When it comes to branding, many folks get confused by what they are trying to accomplish. Far too often it gets boiled down to a nice logo and a clean visual representation of your brand. This is a factual part of branding, and if you trusted Google, probably the only part you’ll get exposed to for a while.
It’s also the last step in the branding process. In my experience a lot of branding efforts fall short because they don’t represent anything meaningful. While your logo is there to communicate the brand is in fact your brand, it’s also supposed to communicate a message clean and efficiently.
You have to do more than just link the image to you via content. The entire process needs a foundation.
What problem do you solve?
This is a clear concept when dealing with a product or service that’s based on utility. Plumbers can make plumbing jokes in their branding and flex their skills. We understand instantly that homeboy will fix the pipes properly based on the effort. Facebook offers older demographics a town square, it sucks I’m older demographics now, but we needed a new town square.
Even with art, this same process applied. In 2013 MGK released his Black Flag album. This was during the “Lace Up” era of his life. “Lace Up” was a movement for the downtrodden to lace up their chucks and grind on, collectively. The Offspring represents outcasts of the world. I won’t forget an interview of them noticing the irony of a sea of people singing, “I’m not a trendy asshole”.
During my interview with J. Shrier, he talked about how he took a pic of himself in a designer store stunting. I asked him why, on my old-man puritan bullshit. He was like, why would I stare at someone like Drake for motivation, when I can stare at myself? To him, this pic was a vision board item of a future Shrier’s success.
It made me realize that flex-rap is about that. It gives people in lesser circumstances a vision for a possible future. I grew up with patches where I was on welfare. To me it makes sense that you idolize affluent lifestyles because when you are young you never believe it can happen to you. But you have hope, because it happened to someone else, so it could happen to you.
That means that done correctly, entertainment solves some problems.
Music branding is about representing communities
As a weirdo white, lost 24 year old, MGK spoke to me back then. The way he made a song with a Rise Against sample, one of my favourite bands, blew me away. I had a similar feeling with Sage Francis. To see a dude with my general aesthetic, rapping about insecurities and politics like I wanted to, was inspiring. I saw myself in what he did, and it helped me to feel less alone.
When you start thinking about your brand, the first thing to focus on is what community you want to represent. People care about what you represent. A lot of the reason the “vapid” topic people do well, is because people believe they care about materialism and hedonistic activity. When thinking of your brand, your biggest goal should be to avoid creating a feeling of cognitive dissonance.
This medical journal I found defines Cognitive Dissonance as:
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort a person feels when their behaviour does not align with their values or beliefs.
The way I see it is, people get a feeling of cognitive dissonance when they see an artist representing things that aren’t true to themselves. I have many memories of people rapping about popping bottles, while there is no bottle in sight. Maybe you don’t want to spend 200$ on a bottle that night, but then don’t perform that song. It feels weird to see someone say something like “we always popping bottles” and then see no fireworks with baddies walking around all night.
Successful artists can tap into a community. Communities form over common ideals and goals (or that you were born somewhere). The real succession of an artist from amateur to budding is when the music stops being about themselves exclusively and instead blends their story with the stories of their fans.
The pickle thing is something I really believe in
I’m sure a lot of people think the pickle posts are a joke, and it is. What a lot of people are encountering now, is the manifestation of 2 years of work. Let me tell you all about it.
One day, I was streaming myself freestyling songs over Vincent Pryce’s beats. Vince, along with the other 5 people in the chat decided that I wasn’t allowed to make a song hating on pickle chips. The subject had come up, I was freestyling songs, and the whole chat liked pickle chips that day.
That lead to this wonderful joint (completely off the dome):
You see what happens is, and this is verifiable with your pickle-hating homies, is that when you say “no pickles’ at a restaurant you get bullied. Pickle-lovers will call your pallet childish, try to get your pickles manoeuvred onto their dish, and far too often try to make you feel bad for hating pickles. Why? Because the people who love pickles love pickles a lot.
I decided to perform the song, and when I did, I kayfabed my opps planting bags of pickle chips on stage. I started throwing them into the crowd. That led to a lot of people tagging me in pickle stuff. I started reposting that and voila, if you click on the shop button on this very site you can now buy merch.
Ya boy pimped the pickles he hates so much. That being said, when you dig beneath the surface of my pickle movement, it boils down to, let my 36 year old ass eat the food he wants in peace. Everyone can relate to the message, which is, don’t judge my preferences.
The depth in art creates believability
The reason I can sell the pickle merch and maintain this run for so long, and most people wouldn’t, is because I’m weirdly passionate about this topic. It IS a gimmick, but it’s not a random one. It’s a well thought out marketing campaign that is true to myself. Turns out people can connect to it. I speak for the pickle haters all over the world and for some reason, there are not a lot of champions for this cause.
I know how to grow it, playing on polarity and when my money’s right later on this year I will move with what I want to do. Every aspect of your brand, the image you present to the public, should come with that level of depth and relatability. I think Nate Husser, Mike Shabb and Travis Bryant are excellent examples of this in Montreal.
For real, Travis’ obsession with pop stars plays into his teddy bears universe and helps make the brand behind his music stronger. Travis is really about that pop star life. Now he’s in Albania or wherever building lore for his future albums and evolutions. The lore is what makes it interesting.
I am fascinated by the communities that surround video games like Witcher 3 and Fallout 4. Millions of people are still obsessed with these games years later, watching video essays on mundane topics like how the sewage worked. Why? All the good topics are done. Yet we still are obsessed with the lore of these worlds, so how could we ignore sewage? We’ve learned so much other useless shit.
Cyberpunk 2077 has such good lore, that stuff happens in the game that is related to your story line, but not necessarily including you. You may do a quest and hear the boss man be like “we’ll deal with homie who crossed us later”. Then find his corpse, later. You may never find it, but finding it adds to the lore of the world. This is what happens when you cross that boss man.
How to build lore in your art
This is going to be a quick section to wrap shit up. Consider this blog a part 1 on the topic. The best way to build lore is to draw from elements of your life. Think of lore as the things people will discover when they look into your life.
People are snoopy mcsnooparound faces. They want to know about you. It’s disappointing to find out the person behind the art doesn’t match the image. It’s not always a deal breaker but it is always disappointing and I believe it affects longevity. The more effort you put into the details, the more believable you become.
Twenty One Pilots is next level with lore. The Blurryface era evolves into the next one seamlessly creating a transition in the TOP universe into a new phase. They launched a secret website, with codes to break, to give the fans something to dig into. When they use what appears to be gibberish in Bandito at first glance, with some study into their lore, it just ties into a lot, and comes off way cool.
I think people like intentional stuff. They want there to be some kind of purposeful meaning. Like if you are obsessed with looking nice because it’s all you had as a way to stunt when you are young, it’s no longer just vapid displays of wealth. It’s something far more personal.
Lore sets context for the people.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone