The Analysis of My Band Frau Nima’s Developing Musical Identity and Brand

Frau Nima is a band made up of 5 members including myself based in Bristol. Over the last 2 years we have played lots of gigs around Bristol and created music to play at those venues. But over the last 6 months we were alerted to the opportunity of being able to support Zach Templar on his “Missin In Waves” Tour. We suddenly realised that we needed an online presence and a distinct look in order to be able to capitalise on the exposure that we would get by playing 11 dates around the country and in Europe. In this essay I am going to analyse how we created a brand identity using Aaker’s Brand Equity Theory and the User Generated Content Theory, while evaluating what worked well and what could have been conducted better in order to gain the most exposure and success from the opportunity as possible.

Frau Nima has been functioning in the Bristol Music Scene for just over 2 years now and have aimed to create alt rock music that has creative intention behind it while also having a tight and engaging live set that can perform in any situation. While knowing that the tour was on the horizon, we aimed to bring every aspect of the band to a professional standard. That included the media, brand, music, live set etc. Initially we aimed to have 2 singles out to drop over the course of the Tour which spanned 3 weeks long. We aimed to be able to capitalise on fan engagement, while also being able to further our own standard as a band. This meant there was no time for flexibility or experimentation as it was only a small window to be able to engage in. 

There were two theories that we implemented during the tours time frame, one of which was Aaker’s Brand Identity Model. This model explores relationships between the artist and their fans. There are many different factors to this theory that make this successful. One of the main ones is Brand Awareness which is making a distinct brand that allows for the audience to be able to easily recognise and resonate with the artist through distinct colour choices and artwork which alludes to their theme/group. This was interesting for us, as before the tour we had no releases on Spotify and no engagement in other cities other than our hometown Bristol. So we had to establish completely new relationships through different opportunities at the gigs. 

The other theory that we focused on was the User-Generated Content Theory. This theory encourages fans to create content online which amplifies the brands reach while also giving it a pedestal to stand on as it is being recommended through other forms of media and not by the original creators. With Zach Templar being such an online presence, we expected a lot of media to come from TikTok as his demographic also would have discovered him through this platform. To capitalise on this, we combined this method with Aakers Brand Equity Model to create opportunity for media to be created and to create personal relationships with the band in the process. This allowed the band to have more algorithmic visibility while also creating meaningful connections with the fans.

When looking at how we wanted our brand to be perceived a very big part of it for me was the Audiovisual Branding. This is all the media which fans would be able to recognise us from. Firstly, when constructing the visual elements of our brand I wanted to have a particular colour that is consistent throughout all of our media and can be associated with our work in this current era. This allows for a very put together look while also being recognisable to fans easily. We chose a bright orange to be our colour as the more pastel version of the colour can be associated with a more 90’s sound such as Nirvanas ‘In Utero’ which we are heavily inspired by. We opted for a brighter version of this colour though, as we wanted it to grab someone’s attention easier. This all resulted in a higher quality look as a more consistent image gives off an impression of higher quality. To continue this even further we created a background for our gigs that contained our logo with the same orange colour. This meant that if anyone created any User Generated Content videoing us at the gigs it would still be coherent with all our other media.

When marketing ourselves as a band on social media, we aim to set a distinct tone for our look. We came up with the slogan “DON’T BREATHE IT IN” which we used across all our social media. This among other things set the tone for the lead single “Breathe It In” without even fully advertising it yet. It also created a serious and professional tone which we wanted to use on most socials. We wanted Instagram, YouTube and our website to come across as cohesive and compact while other platforms such as TikTok we want to show off our personality a bit more. This should make the band feel a lot closer and human which means people can relate to us more. 

When supporting Zach Templar, we realised from the first show that the demographic was 14–19-year-old girls. This is due to him doing most of his marketing through TikTok and blowing up on there. His music fits into the Steve Lacy, Rex Orange County sort of category which is very popular between that age group. This is somewhat like our own demographic as our main audience is 16–23-year-olds, but we identified that our music was a lot more heavy than Zach’s as it ours is heavily influenced by rock, so we decided that there were definitely alterations to be made in order to capitalise on the exposure of the tour.

We decided that we would make our setlist a bit softer with the inclusion of multiple songs we have been playing at our previous live sets but never planned to release. We did this to create an aesthetic which would appeal to Zach’s audience while including our singles in the setlist in order to promote our music on streaming platforms. Another way we decided to meet the audiences needs was by using engagement techniques such as encouraging fan content. We released a post after every show at each city. When we realised how many people were recording and taking photos of us and putting it on social media, we decided that we could use the UGC Theory to encourage this. We put on all our socials that everyone should tag us in their posts from the gig of us and our favourites will be the ones we post on our official account. This promotes more media to be shared and published by fans while also creating deeper connections through new fan interaction. We found that this worked incredibly well and encouraged even more media on all platforms as the fans really felt like they could get to know us and invest in us as a smaller artist.

We also used Aaker’s Brand Equity Theory to make an easier pathway for fans between us and Zach Templar. The way we did this was we all went over to the merch stand after every gig and stayed till kick out time taking photos with every person. This meant fans were able to have real life conversations and interactions with us while buying a t shirt. This showed that the effort we put in to meeting people and investing in our fans outputted a high level of commitment and loyalty from the fans which resulted in them spending £20 on our own t shirt, which they put online on media platforms.

While the tour went on and we got more attention it became clearer where we were positioned in the market and how we could differentiate ourselves. As we played a more mainstream setlist to the audience this tour, it resulted in us sitting in a more mainstream indie scene. We noticed this through the overwhelming coverage of certain songs which contained more of our songs with pop motifs on social media platforms. But this could also be due to Zach Templar’s audience’s music taste and what they enjoy, therefore they would be more likely to push those songs on social media and so forth.

Initially when mapping out a business plan for the tour and single releases, a band which I initially took inspiration off was “Keo”. This was due to how professional all their media was immediately after breaking into the rock scene. They only released music that was obviously top quality for their band, while also keeping a consistent look throughout all media platforms that tied everything together. They didn’t look like a new up and coming band. This really inspired me for how I wanted our brand to look, considering how we had a massive opportunity for exposure coming on the horizon. 

Although we based a part of our branding strategy on “Keo” there were things which we definitely changed/wanted to do differently. One of these was the way “Keo” uses the User Generated Content Theory. Keo like to come across very professional and take themselves very seriously. They very rarely emphasise audience interaction which leads to them having a passive audience. Something we wanted to do is make sure the audience can get to know each members personality through social media and can interact with us personally after our gigs. This allows for a participatory brand that is easy to invest in. This is due to us being a small band, so we have the time to invest and interact on social media posts and platforms. Aswell as us wanting to create fan relationships early so those relationships can develop into followers and can really feel like they have invested from the start.

Overall, I feel like there are more positives from this marketing strategy than negatives, but also, I definitely feel like there were mistakes and weaknesses that if we were to have gotten right, we would have had more success throughout the tour. Firstly, I think as a brand we created a strong visual consistency across all social media platforms that creates a distinguishable look which also serving the genre and music which we participate in. We created high potential for User Generated Content engagement throughout the tour which capitalised on Zach Templars demographics most used Media platform. And lastly, I think we created a clear narrative for fans to get invested in due to created relationships and emotional loyalty with the fans in person and on social media.

Despite this I also think there were a lot of setbacks and areas for improvement. One of which is a lack of organisation when it came to releasing singles. Although most of the media was fully complete, we still didn’t have a single out on any streaming services apart from SoundCloud until the London gig which was halfway through the tour. This meant that people weren’t able to stream our music or find us for a good portion of the tour. Aswell as this we didn’t have any merch till the London gig as well which heavily impacted the amount of profit which we made. Lastly, I also think that we could differentiate ourselves more in our market and create more ways to stand out.

Overall, I feel like there were a lot of successes and work that was put into this tour. But I think it is also quite abundantly clear that we could have taken a lot more from the gigs and gained a lot more from what was available. Using marketing theories such as Aakers Brand Equity Model and the User Generated Content Theory created a lot of opportunity for success through our strong identity and focus on community driven growth but there are definitely a lot more opportunities for refinement.