Publicity: What Every Artiste Needs to Know!
Every artiste needs publicity, however, some embrace that requirement much better than others.
The history of artiste publicity in brief:
20 years ago a box of 10 x 8″ photographs printed on a light card was the only requirement.
15 years ago, with easy access to home computers, many people produced their own CDs. These became an important addition to the bulky 10 x 8″ photos.
10 years ago, websites started to become quite common, Most were poor, but acts wanted the status symbol of their own website on the Internet.
In the last 5 years, the focus has centred on the music video showreel.
With the rapid improvement in smartphone cameras, YouTube has become awash with hundreds of cheap forms of video, capturing every artiste in every conceivable location, some good, many less so.
But is video publicity a good thing?
There are many thoughts and opinions on this matter. I can only give you my professional opinion based upon over 25 years of experience as an entertainment agent, involved in the marketing and sales of professional singers and bands on a daily basis.
A good quality promotional video is the most important publicity item you will ever need.
There are many who think that videos recorded on smartphones are a wonderful thing, possibly all they need to get by. There are probably a few singers around that can prove this too; alas they may be in a very small minority.
Around 10 years ago, here at Shout Entertainment, we pioneered video publicity. Armed with a top-quality HD camera we videoed all our artists and displayed them on both YouTube and on our webpage.
On the Shout Entertainment website, we provided better-than-average videos of every one of our artistes on their own page, and what we did, at the time, was way ahead of any of our competitors.
All our clients, venues and bookers got a unique insight into the artiste they had booked. This became a fantastic tool for prospective clients, allowing them to peruse the site and make bookings based upon the video showreel publicity on display.
This was a great vehicle for us at the time, but alas it was never going to last. It was quite predictable that the introduction of professional videos, produced with properly integrated sound and even green screen technology, would soon overtake our ‘average’ but ahead-of-their-time video recordings.
But are all ‘professional videos’ good?
If you were to sit in my chair for a week, sifting through the publicity that is sent to my office on a daily basis, you would come to the conclusion that this is not the case.
We seem to have come full circle. In what now seems to be a race to turn out a quantity of videos, or to add effects that neither enhance nor add to the quality of the recording, I have to say there are some poor professional videos being pushed forward, possibly to the detriment of the artiste or band.
One thing is certain. Some artists are paying high costs for poor-quality videos.
Great promotional ideas and videos don’t have to cost the Earth, they just have to promote the artiste with both sound and picture quality. They have to be interesting enough but not too distracting with effects.
Over the last 5 years, after sifting through hundreds of videos, it is fair to say we have noticed that one company has consistently produced more high-quality videos than any other.
Shout Entertainment has encouraged all its singers and artists to have their publicity photographs and music video showreels produced by the same company, simply because of their consistent quality. Over 90% of our artists videos have been produced by Olibo Ltd.
If you are in the market for professional publicity images click here
We have built our website and reputation on their expertise and I fully endorse this company as our main supplier of top quality videos.
Of course, we are not suggesting that there are no other good quality companies out there, but we are suggesting that before you part with your hard-earned cash, you fully research prospective producers of your publicity and their prior work.
