11 - Mainstream Vs Independent

This is the findings of my research into the differences in appeal to target audiences of mainstream vs. independent.

Mainstream Artist - Drake.

 

Drake is a mainstream rapper, singer and songwriter from Toronto, Canada.

 

Record Label: Drake is signed to mainstream record labels: Republic records and Cash Money records. He also has his own record label called OVO sound.

 

Other artists signed to Republic records: The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi and Sage the Gemini.

Other artists signed to Cash Money records: Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Birdman, Tyga, DJ Khaled, and future.

 

These are all highly successful and famous artists, their success majorly due to the good management, advertising and publicizing both republic and cash money records provided them with.

 

Drakes Target audience:

Drakes main target audience would range to late teens and adults (17-30+ year olds)

although he has a very broad fan base of people of all ages, he has merchandise to suite all age groups, but mostly his older fan base (18+ year olds):

1. Drake has an entire merchandise website called, where he has OVO/Drake Clothing ranging from hoodies and sweatshirts to caps and accessories, majority of the clothing is sold old (which shoes the success of sales with his merchandise). As he is signed to a major record label, has amazing album sales and is $40million+, he is able to have a large range of merchandise.

 

2. the first photo is a Drake /ovo lighter and lighter holder, the second photo is a drake / ovo swiss army knife. This appeals to his older target audience (18+)

 

WEBSITE:

 

 

 

Drake's website is a simple, easy to navigate page, on the front page all he has is a video to promote his L.A Flagship store which is coming soon. I can find all his albums and mixtapes by clicking on the music tab, and there is also a link to buy them on ITunes. Drake doesn't have any images of him on the website, he is a well known enough artist and doesn't need to promote his image too much and therefore the website focuses on just promoting music and tour dates. This is a separate website to his merchandise website, he has a link from this website that will take you to the separate merchandise website.

Republic records have a large following on social networks such as twitter and are able to tweet their artists upcoming albums to advertise them, they are also able to get the albums advertised on TV and radio stations, due to the nature of his success Drake has a larger following on social media, so he can now easily advertise and promote his music to a larger audience than his record label can reach. (27 million ).

 

 

Independent Artist - Vukovi

Vukovi is a Rock band from Scotland.

 

 

Record label: Lab Records. Lab records is an new independent record label formed in 2007 based in Manchester, UK.

 

Other artists signed to Lab records: Fort Hope, Youth Club, Bethan Leathley, Anavae and Katie Sky.

 

(These artists are not as famous as the artists signed to republic and cash money records, due to the fact independent record labels have less money and resources to use to promote and manage their artists)

 

Vukovi's Target Audience

Vukovi's target audience would range similar to Drakes target audience, but with a slightly older fan base (19-35+ year olds).

 

Website and Merchandise:

 

 

There is a very big difference in Vukovi's website and merchandise compared to drake. First of all on the front page they use a slideshow of photos to aware the viewer who the artists are, (however they do follow the similar simple theme and have clear tabs to lead the user to different parts of the site.)

One of the major big differences between Vukovi and Drake is the merchandise.

 

Whilst drake has a whole clothing line and smoking line of merchandise, Vukovi only has 6 products, which are one t-shirt, 2 badges, a badge set, a poster, 2 'patches' and a signed EP. The price range of the products compared to drakes are also very different as the lowest priced product is £3.50, however drakes lowest priced product is £15.

Also, they have their merchandise page on their website, whilst drake has an entire separate website for merchandise.

 

This shows the major differences with how mainstream record labels can promote and manage their artists compared to independent record labels, as mainstream labels have a higher income, they have better opportunities for their artists