LAB Records research into a independent record label

1. LAB Records is an
independent record
label operating from
Manchester, England
and founded by Mark
Orr and Nathen
McVittie in 2007.

2. LAB Records – Online Followings
• On Twitter LAB Records have a following of just over 6,500 compared to a
Flagship label of a Conglomerate such as Columbia Records who have 400k
followers. This highlights that Columbia is much more widely known than LAB
records who are targeting a niche audience, where as Columbia has an
audience on a global scale.
• On Instagram where LAB Records post clips of their artists performing at local
gigs and photos of any magazine articles that they are featured in etc, have a
following of over 600 people. Where as SYCO Music who are also a Flagship
record label of Sony Music Entertainment, post pictures of their artists on their
worldwide tours and performing on live TV shows, and they have a following of
66.5k followers.

3. • Their online profile consists of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube, Tumblr and Soundcloud. They also stream a lot of their music
onto Spotify.
• It is crucial that they use these online profiles to then enable
their niche audience to access their music and starts to build a fan
base around certain artists.
• Lab Records have 13 artists signed to them such as Natasha North,
William Beckett, Jacob & Goliath, Fort Hope and more.
• Compared to a conglomerate, online profiles are crucial for an
independent artist because they have to network and gain contacts for
themselves. As no one else is going to do this for them, unlike an
artist that is signed to a major record label where it would be
someone’s job to run the artist’s social media accounts. So the
only chance an independent artist has in building a fan base is to
put their music out there onto their social media in order to have
the best chance to reach any sort of audience.
Lab Records – Distribution (Web 2.0)

4. LAB Records – Production
• The founder of LAB Records is Mark Orr founded in 2007.
• They also have employed 3 other people Scott Brothman (Director),
Duncan Howsley (design and videos, he is also the founder of LAB
exposure) and Matt Sayward who handles A&R catalogue management.
• LAB Records use free software such as Soundcloud to promote and
produce their music.
• When they have the money they outsource and rent studios for
recording, when they don’t have that level of income they use
software such as Logic-Pro.

5. LAB Records - Marketing
• Along side a visual merchandise store which promotes clothing and digital downloads,
they also own a marketing and management agency called LAB Exposure.
• LAB Exposure deal with the visual creativity behind new websites, music videos and
merchandise designs or a whole campaign for an artists next release.
• They market their music online by posting videos from live gigs and links to their
online streaming archives.
• When comparing LAB to major artists such as Justin Bieber we see, the difference in
their marketing strategies. Whilst LAB are posting live gigs and streaming links,
Justin Bieber will have a marketing team posting adverts hyping up his upcoming
album release or dropping dates for when he tours and when the album artwork will
come out.

6. LAB Records - Exchange
• I The Mighty who are signed to LAB Records recently did
a Q&A on MySpace where they answered questions about the
band that fans wanted to know. This is therefore a more
personal response as the band is responding to questions
the fans have submitted whereas Justin Bieber sells
special tickets where you can meet and greet him. This
shows the difference of a major artist and a independent
artist because it shows how large Justin’s fan base is
and how much people are willing to pay to meet him.