Research: Industry

This blogpost will surround my research on media companies or labels which could possibly relate to the genre I plan to use for my music video.

Genre: Indie pop

1.

Media company: 

Universal Music Group (UMG)

Brief description:

Universal Music Group has a wide range in their music catalogue. They cover a large variety in genre as well, not specializing on only one although their music often turn popular. Their headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and their operational headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California, USA.

Music videos produced by this company:

• Believer - Imagine Dragons

• Señorita - Shawn Mender

• Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

• All The Things She Said - T.A. T.u

Audience demographics and psychographics:

Demographics:

• Generally a wide range in age going from ages 16 to 50+ as its oldest song was released in 1936.

• They target both a male and female audience.

• They are possibly trying to attract a wider range of audiences with different nationalities as their songs are not only in English, but in Spanish, Korean etc.

Psychographics:

• Relatively in tune with current music trends possibly through social media, keeping up with pop culture.

• Audience values creative, high-quality production in music videos which include using detailed sets, many actors, dancers, which can be classified as high in budget.

• With recent songs, music videos are mostly flashy and are more mature in theme, exploring violence and sexual themes though they target a younger generation who are already more desensitized with this.

• Most music videos are eye-catching, hooking the audience to watch the videos due to the visuals, this method can be used to get the audience to listen more to the music in the future due to it being more memorable.

Company size and founding date:

Founded in September 1934, Universal Music Group has 5,001 to 10,000 employees and is a public company.

Most successful music video:

• Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee with 8.5 Billion views on Youtube.

Reference/ source(s):

https://www.linkedin.com/company/universalmusicgroup

2. 

Media company: 

Dirty Hit

Brief description:

Dirty Hit is an independent record label based in London. It was founded by Jamie Oborne, Chuck Waite, Brian Smith, and Ugo Ehiogu. Throughout time, it’s expansion has reached to Los Angeles, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Music videos produced by this company:

• Beabadoobee - Coffee
• The 1975 - Give Yourself A Try
• Pale Waves - Television Romance
• The Japanese House - Maybe You're the Reason

Audience demographics and psychographics:

Demographics:

• Age around 16 to 30 as they feature artists who are more mainstream to the younger generation such as Beabadoobea and The 1975.
• They target both a male and female audience.
• Their songs are all in english, meaning that they may try to attract English speaking audiences (from the UK or US).

Psychographics:

• Prefers to listen to “quieter” songs with softer vocals and instrumentals.
• Audience likes to listen to more niche and less conventional music.
• Although still younger, still is aware of mature themes surrounding explicit things (some songs explore sexual or mature topics).
• Values simple visuals as production scale may be small or low in budget.
• Possibly targeting audiences who have more critical or creative thinking skills as they can take simple visuals and derive meanings and connotations from them.

Company size and founding date:

Founded in December 2009, Dirty Hit has 11-50 employees and is a private limited company.

Most successful music video:

• death bed (coffee for your head) with 722M views.

Reference/ source(s):

https://uk.linkedin.com/company/dirty-hit

Self-reflection:

Doing this research helped me understand the different styles that some media companies had when it came to music videos and how they cater to their target demographic and psychographics. I think that this might help me to understand that media companies have a certain theme to follow in the content that they produce. Although it was a bit interesting to research, I’m still unsure about how I could apply this for the production of this project and even if it does seem relevant, I don’t think that this research will really contribute much to the production of the music video. I was actually quite confused about the use of this research but maybe it will be useful somehow while making the music video. Maybe next time, I’ll try to make the research more relevant to the project since if it doesn’t have a use then it might just be a waste of time which isn’t good considering that there is a lot to do for this project.