As social becomes more and more important in today’s digital marketing world, competition between brands is becoming greater. Uploading a cool photo of your brands newest product or creating a mediocre video for youtube channel, displaying your products best features will just not cut it. Creativity and bravery are becoming increasingly valued in what now has become a battle for consumer attention within overcrowded markets.

In October 2014 we saw Taco Bell shock the marketing world with their social media stunt introducing their new app. Blacking out all their social media sites with a single post stating #onlyintheapp was a move which many marketing professionals would not have even considered a few years back. Adidas’s there will be Haters campaign saw the brand cleverly use the negative feedback football stars receive on social media, to create an integrated video and social campaign. Both examples of campaigns which quite simply could easily have backfired.

With social growing evermore important within the marketing world, it is not just being used for simple social media advertising such as Twitter competitions or video campaign uploads or as a channel too ensure wider distribution of marketing materials. The article below from 'Marketing Land' perfectly explains how social media is being increasingly used to retrieve insights on customer behaviour. Social media is a fantastic way to monitor your customers interests, emotions and daily behaviour, thus allowing for a more direct and ultimately successful marketing campaign or strategy.

With consumers logging online daily (some hourly) to the worlds most popular social platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, marketing agency's should be taking the time to use this easy to access data to create profiles of their audience and to understand current trends and niche markets that need to be targeted through their campaigns.

I myself am not simply getting excited about the rise of social within today's marketing world because of it's growing importance as a channel to reach consumers. Instead, the excitement should be surrounding its multi-functional purpose within the world of marketing, functions which agency's need to be taking advantage of and which are the key to successful marketing.

In this new digital marketing era, social media has become the number one tool for brands to get their image out there. In the same way that brands have used social media, musicians have used it to market themselves, their music and create this musical persona in a way that was never possible before.

Has this caused the music industry to move away from that which was focused around genuine musical talent to become an image conscience, brand focused industry? With the ability to create artist pages on many social sites such as Soundcloud, Spotify, Lastfm and the chance for artists to create personalities through tweets and blog posts, are we seeing this shift to focus on the band or artists image rather than on their musical talent?

Music videos which now seem to be at the forefront of many popular musical artists projects in terms of promotion and marketing of the track, in my opinion concentrate listeners/viewers focus on the aesthetics and imagery of the artist and video. With online video platforms such as Youtube allowing the widespread distribution of music videos, to put simply the focus is being taken away from the musical compilation itself and being refocused on what you see.

I still haven’t quite recovered from the shock of paying £50 to see some of the biggest names in the DJ world. Lost Village Festival – an original, intimate music experience unlike any other UK festival. With only 5,000 people and three small stages, from the minute you stepped into the woods you felt like you were in this obscure fantasy world united with other tribes waiting to share and experience this new, magical experience.

Apart from the shock of discovering a crate of 24 beers from the pop up shop cost £80, Friday night started the festival off with a bang. The legendary Grandmaster Flash had Basecamp bouncing to classics from Jackson 5 and Coolio. From cocktail bar buses to Mexican food stalls the Basecamp created the perfect chill vibes to relax throughout the weekend to your favourite tunes and get away from the crazy scenes unfolding within the woods. 

8am Saturday morning and the camp was buzzing with atmosphere with the majority eager to get the weekend properly started. With the likes of some big headline acts set to play across the weekend camp were preparing for two big nights ahead. As darkness fell the tribes gathered around the main stages to engage in the eerie vibes of Four Tet or to party to the deep techno sounds of Jamie Jones. A late announcement saw the likes of the legendary Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac being added to the already impressive line-up. It was clear from early on Sunday that the majority were waiting to see her in action. With support from Hannah Wants at The Ruins main stage, Sunday night saw the females steal the show. 

I can’t forget to mention the excellent marketing used by Moda in the run up to the festival. I was dubious as to whether they could live up to the huge hype created via social media surrounding the tribal Lost Village theme, however  this was accurately recreated through the mind blowing aesthetics and decorative details around the woods.

A clever move by the organisers to begin selling tickets immediately after the first festival has ended, an opportunity to draw back in those tribe members who are still engulfed in the excitement and buzz of this year’s encounter. Let’s just hope Lost Village remains as intimate and carefully executed as it was this year.

Acts included:

Jaymo and Andy George – Grandmaster Flash – Four Tet – DJ Koze – Dusky – Heidi – Huxley – Jamie Jones – Jackmaster – Hannah Wants – Annie Mac – Ben Pearce – Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Roosevelt – Walker and Royce – Greg Wilson – Tourist – Kolsch (DJ Set) - Maxxi Soundsystem – Tale of Us 

When I stepped into the 100 Club Oxford Street on Wednesday night i couldn’t help but hit myself over missing The Courteeners play there as a one off gig back in July last year. Such an intense, intimate venue. 

Despite not quite being The Courteeners (but possibly a future Liam Fray emerging in the young Kiaran Crook) The Sherlocks took the small stage with confidence. As I am sat here writing this review, I am listening to The Sherlocks Escapade which if I hadn’t myself selected the song, I would have genuinly mistaken for an early Courteeners tune. For such a young band, their music was mature filled with clarity and confidence in their future direction. Like The Courteeners, The Sherlocks have spent time and effort building a solid fan base up North before stretching to the rest of the UK, a sign that they are here to stay. 

Commencing their last but probably most well-known tune Chasing Shadows with the line ‘”is anybody over there?” it was clear that there was indeed a solid crowd over there, a crowd who intend to follow this band right through till the likes of them filling Brixton Academy and stardom. 

The Soft Moon- Zeros

Label: Captured Tracks

7/10

The Soft Moon return with “a most vicious, seething and focused second album: Zeros.” (Captured Tracks)The Soft Moon, set up solely by Luis Vasquez, have continuously managed to create something unique and slightly outside the rather vague ‘post-punk’ genre which they seem to have been categorized within. The breathy vocals and eerie feeling that they captivate is what makes them so distinctive.

Their latest album Zeros has somewhat progressed from the sound of the first self-titled album The Soft Moon. With persistent synths and a much more electro feel, the dark atmosphere created in previous tracks has been somewhat compromised. With its minimalistic composition, from the album cover too every individual sound, Zeros has managed to construct its own world in which listeners are drawn into.

‘It Ends’ serves as a brilliant opening track, its explosive sound launches you into the world of the album. With each and every track creating a fantasy world, the final track ‘ƨbnƎ ƚI’ certainly takes you back to reality leaving you touched by the hypnotic, immersive sounds.