What guides my branding efforts?
Read On.
I would like to talk about my thoughts and philosophies of
marketing, branding, and promotion. I started making art, writing, and performing because it got me through difficult
times. In effect, my creative leanings
drowned out the noise of a hostile environment in my childhood. If felt like living the Stepford Wives’ with
anger, resentment, and endless myopic domestic lives that one now views
regularly on reality television. As the
situation grew worse so did my moving and expanding the scope of my art. The creative thing replaced the above with
joy and celebration.
But this is not my branding.
This simply is a part of life experience for some. And so my branding efforts are not about
hyping ‘me’. My efforts are about
opening up to an audience who is engaged by the music, about providing them
with moments of joy and celebration.
So it doesn’t matter what happened back then in a
sense. It doesn’t matter what I wear,
what kind of sneakers I wear, my favorite jeans, the kind of food I eat, and color
of my hair. Like Harrison sings, “It’s
only a Northern Song.” It doesn’t matter
what my politics are. Nor is it about my
philosophical, cultural, or spiritual beliefs.
If who I am shows up anywhere it is always by way of the
art. And art communicates differently to
each who experiences that art.
So what is my ‘branding’ about? It’s about the art. It’s about change. I am not the same person I was after writing
this. ‘
My real challenge is not taking my art and me and turning it
entirely into a quantifiable static flavor of the day widget. It’s about the art really. Other larger business entities selling their
phones, televisions, computers, sneakers, and what have you take a particular
trajectory on their branding. While the
tools of branding may remain open as utility to those entire tools take on
different meaning according to what the goal is. And the artist, performer, writer or any
other creative entity/individual should in my opinion ensure that their
branding efforts are tailored to their aesthetic. Not the record companies, not the
distributors, not the publishers. Good
branding reveals us as we are:
constantly shifting human beings doing our best to make a genuine
difference in the world.
In short, I leave the latter sort of branding to those who
feel it works best for them. Speaking
for myself I would prefer a genuinely thoughtful audience with visions of their
own completeness. Does my version
work? Yeah, it works. Ask Zappa, Cockburn, Radiohead, XTC, and PIL. They have their audience and while they may
not be walking red carpet circus spectacles, they entertain and inform to a
substantial audience. They sell their
material and are successful. Branding is
not about acquiring fame. It’s about
communicating your world to others with integrity. It’s about listening. It’s about avoiding the typical hype provided
more often than not by large campaigns.
Neither style of this sort of thing is right or wrong. But make no mistake about it. Branding development is about choice that
opens the audience to who you are. And
while many gurus will fill you with all sorts of templates for such branding,
be careful to be willing take the best of those templates and discard the
rest. No one on this planet can provide
you with a quick fix formula for branding.
The best person who knows how to tell your story is you. No one else.
So yeah, break a few rules along the way. But first know the rules of the game. fracturecreations@gmai.com
