Janne Räikkönen
Xi Wang
Cansu Aksoy
Jianchen Luo
Vlada Mueller
Caitlin Whitaker
Out of the Grave: Underground Audience Management for the Black Metal Record Label, Werewolf Records.
The aim of this project was to create an audience management strategy for an art based venture. The venture chosen was the black metal label Werewolf Records. The project began with an introduction to the black metal genre followed by an analysis of the record label. Key information was gathered on the customers and competitors to demonstrate its position within the market. Lastly, a marketing mix was applied with a focus on building brand relationship and loyalty.
Black Metal
From a technical standpointblack metal is “screamed sataniclyrics, fast guitar playing and drumming, with heavy distorted music.” (Dictionary.Com) Standard imagery for the genre is corpse paint, occult symbols, and ant-Christian imagery. Black metal expresses personal feelings: the dark shadow of the soul, depression and sorrow, death and loss and longing.So, Black Metal is a philosophy of life, a social bond, establishing a community of listeners.
Werewolf Records
Werewolf Records is an underground black metal record label and mail order shop for black metal albums and merchandise, based in Lappeenranta. It was founded in 1999 by Satanic Tyrant Werewolf (of Sanatic Warmaster) and currently has 12 black metal bands signed (58% international, 42% Finnish).
Werewolf Record’s Mission
The mission of Werewolf Record’s states, that it is going back to true black metal, and they don’t respect the other, more mainstream subgenres that in Satanic Tyrant Werewolf’s mind are only “money makers, opportunist, and traitors. The mission of the label is to spread the “Black metal/hate/fascist/torment propaganda” and the world view related to it. Devoutness to the ideals of hardcore black metal is in the focus of the label and mandatory of the bands their signed bands.
Current Services and Activities
The bands' current services and activity include sales of co-products (Vinyl, CD’s, Tapes, and Shirts) and updating coverage provided in a newsletter and archives via the Internet.
Who are Werewolf’s Customers?
Werewolf Recordshas two customers segments. Customers in its external market are individuals who are the fans of bands. These fans have the bands first in their mind and the labelsecond. Werewolf’s internal market is the bands. For bands, the quality and reputation of the label is first. Besides the Finnish bands, Werewolf Record also has black metal bands in Germany, Vietnam, Swaziland, Brazil and so on.
Customer Expectations
The audience seeks first an authentic experience, feeling of belonging to a group of similar minded people and confirmation of their identification.The audience also expects the following “services”. Easy access to the music (internet), regular release of CD’s, live concerts, where interaction with the community can occur, easy access to merchandise, that means physical identification with the movement and building identity by buying black metal artifacts and access to information about news and live performancesSigned band expect, high quality productions, trust and honesty. Bad reputations in the industry are almost always derived from dishonesty, active promotion of their music through different distribution channels, concert promotion, touring and promotional appearances
Competitors
Competitor’s characteristics help to demonstrate their, and your ventures, weaknesses and strengths. (Kotler, 248) The most direct competitors for Werewolf Records are other Finnish black metal record labels (Northern Heritage, Bestial Burst etc). All the labels mainly function via the web. Key categories on the web are the news section, a releases section, ordering information, and contact info. The news section discusses releases and updates; all labels researched actively update this section. In regards to merchandise options Werewolf offers a limited selection. There is varying degrees of label openness in regards to the contact info. Some have very specific instructions on what are the appropriate reasons for contacting the label. Generally the main interactions are done by email, and done for ordering specifically. Werewolf could improve this and stand apart from its competitors. Overall with price Werewolf is in range with all competitors. There was no information provided for bands looking to sign with the any of the labels except Northern Heritage. Since Werewolf is internet based a comparison to major international label’s site was done. It can be seen that international labels offer tour dates, street teams, and promotional contest, and Werewolf does not.
Branding and Pricing
We argue that the label could increase their sales by widening the augmented product (concerts and merchandise) variety. The label could also act as an intermediary between its band and the audience by creating a forum open to discussion and making online sales more accessible. The label should also focus on the branding of its bands because the brands of the individual bands reflect heavily on the brand of the record label itself. It is also important for the label to remember, that much of the branding is related to personal branding, which means in the branding process the band members play a key role. It is also clear because of the nature of the customer group and the mission of the label, the niche is smaller on the outset than it would be for more mainstream orientated labels. However, because of the specialization of the business the customer group can be very devoted in supporting the individual bands. In this respect, the record prices can be kept higher. This is also important because the merchandise of the label is harder to find in conventional record shops.
Place and Promotion
For place, we recommend distribution channels need to be controlled in order to protect the perceived underground reputation meaning that through personal connections increased distribution should occur in other shops and venues in the metal underground. For promotion we suggest the use of the “Impression Theory” came up by Piwinger & Ebert it serves as the theoretical bases which is a oriented conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to effect the way how other look at the world by regulating and controlling information in social interaction. By this way, the most important thing of audience management is to produce syntheses. Systematic steps guide audience management: show them why, get to know them, follow their pace, engage them, get creative, be flexible and then energize! According to this theory, several measures can be taken to promote Werewolf’saudience management strategy.Werewolf records for bands could advertize with band management companies. Salesfor merchandise could be promoted by advertising their specialty items. More direct advertising of the record label can be conducted through metal magazine, websites, blogs, festival banners and flyers. Label companies should always be sure that record release flyers of the bands which recorded with the studio include the labels name to remind the audience.
Relationship Marketing
Following a planned marketing mix strategy (or transactional marketing strategy), a further step for Werewolf’s audience management strategy would be Relationship Marketing. RM “aims at identifying, establishing and enhancing the relationships with customers and other stakeholders at a profit, so that the objectives of all parties involved are met” (Rentschler et. al. 124). It is realized by a mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises. It focuses on audience retention, orientation on product benefits, long-time scale, high audience service & contact and high product & service.
Loyalty Ladder
It is a dynamic conceptualization of the relationship between the audience and organization, which demonstrates the possibilities of catching or keeping customers, in other words how to build loyal customers/audience. It is not easy to orientate a marketing strategy into loyalty ladder. Organization has to make sacrifices and lots of attempts.
Loyalty strategies
The Loyalty strategies for Werewolf are aimed at establish customer’s feeling of attachment to or affection for its bands, artists, products, or services which is built on shared values, trust and commitment. So, Even these bands are underground, they need a certain degree of communications introduce themselves to their audience. The Werewolf can rely upon “word-of-mouth”, “advertising” and “internet” to show up and to attract new customers. Loyalty marketing also relies on the earned loyalty of current customers to attract new loyalty from future customers. Incentive programs must strike a balance between increasing benefits for new customers over any existing loyalty plan they are currently in, and keeping existing customers from moving to new plans. For Werewolf’s existing audiences, the: “Prizes”, “Premiums” (Souvenirs), “Rewards programs” (Card linked offers, Frequent flyers) are feasible.
Conclusion
Black metal is a sub-culture, with a desire to remain on the outside of the mainstream. This desire to remain underground has been a challenge when creating an audience management strategy that will allow them to achieve more exposure. The fact is that the black metal scene is global so they can stay within this niche and be a global label and brand. Werewolf Records needs to keep promoting that this is a sub genre, and they offer a specialized service. Since the owner of the label is also a well known black metal name this label has an advantage of authenticity to both the bands and the fans. This also allows them to advertize expertise and knowledge from an insider’s point of view. They need to keep the focus on the international scene by continuing to sign non-Finish bands, and start actively using social media to have a more effective global reach. They also need to adopt some of the strategies used by the international labels such as street teams and promotional contest. This will allow them to stand out from the other specialized Finnish black metal labels. We suggest more information for the potential bands. Better promotion of the bands already signed is also needed, increasing their presence in magazines, and concerts. The bands will always be first in the fans mind so increased advertizing of the bands, and more cooperative advertizing between the bands and label that way they reinforce each other. We suggest a massive push towards developing a brand name that is trusted. The fans are crucial and can help build value! Black metal fans enjoy going to concerts and the Impressionist Theory to communicate with fans should be utilized. This combined with an effective relationship strategy, will help build brand loyalty.
"black metal." Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 30 Apr. 2012. <Dictionary.com metal>.
Kotler, Philip. Marketing Management. 11th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2003. Print.
Rentschler, Ruth, Jennifer Radbourne, Rodney Carr and John Rickard. “Relationship Marketing, Audience Retention and Performing Arts Organisation Viability” International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 7.2:118-130.