in the 1960s and were classed as a form of advertising

The band/artist would go on the radio and try and sell themselves to the audience – this was known as self-advertising

Since then there has been the introduction of ‘music radio’

These are radio stations that are predominantly based on music

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Television has had a large impact on the music industry

The first ever TV broadcast was made in 1929 and was broadcasting 5 days a week by 1930

When television was first introduced, advertising didn’t appear on it

The first advertisement on US television was in 1941 but no adverts were released in the UK until 14 years later when ITV was introduced

TV

TV advertising became the most popular in the late 1950s

Music was being introduced onto the television at this time too

The birth of The Beatles in the 1960s took the TV world by storm

They were all over the TV and everyone wanted to know more about the band

At this time in history there were also adverts on television for new releases from bands and where the records were being sold

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In the mid 60s, ‘Beatle Mania’ had took over the UK

The band were appearing on the television as much as possible

However, the realised they couldn’t continue TV work all of the time, so they decided to record 10 promotional videos for their songs so they didn’t have to keep appearing live to advertise their songs

This is where the music video was born

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The music video has developed a lot over time, but between the introduction of The Beatles and now, it has been one of the biggest and most effective ways of advertising music on television

In 1981, channels were being introduced with the purpose to only air music videos and give information about upcoming bands

MTV and VH1 were some of the first to be introduced

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There are over 30 channels just on British television that are dedicated to music

This therefore shows the huge success that music videos have had on TV and the big impact it has had on advertising

Some artists and bands also do guest shows on music channels in order to advertise and gain fans

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The internet was first launched in 1969, but was primarily used for basic things such as email

This was until 1986, when Rick Adams made internet news groups

This made news over the internet much easier to read, post, and receive

These were expanded upon after the first website was made in 1991

It was at this time that artists decided they could advertise themselves in similar ways

Internet

In the late 20th century there was a huge incline of the internet

Artists and bands decided that they were going to launch a whole new innovation to the music world – a fan page

A fan page was the artist/band’s official page where their fans could find out information about them, such as tour dates, pictures and biographies

This was a whole new level of self-advertising

Fan Pages

YouTube was launched in 2005 and was a very important innovation for the music industry

Artists and bands started to post their music videos on YouTube and thousands of people could view them for free whenever they wanted

By 2011, the effect of this advertising became very clear for one artist. Justin Bieber received over 1.4 billion views on 3 of his music videos

YouTube became one of the easiest ways for artists and bands to advertise their music online for free

YouTube

YouTube

These are two examples of advertisements on YouTube.Before a music video is played, audiences have to watch an advert which could be of anything, but it is often for other artists’ music. Sometimes the audience is given to option to skip the advertisement video after 5 seconds.Also underneath videos there are sometimes banners advertising new albums, etc. and when the user clicks on the banner they’re taken to a separate webpage.

In 2011 there was a major increase in the use of the social network Twitter

Twitter offered artists and bands an easy way to sell themselves by talking to members of the public and tweeting about that they’d been doing

They could also tweet about album releases and live performances

Twitter

Some artists develop different forms of advertising, such as creating their own clothing and perfume, for example

They can also release autobiographies or put their names on products, for example, Lady Gaga, Dr. Dre and Justin Bieber all have their own line of ‘Beatz’ headphones

Other Forms