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Drake
Ed Sheeran
Catfish and The Bottlemen
About

Since breaking onto the music scene is 2009, Drake has released all his music under the OVO label (standing for ‘Octobers Very Own’). As founder of the record company, he has developed the brand far, even using it as his logo. The name links to his crews Birthday month, while the Owl itself lacks any significance. The label has purposely been publicized by Drake and those signed as he constantly refers to the it in his songs, making merchandise and wearing it on stage. As a popular figure, he quickly raised the profile of the ’brand’ as merchandise become sought after products. He has successfully branded himself as an artist as whenever his target demographic see the logo or clothing, they recognize it as Drake’s merchandise. This creates those who wear the clothing almost advertisements, paying the label to buy the clothing initially. In addition, collaborations with major brands like Nike has heightened popularity and recognition of Drake, proving how important the synergy is to the artist.

The rarity of the products helps to attract a wider audience, creating discussion between Drake’s target demographic of 16-25 year olds. Here is an example of a pop up shop, set up for only one day, allowing fans to gain the clothing at a relatively low retail price. Adding to the specialty of the items, the resale price of most of the products doubles to creating an appeal, which Drake uses as new ranges of clothes are often released at the same time as new singles/albums so the artist is never far from the headlines.

As a Rapper from the hip hop genre, conventions of the artists character or actions are expected. However, Drakes release of ‘Hotline Bling’ found fame for a strange and expressive music video. The release of the video, with Drake supporting a strange dance routine, spread across forms of social media rapidly, not only engaging users to the new single but the music video which was one of the first videos to 1 billion views on YouTube. By making an unconventional video, it encouraged fans to share (whether to criticise and praise) but the outcome remained the same as publicity for the Rapper. 

logo
Public image
fashion

In the media, Drake is usually presented fondly, with many pictures of him smiling in public available to view. Many see this as him being grateful, a trait many music fans may regard and therefore listen to his music. However, the sensitive trait may not be desirable in Hip Hop, with Drake adjusting his style accordingly to fit under a blended genre, making him unique and even more significant. This originality helped him lose the ‘uncool’ title he had gained from his role in the cheesy soap opera Degrassi. His image is one of being a well kept man, sometimes idolized, which helps him to maintain in high regard or prestige. The GQ voted him as ‘one of the most stylish men’ on the planet.

In addition to his OVO clothing, Drake uses fashion as a tool to gain an audience. For example, before his tour in the UK began, he attended Wimbledon (an iconic British event) wearing cult terrace brand ‘Stone Island.’ Not only is the brand very expensive, it helped him to be portrayed on a similar wave length of those who he wanted to draw the attention of.  Furthermore, the fashion helped him maintain a strong image, with the clothing often associated with violence. By converging to UK fashion, he was able to gain the respect of domestic fans as he wished to collaborate with British artists like Skepta and Giggs alongside his tour.

social mediA

The representation of the artist through his Instagram is rather casual and humourous.  With over 37 million followers, the platform helps him to inform audiences of release dates as the proliferating site will be the first place to look to many demographic. The handle name itself ‘champagnepapi’ connotes wealth and even success due to association of champagne and celebration. The frequent use of the platform helps him to stay relevant in a competitive industry, where songs are released and lose popularity within weeks. Lyric captions on all forms of social media are rather common, with fans quoting Drake lyrics, offering another way of immersing music fans. Comments mad eon his twitter present him as someone who promotes there music forefront to anything else, showing his fame but remaining reasonably humble at the same time.

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The early logo used by Ed Sheeran was rather abstract, intriguing audiences in his music. The innocence of the logo, later revealed at a meet and greet, was it was what he had put on his first album cover as a child. These stories often humour audiences, adding a sense of endearment to his character. To make the Paw Print as his logo, it was placed on merchandise, digipaks and even on his guitar. By adopting this simplistic symbol, audiences were reminded unknowingly throughout everyday life of his music, by associating the logo with the artist. The logo eventually lost value, however a continuation of the handwritten font and style images can be seen in all his work. For example, the font used to write 'Ed Sheeran' is the same on all of his albums and used throughout adverts such as websites to build a brand. This adds a personal touch to establish relations with fans, while the authenticity of it connotes the uniques style the artist has. Sheeran also has the logo tattooed, starting a craze of music fans following in this footsteps to reinforce the development of the artist.

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album titles

A theme is used across all three of his hot albums-uniting them clearly under one artist. The names of the albums (Plus, Times, Divide) clearly collocate with each other. By using these symbols as album titles, audiences are likely to realise who an album is by from the cover-as they recognise the pattern and the brand. Due to the relevance of the titles, Sheeran suggests to his audience that his style will remain similar and not be swayed despite his recent rise to fame and recognition as an artist. Sheeran has since revealed that the series of titles have been planned four years ago, showing the aim of developing future music,

consistent/
clear genre

The majority of artists constantly adapt style album to album to stay 'modern' and gain chart success by converging to popularity of the time. In contrast, the purity of Sheeran's music assembles his own genre and style which continues to attract a wide audience. In his music, he is not one to brag about fame, luxury or money, instead telling some quite graphic stories such as 'A Team'. This works well for him as audiences continue to listen to his music with expectations of his previous music, and due to his versatility it is a huge advantage to the branding of Ed's music and character. The representation of real life scenarios-often without a 'hollywood' ending- fascinates many.

fashion and style

Despite his success and obvious wealth, Sheeran is never seen flaunting designer brands, even at award shows. The artist has a very casual dress sense, wearing clothes that would not separate him from the 'norm'. Many people respect this as the gap between stardom and the majority is usually rather huge, helping to gain a positive public image/relations. The his fashion suggests that fame has not changed his approach to life and a likeable character can only help album sales. He is the opposite of what is expected of a pop star on appearance.

mode of address

In addition to his styling, Ed Sheeran's character matches his 'down to earth' look. In interviews, he is presented as a quiet and not over bearing personality which is exhibited by many in the industry. He has always been expressive about any issues in his life or questions he has faced, with a sense of humour also. In Britain, the media hardly say a bad comment about him, probably due to the fact he hides from the limelight when possible to live a normal(ish) life.

social media

Before releasing his latest album, Ed took a two year break, making many curious, even ignoring social media for a while. This stirred cup discussion and excitement to his new material so once released, it would rise in the charts due to the suspense of the wait. On social media it is clear he is in control of the account, not a marketing manager, as he has addressed issue over performances or criticism, making his 32.4 thousand tweets more personal to followers.By tweeting these at time funny tweets, he is using the proliferation of the internet to his advantage as it can be shared and seen be such a large audience. As well as twitter, Ed uses Instagram like a normal user with personal moment shared, cementing his persona

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