Target Audience

In order to find out more about how to promote my band or artist I will document how 3 different bands/artists have promoted their albums. I will use bands/artists of different genres and ages to see how they approach their different target audiences.

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

This CD was Lily Allen's second studio album which was released on the February 9th 2009 in the UK under Regal Recordings. It was certified triple platinum after 900,000 copies were sold. The success of the record could just be down to the quality of music that Lily produces and her loyal fanbase, however it could also be due to how she promoted the album.

• The promotion of the album was global.
• Upon it's release, Lily performed the first single 'The Fear' on GMTV, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and The Sunday Night Project.
• She also promoted the song in France performing on Le Grand Journal de Cana and NRJ Radio.
• A wide stretch of promotion was carried out in America, with Lily appearing on many talk shows such as The Today Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, The View and more.
• Lily also visited Australia to promote the album, appearing on talk show Rove Live and radio station Triple J where she performed 3 songs from the album. She also performed 'The Fear' on Dancing With The Stars Australia.
• Her last international appearance was when she performed on Japan's Music Station
• She came back to the UK and did performances on T4 and was interviewed about the album on The One Show, and performed songs off the album and old hits on Radio 1's Big Weekend and at club G-A-Y.
• She has since continued promotion with her tour and festival performances around the world.

Lily Allen's target audience I would say is females between the age of 15-25. Her album cover would attract people of this age and gender as it is very feminine looking, with light colours and cursive fonts but isn't childish and has a sophisticated look. As she is catering for female young adults generally I think her way of promotion was good as people of this target audience would mostly use the media such as TV shows and radio shows to find new artists and this is where they would see/hear her music. Also, her tour helped her promote the album to already established fans and they would want to see any promotional appearances she made. Due to the success of the album, I feel that her way of promoting was successful.

Eminem - Recovery

This CD was the seventh studio album from Eminem, released on June 18th 2010. The album was highly anticipated after the release of his 6th album titled Relapse in May 2009. Originally titled Relapse 2, the album was meant to be released in the 4th quarter of 2009 but was put on hold until 2010, with Eminem re-releasing Relapse with extra songs on it to tide fans over. Recovery debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Chart, selling 741,000 copies in its first week in the US. It became Eminems 6th consecutive #1 album and despite some criticism towards its consistency, the album received generally positive reviews from most music critics and as of August 29th 2010 (2010 -08-29)^[update], the album had sold 2.32 million copies in the US. This has shown to be yet another successful album, but again this could be due to Eminem's already established fan base and popularity, or due to his promotion of the album.

• Eminem has done several interviews in promotion for Recovery, including one with Red Bull.
• A commercial for the album was shown during game 6 of the 2010 NBA finals, it featured Vince Offer from the well known American Slap Chop commercials in order to parody them.
• A Call Of Duty: Black Ops commercial featuring Eminem's song 'Wont Back Down' was also released.
• Eminem appeared amongst other artist such as Usher and Will.i.am for the Activision press conference, where him and Rihanna performed their song 'Love The Way You Lie'. Eminem also performed 'Lose Yourself', 'Not Afraid' and performed 'Won't Back Down' for the first time.
• Eminem appeared on E! during their Daily 10 show in an interview, appeared in a skit on The Soup and also performed at the 2010 BET awards.

Although Eminem's promotion wasn't as extensive as Lily Allen's, I feel that is because he is more well known and doesn't need to promote himself as much. Then again, even though his promotion is was minimal it was effective, as the commercials were strategically aired at times when millions of people would be watching television. The commercials he did were also effective because of their content, as he parodied a well known commercial many people would be interested in watching it. When his song was featured in the Call Of Duty commercial I believe this was successful as most of his target audience (which I believe to be males aged 16-25) would be watching as this is the target audience for the game. Therefore, I believe Eminem's use of promotion to be quite minimal, but effective and strategically planned.

Madonna - Celebration

This CD was the 3rd greatest hits album from Madonna, released on September 18th 2009. It was her closing album with record label Warner Bros. Records, her label since 1982. The album debuted at #1 in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Mexico and United Kingdom and Madonna became tied with Elvis Presley as the solo artist with the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom. As this was a greatest hits album and due to Madonna's overwhelming popularity, the album was not vastly promoted with the exception of a TV campaign, however the way in which it was promoted (much like Eminem's album) was very strategically thought out.

• A television commercial featuring all her top hits such as 'Like a Virgin' 'Material Girl' and 'Vogue' was aired regularly getting her target audience hyped for the release.
• In the commercial she used all the hit singles that had helped her reach different audiences, from 'Vogue' to '4 Minutes' which gave variety to her promotion as her fan base is world wide and goes across most ages. However, with her most recent albums it seems like she is trying to attract a new, younger audience as well as growing with her dedicated fans.
• Madonna released a deluxe edition of Celebration which featured 36 songs instead of the normal versions 18 tracks and released digital bonus tracks with the deluxe edition on iTunes.

I found that this album's promotion was minimal, but as I said earlier this was probably due to Madonna's fame and because of this the album didn't need a lot of promotion, as well as the fact it was a greatest hits CD. However one thing I found quite strange was that she did no interviews for the album at all, so therefore promotion was just her TV campaign. Although the album did well in the charts I believe this was due to Madonna's dedicated fan base buying the album instead of being down to promotion, therefore I think it would've been more successful if she had done interviews and performances.