Artists are increasingly exposed via social media as real people with hobbies and interests, and hobbies and sub-cultures are increasingly becoming associated with certain styles of music – way past obvious associations like rastas like reggae. Therefore, one of the most important things to note about marketing music in the digital age is that it’s not ALL about the music or getting word out in the traditional way. Labels, you might want to consider your artists interests when doing promo and artists you should definitely be looking at ways to exploit your interests as a marketing tool.
One such example is Gabby Young. A lover of fashion, and an artist, Gabby maintains a style blog and is well known for her dress sense. In fact, in 2009, Artrocker did a double page spread on her called “How to Dress like Gabby Young”, see below.
She’s got such a passion for fashion, she’s set up The Gabberdashery to curate art, designer fashion and jewellery to be sold at her shows, and other events. And further cemented her place in the fashion world by attending London Fashion Week (LFW) in the front row this year, creating interesting content for her blog, interview opportunities for herself, and she probably had a great time doing it.
The implications of being front row at LFW are endless and stretch way past a few interviews and blogs to encompass amazing exposure and networking opportunities and more… At the same time maintaining both The Gabberdashery and her style-blog opens Gabby up for interesting partnership and sponsorship opportunities. Her blog, for example, lists sponsors from fashion designer, Inbar Spector, to make-up company ILLAMASQUA.
Proof that hobbies and sub-cultures open doors… We invite you to explore hobbies more thoroughly in the hopes that other labels and artists discover the doors that niches can open – like Gabby did.
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