James Bay's music campaign

1. MUSIC
CAMPAIGN
JAMES BAY

2. What Is a Music Campaign?
❖ A music campaign is part of selling the artist to the
public. It advertises their music along with their image
and what they are all about.
❖ A music campaign usually includes a website, along
with promoting the artist’s most recent album as well as
a music video for one of the singles off the album, as it
all ties in together and forms an image for the artist.

3. What Genre is James Bay?
❖ James Bay comes under the
singer/songwriter umbrella as he
writes his own songs that seem to
reflect real life experiences that he
has been through so far in his life.
❖ It is clear that he fits into this genre
as he follows the key conventions of
a singer/songwriter being musicians
who write , compose, and perform
their own musical material. They
also typically accompany their
songs, by playing the guitar or the
piano which James Bay does with a
guitar.

4. Who Is His Target Audience?
❖ The target audience for James Bay would probably be
mainly females between the age of 14-23 as they can
relates to his songs more as they could have
experienced what he is singing about or have
experienced it therefore can understand the mood and
emotions that the song is conveying. Overall creating a
greater appeal.
❖ James Bay is also a British artist, so is likely to appeal
more to the British market as they feel as though they
can relate to him on a nationality point of view.

5. Does James Bay Have a
USP?
❖ James Bay’s unique selling
point would have to be how he
mixes indie pop with alternative
rock to make his music more
interesting and attract a wider
audience.

7. What Is Similar Across All Three
Products?
❖ On his website, it clearly advertises his new album being ‘Electric Light’
with the album cover plastered across the whole page, explaining that it
is now available to buy, thus linking the album and the website together.
❖ When looking at his most recent music video from one of his recent
singles from the album, it fits his new image of going into more of the
alternative rock genre, as he has changed his look by cutting all of his
hair off. The music video along with his album cover and website all
display this. The music video still portrays the genre of music that he
produces which confirms the mood from his album cover as he has gone
with a dark colour scheme. The music video demonstrates a clear
somber mood which he is known for as it reflects things that he has
experienced, making it relatable.

8. What is the ideology of James
Bay?
❖ Due to James Bay changing
his image recently, his
message has changed slightly
as he now targets towards
more of the rock genre than he
did before as he has taken
away the acoustic guitar that
he used to always have with
him.
❖ He is still seen to be quite
accessible to audiences as he
sings about relatable matters.

9. Richard Dyer’s Star Theory
❖ Richard Dyer’s star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are
created by companies and institutions only for the purpose of
financial benefits.
❖ He believes that stars are constructed to reflect ‘real people’ who
experience real emotions. Stars are made through the music industry
to make money from an audience to respond to buying their music
and acting like their idol that have been created by the industry.
❖ Richard Dyer explained that there is a paradox of a ‘star’:
❖ The star must be ordinary and extraordinary
❖ The star must be both present and absent

10. How the ‘star’ theory relates to
James Bay
❖ The star must be both ordinary and extraordinary:
❖ This means that the star needs to be ordinary to allow the
audience to relate to the star but has an incredible talent
which allows them to be unique and admired by the public.
❖ James Bay conveys this as he is a normal man from
London who looks and acts like everyone else, although
he has a great voice and it able to play the guitar and write
good songs. Thus making him different to other people.

11. ❖ The star must be both present
and absent:
❖ This explains how the star needs to
be present in the publics lives
through either social media, seeing
them in concert or merchandise, but
also absent in the sense that they
aren’t fully accessible as they are
out of reach.
❖ James Bay displays this through
social media as he posts very
regularly with pictures of him
performing in different countries
which allows his audience to feel
like they are following him on his
journey without them actually being
there with him. This being a clear
example of James Bay being
present and absent at the same
time.

12. What is the difference between the
products?
❖ The difference between the music video
and the website and album colour, would
have to be the colour schemes that they
use as they display a certain mood, as the
music video is shot in day light so provides
a positive outlook despite the what the
song is conveying
❖ Whereas the album cover which is also
displayed on the website is very dark and
provides quite a serious and moody
atmosphere.
❖ This is to show the different flavours that
James Bay has to offer, thus making him
very interesting as he is changing things up
and experimenting as evident when he
changed his look.
His change is clear from the different
mood in the music videos as, he did
produce more serious and dark videos,
whereas now they have more colour and
more to offer. However this side of him
hasn’t gone completely as evident on his
album cover due to the lack of colour.

13. Successful?
❖ Overall, I think this music
campaign is very successful as
it displays the image of the
artist in a very clear way and
shows what he is known for
and what makes him unique to
other artists out there.