How Michael Jackson and Britney Spears Can Help Us Promote Our Music

Now I don't know about you but if there were two people I would love to have a deep and meaningful chat with saying "why did you throw it all away?" it would be Mike and Britney.

They had everything and they just lost it. But they are trying to claw their way back...will it work?

No.

For the main reason in that they are not targetting the audience that brought them there in the first place.

Take That in the UK have done really well in that they saw their primary audience increase in age as they have done. So instead of making teeny pop music, they instead evolved their music to fit their new, matured audience. While in the same vein keeping their music listenable and even..."cool".

But Britney went adult too quick. Even at the start of her new song "gimme more" she says "its britney bitch". Which, not taking any moral high ground, is wrong and then the video alienates her audience totally.

Britney wasn't gone for too long and her core audience is still there. The young teens looked upto her as an idol- so where do they go to now...Spice Girls...oh my.

If Britney pulled out some great pop songs rather then the adult market she seems to be aiming at, she would have had a better reception and her audience would have loved it. This is seen by the amount of times I have to endure Britney tunes on the music channels. She was good at them.

Now Michael Jackson, apart from his poor news reports how can he come back? Release new songs? He tried that and I have to say they were boring. Just dance videos with music in the background.

You may say "but that is what we want!" Well no, you can't see music videos on the radio or when you are playing them in your car or on a CD. So they were lost. Back in the day, his songs were so catchy that they could easily be played with or without the dancing. In fact the dancing made you watch the videos. You toe tapped and just watched in awe as he performed those moves.

So how can Mike pull it back? He could change his music style and become grown up. But I think Michael is really talented so why not open a Dance School! How many people would go to that, it would be booked out into next year- 5 years even...the money potential of this would be amazing. Because this is what his targetted audience knew of him and remember him for.

So what can we do? We must target our music towards our targetted audience. If we make dance tunes, don't promote rock. You could fuse the two...or better still do what professional musicians do: Make two identities one for rock and one for dance.

By listening to our audience, targeting them and ultimately NOT alienating them then they will pass your music onto their friends etc and you can be pigeon holed and marketed better.

This is the first thing that master marketing types do. They make a profle of their targetted audience and gather research about them. It can even save you loads of cash by targetting specific advertising areas where your audience hangs out.