Purposes of Music Videos
Before we look at what the purpose of a music video is, we must understand what a music video actually is.
A definition of a music video is: A short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for artistic or promotional purposes.
The 'first' ever music video is supposedly Bob Dylan with Subterranean Homesick Blues, which released in 1965 in D. A . Pennebakers famous music documentary 'Don't Look Back'. This is considered the first music video ever realised.
A short while after this time, in 1981 music videos exploded into life and into popularity. This was due to the launch of MTV, a channel designed only to show them off. MTV also bought around the first ever commissioned music video, 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by The Buggles. After this time music videos became almost compulsory.
The main purpose of a music video is to promote a band or artist, to boost sales of their music. A music video is also a medium of which directors and the band themselves can project their artistic view easily, and with almost no rules.
A record label that have signed an artist are searching for ways to gain profits, and music video is a simple and effective way to do so. This is called extension of income. If the company releases the album/song by itself then the only money that company is going to get is from record sales. To increase the amount of money that they make they may choose to create a music video to coincide with the release of the album/song. Now the company will rake in money not only from the record sales, but also from people buying/viewing the music videos. A great example of profits gain is Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video, which made approximately $5 million from the music video alone.
Extension of income via music videos can happen in a number of ways, promoting tours, merchandise and product are a few. Extension of income is another leading factor when creating a music video.
When a band is about to go on tour, or begin to sell tickets to tour gigs they may choose to release a video that's solely promoting the tour. This way, people who the view the video will see what the bands performance is like and decide to buy tickets to go and see them. This is an example of extension of income through promoting tours. Here is an example of a video that does this:
Clearly, in this video a vast majority of the video is of the band on tour. This video was released shortly before the band announced a second tour.
Another way that an artist/band can extend there income is buy product placement. Product placement is a form of advertising, where a product is a company will pay large amounts of money to have their product placed within the video. Therefore, every time some views that artists video they are inevitably viewing that product. This has become a more and more popular way of advertising in the past few years, especially after the introduction of time-shift viewing, which would allow viewers to skip set advertisement breaks on TV channels.
In this Lady GaGa, there is around 14 cases of product placement:
In this music video there is placement of the products Diet Coke, Virgin Mobile and Beats by Dr. Dre just to name a few. All of these companies would have had to pay the artist or recording company to have these products in the video.This is another way which a artist/band can extend there income, via product placement in their music videos.
Another way that a artist/band can get more money out of their music video is by extending the amount of people that view the video. To do this, they may choose to include or base their video around something that would mean more than their usual fan base would watch the video. This is called extension of outlets.
If, for example, an entire video was based around one sport then not only will the artist fans watch the video but fans of that particular sport may choose to watch it to, for the video rather than the music. If this video was on YouTube, where an artist is payed for the amount of views they get then the artist would be making more money, as their views would be increasing.
A good example of this is DJ Fresh's 'Louder'
This video is all based around skateboarding/rollerblading. This means that people who are interested in skateboarding and rollerblading are likely to watch the video for the subject rather than the music. Also, the video features famous people, like professional skateboarder Killian Martin, so again people who are fans of his or are interested in what he does are likely to tune into the video to see him. By including these things in the video the artist is broadening the amount of people that will watch the video, and this is called extension of outlets.
Synergy is another form of promotion for music videos. Synergy is when two products work together to create a better result then the sum of their individual effect. So, more simply it is two products working together to create better results. With music videos it is usually a movie and a song working together, and therefore the movie promotes the song a vice-versa. In theory if these two pieces where released separately then they would not do so well.
A good example of synergy is Will Smith with 'Nod ya head'
This video was released at the same time that men in black 2 was released. The video heavily features environments and scenes from MIB 2. Anyone who is a fan of the music and watches the video is more likely to go and see the movie after watching the video. The song is also featured in the MIB 2 movie, so anyone who is a fan of the movie or liked the song is likely to go and watch the music video. This is how two products work together in synergy.
Music video can also be produced solely for artistic reasons. These videos may have no related meaning to the song, and are just made to show another side of the artist's creative ability. A good example of is 'The Rockafeller Skank' by Fatboy Slim.
This videos narrative has nothing to do with the song, and is not related in anyway, this video was produced simply to entertain the viewers whilst they listened to the video. Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) is famous for his original music videos.
Synergy is another form of promotion for music videos. Synergy is when two products work together to create a better result then the sum of their individual effect. So, more simply it is two products working together to create better results. With music videos it is usually a movie and a song working together, and therefore the movie promotes the song a vice-versa. In theory if these two pieces where released separately then they would not do so well.
This video was released at the same time that men in black 2 was released. The video heavily features environments and scenes from MIB 2. Anyone who is a fan of the music and watches the video is more likely to go and see the movie after watching the video. The song is also featured in the MIB 2 movie, so anyone who is a fan of the movie or liked the song is likely to go and watch the music video. This is how two products work together in synergy.
Music video can also be produced solely for artistic reasons. These videos may have no related meaning to the song, and are just made to show another side of the artist's creative ability. A good example of is 'The Rockafeller Skank' by Fatboy Slim.
This videos narrative has nothing to do with the song, and is not related in anyway, this video was produced simply to entertain the viewers whilst they listened to the video. Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) is famous for his original music videos.
