Introduction to BULLOCK
Maya, also known as Bullock, is an atmospheric electronic artist and producer based in Leeds. Originally from the Isle of Man, Bullock began her career in music as a jazz drummer prior to favouring music production. In 2025, she released her first single: ‘Where Were You’, which draws on the traditions of electronic dance music, using intricately sampled drums and autotuned vocals, with the addition of layer synthesisers to create a dense and fluid sound.
I discovered Bullock at a Behind the Beats producer showcase and identified a unique aspect of her artistry, being that her music is directly geared towards passive listening. Her unreleased work focuses on the emotionality of the sound over the messaging in the lyrics. Passive listening has become a current trend, so much so that Spotify are chaning thier editorial playlists to create a “passive, algorithm-driven experience that prioritises mood-based listening” (Dave Van Dyke, 2025). For Bullock, featuring on a mood-based playlist curated by a major streaming service is an ideal means to attract listeners internally.
The age demographic of EDM listeners has “a younger bias, with preference peaking among those aged 16-34 before dropping off proportionately with age” (AudienceNet, 2018). This accurately reflects Bullock’s individual analysis on Spotify for Artists, where 55% of her listenership is aged 18-34. Moreover, AudienceNet indicates high consumption of EMD music on YouTube and Spotify. For this generation, the internet plays an essential part in music discovery and how audiences can be nurtured into fans. To appeal to this age group, digital media will be an important aspect of a campaign to market her music. 16-34 year-olds prefer to consume visual content using social media platforms that are focused on this type of media, such as: Instagram or TikTok, which present a selection of services best suited to house content from Bullock.
Situation Analysis
In group meetings towards the beginning of the academic year, we identified a disconnect between the following she has acquired on social media and the attention to her music on streaming platforms. From the appearance of her Instagram profile, we could deduce that it has previously been a personal account that now features her music, to retain her followers. Similarly, her Spotify profile seemed equally unprofessional at the start, due to the low-resolution and inconsistent images. We noticed a lack of regular updates to both, which left her online presence neglected and out-of-date. Accounts with this impression do not lend themselves to gathering vanity metrics and consistent engagement. Similarly, an artist profile on DSP platforms is not favoured by algorithmic playlists, which are crucial to Bullock’s strategy to generate continious traffic around her music.
Bullock defines her target audience as urban listeners ages 20 and above. She describes the ideal setting for listening to her music as playing in the background of a cocktail bar, further reinforcing the purpose of her music as passive listening to elevate an in-person experience. She explained that she initially wanted to release an EP of three songs that formed a project integrating acoustic and natural sounds into dance music. We planned to use the waterfall method to release the tracks with each new song accompanying the last on an EP until the full body of work is available. This strategy would allow Bullock to benefit from compound streaming and constant attention, to attract the attention of playlist curators.
To market these songs, we intended to provide professional digital profiles with a defined aesthetic that complemented her music to host two main forms of visual content; faceless short-form media and a series of abstract music videos, alongside still photography.
Followers: 1009
Total number of posts: 13
YouTube
Subscribers: 3
Views: 143
Spotify
Monthly Listeners: 13
Total all-time streams: <1000
Goals
To market the release of Bullock’s project, incorporating acoustic elements into dance music, we devised three primary goals within Bullock’s campaign; improving the appearance of her profiles on social media platforms and streaming services, defining a clear visual aesthetic present throughout her visual media and connecting her with other creatives. To make her accounts more attractive to consumers and industry personnel alike, we intended to edit the profile details and content to more accurately reflect her artistry and upcoming projects. Additionally, we aimed to establish a visual identity that reflected the abstract and atmospheric nature of her music. Moreover, we wanted to create a media mix without featuring Bullock to align with the characteristics of dance music, which tends to separate the music from the creator’s personality more than conventional pop music. To execute both these goals, we planned to arrange collaborations with local creatives, specifically videographers, to generate artistic videos. More specifically, we wanted to produce two music videos and a short-form edit for each accompanying her debut track: ‘Where Were You’ and her final upcoming release.
Measuring Success
To quantify the success of our marketing strategy, we planned to compare social and streaming analytics between February and May of 2026, which gave us approximately three months to deliver our campaign. We designated the following statistics per media platform as aspirations to aim for. We felt that these were achievable results that also reflect common indicators of promising emerging artists.
Followers: 1500
Average views per post: 1000
YouTube
Subscribers: 50
Average views per post: 200
Spotify
Monthly listeners: 500
Total all-time streams: 1000
Bullock explained that she wanted to focus on Instagram, as that mirrors her consumer habits. She finds Instagram less addictive than TikTok and prefers to follow creators through a mixture of still and short-form media. We explained that TikTok appeared to be a space for Bullock to naturally want to share her music, as its users belong to her target demographic, and short-form video on this platform would serve as a powerful tool to broaden her audience. However, we decided to centre her campaign on Instagram, as it was more realistic for her to deliver quality media to a platfrom was was comfortable and familiar with, plus short-form content could still work to her benefit.
As Instagram remained Bullock’s main social platform, we made some updates to her profile to elevate its professionalism. This will make her project more appealing to new listeners and attractive to industry professionals with the resources to further her career, by demonstrating efforts to construct a brand identity that reflects her music through visual media.
I arranged for high-resolution photography to be taken of Bullock in the studio to serve as press photos and feature across platforms as profile icons and banners to allow her accounts to be instantly recognisable. We changed her profession and bio to relate more specifically to her current projects. Then we edited the content on her profile to exclude media that detracted from her music. This left a minimalistic profile, which is consistent with her style of music, centring around the mood and quality of the production, over attachment to a specific personality.
To complete her profile, I would title each highlight with an emoji and use a faceless photo for the covers to link to the faceless media on her profile and reinforce a clear, relaxed aesthetic throughout. This would invite listeners to discover more about her life and creative process, triggering the second layer of a marketing funnel where consumers express interest in an artist and a desire to know more about them.
Spotify
YouTube
Similarly to Instagram, we refreshed Bullock’s profiles on Spotify and YouTube, to prepare those platforms for new material to be published. Starting with Spotify, the playlist algorithm favours well-curated artist accounts through a combination of the platform recognising aesthetics and organically attracting repeat listeners to an account with visual appeal. We changed the profile photo and banner to high-resolution images taken from her studio photo shoot, which complement each other by adhering to a consistent colour palette. To finalise her profile, I would have replaced the outdated photo in her artist description with a selection of images from the same photoshoot to maintain the profile’s sense of professionalism and aesthetic. We developed her biography slightly, however I would have liked to describe her artistic identity in more detail, to clearly define the purpose of her music as passive listening to enhance in-person experiences. A shorter description is more suitable for her YouTube channel, where we added links to a LinkTree, which we created to connect and showcase her accounts. The LinkTree also includes contact information for the ease of potential collaborators, which is also listed in her channel’s biography. At the beginning of our campaign, the only video on her channel was the release of ‘Where Where You’, the cover of which remains as her banner, which I would change to match the one visible on Spotify.
Music videos
Music Ally identifies cinematic storytelling as one of the most impactful trends of 2025 in relation to marketing within the music Industry. The success of which is apparent in Adekunle Gold’s album: Fuji, which used a cinematic trailer, with the tone of a feature film, to announce its release. After the release of this project, Gold has amassed over 3,000,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and the majority of the songs from that album have several million all-time streams. The success of this campaign can be credited to the cohesive storytelling and world-building present across long-form video, social media content and live shows. Consistent imagery and aesthetics become essential “as audiences grow more fluent in visual language, the campaigns that resonate will be the ones that treat artistry as an organising principle, not just an accent” (Sonia Chien, 2025). Willoughby Design proclaims that effective branding is foundational, scalable, and personal in order to “become long-term business assets that drive alignment, loyalty and growth” (Megan Stephens, 2026). In implementing rudimentary colours and thematic content, we have created a basic sense of artistic branding that can be replicated across future projects. Moreover, the personal elements, such as: the scenery featured in the music videos, connect with both Bullock individually and her target demographic. This should help to trigger the further layers of a marketing funnel, like loyalty and advocacy, as her followers can recognise common aspects of their identity.
Inspired by this aspect of Gold’s marketing strategy, we aimed to develop a series of music videos that were equally high concept. Alongside an attempt to replicate the success of Fuji, this would also achieve our aim to connect Bullock with other creatives. We arranged for Bullock to collaborate with young filmmaker: Eddie Glover, and dancer: Darcy Delezio. We decided to combine a contemporary dance performance with electronic music to allude to the second project that explores integrating traditional, acoustic instrumentation into dance music, and to reinforce a disconnect to Bullock’s personal and artistic identity by choosing not to feature her in the videos. The dichotomy between elements of conventional composition and choreography forms a unique conceptual theme that should resonate with Bullock’s audience. The first video provides a visualisation of Bullock’s debut track: ‘Where Were You’, and it is set in an empty bar and events space; linking to the ideal situation Bullock described for her music to be consumed. The location also depicts a popular environment for her target demographic of young, urban individuals, allowing the audience to feel catered to and connected with her artistry. We planned for the first video to draw viewers to her YouTube channel, in preparation for the release of the second music video, accompanying her project: ‘Roots’.
Short-form media
Cyber PR states that Instagram reels are the best method of improving engagement and visibility; “It is the best way Creators can find a community that is deeply engaged and aligned with their interests” (Instagram, 2026). We planned to film two additional types of short-form video for Instagram reels. The first are highlight reels of the music videos, and the second are faceless, cinematic footage of Bullock operating a mixing desk.
The edits of the music videos were posted as collaborations with Delezio, Glover and his video production studio. In practice, Bullock benefited from increased visibility to their individual and sizable audiences. These videos also reintroduced the imagery from the videos to viewers, which built on the repeated elements of Bullock’s branding. We used the Adjust Preview feature to set the cover of each reel to an action shot that aligns with the colour palette and visual themes across her feed. Maintaining this consistency creates a feed that connects with Bullock’s following in its entirety and provides a holistic representation of Bullock’s artistry.
As “your Reel should be between 30 seconds and a minute because you’re competing with millions of other pieces of content on the platform” (Cyber PR, 2026), we decided to create 20-second clips of footage of Bullock engineering a studio session. We filmed her hand over the mixing desk, we continued to use a muted colour palette and chose not to feature Bullock’s face in videos to reinforce the conventions of how atmospheric electronic music is translated in visual media. More specifically, we asked Bullock to wear a red sleeve to further associate the song with an identifiable signature colour featured across the music videos and still content. We gathered enough footage to make a large quantity of the same style of video to post on a regular basis and elicit vanity metrics. Vanity metrics don’t often translate into real-life engagement, however they are beneficial in a completely digital campaign to promote passive listening.
Challenges
The main challenges we faced were the downsizing of our group from three to two business students. One of the members of our group didn’t continue into the second semester, and there was a breakdown in communication before his departure. This ate into the period of time we had allotted to deliver our campaign and affected the content pieces we were able to release. Objectively, this was out of our control, however we could have eased the transition with a more structured approach to leadership, centred around communication. In Gail T. Fairhurst’s discursive leadership theory, “through dialogue, leaders and followers collaboratively construct their understanding of goals, challenges, and strategies” (Rod J. Naquin, 2024). Applying elements of discursive leadership within our group would have allowed for a greater sense of collaboration in the face of setbacks and a deeper understanding of our strategy and intention to achieve positive results. Fairhurst “argues that leadership is not just a product of individual traits but is co-constructed through conversations and interactions among all organisational members” (Rod J. Naquin, 2024). We should have prioritised communication in this way to share the challenges we faced on our side and worked with Bullock to overcome them.
Bullock experienced delays in delivering the master recordings, due to her own workload from university and as a producer/engineer for other artists. This placed added time constraints and meant that we had to scale down the volume of songs we wanted to promote and where we were going to make them available. We were able to prepare Bullock’s social media presence and publish some promotional content around her first release, but decided to focus on one additional song that we released onto YouTube instead of DPSs. In my opinion, this was a necessary and valid option, as we were still able to create a small selection of quality content that Bullock will be able to replicate for future releases. I feel that this enabled more successful results beyond the duration of our campaign, which will benefit each upcoming release and Bullock’s career more broadly than if we had rushed to release all three songs as an EP available to stream.
Evaluation
Followers: 1027 (+18)
Total number of posts: 8 (-5)
YouTube
Subscribers: 6 (+3)
Views: 303 (+160)
Spotify
Monthly listeners: 8 (-5)
Total all-time streams: <1000
As we changed the product and scale of our campaign, and the platforms we chose to deliver it on, we were not able to measure our success as originally planned. Originally, our primary indicators were growth in Bullock’s Instagram following and Spotify listenership. Although there was some growth in these areas, the results are not indicative of our efforts to market Bullock. However, the growth of her YouTube views suggests promise and a potential demand for ambitious projects from Bullock. Changes in consumer behaviour, specifically relating to Bullock’s target age demographic, favours short-form content, which presents an initial challenge in driving followers towards YouTube for long-form video. Coupled with the fact that her channel remained untouched after the release of her debut track, the 160 views amassed over the course of our campaign stands as a marker of successful marketing and insinuates an interest from her audience in future releases from Bullock.
The effect of our work is evident more so in the professionalism of her presence on social media and her artistic branding. We made a positive difference to the appearance of Bullock’s online presence on social media platforms and streaming services. Through updating her profiles with up-to-date information and high-resolution press photography, her accounts attract listeners and industry professionals, both with the potential to progress her career. Complete with a LinkTree, her social media in particular now centres around her music. To build on this effect, we edited the content visible on her feed, which left a minimalist aesthetic, which lends itself to the conventions of dance music, which tends to be disconnected from the artist’s personality. A combination of these changes invites viewers to enter the initial stages of a marketing funnel by expressing an interest in a visually appealing feed with easy means to access a variety of content across platforms. Using this as a basis, we constructed a visual brand, consisting of a muted colour palette and references to urban settings, that could be replicated across future content to enhance Bullock’s aesthetic. Moreover, we established red as a key colour synonymous with the release of her upcoming ‘Roots’ project, which will serve as a constant reminder of the release for her followers. We ultimately released the project on YouTube in the form of an experimental music video, however had we released the song onto DSPs, we prepared a batch of similar short-form content that continues the same visual language as her previous videos. These videos are suitable for a digital campaign, as they generate vanity metrics to promote passive listening.
Overall, despite reducing the scope of the campaign and a limited ability to measure success via our original performance indicators, the project demonstrated meaningful progress in establishing a coherent brand and audience potential for Bullock. While increases in Instagram followers and Spotify listeners were modest, the engagement generated through YouTube and the consistency of her updated online presence indicate that our campaign successfully laid the foundations for future growth. We aligned Bullock’s aesthetic across platforms and created content tailored to current digital media consumption habits. Therefore, the campaign proved valuable in generating audience interest, and creating a sustainable artistic brand and marketing framework that can support future releases and the progression of Bullock’s career.
Bibliography
Bullock. “Bullock.” Spotify.com, 2026, open.spotify.com/artist/7cMK4DA1al7jitX9jyPmgV?si=3PaWzF4JSG2FWyBCxrr3xQ. Accessed 12 May 2026.
AudienceNet. “CONSUMPTION by GENRE How Different Fans Consume Music.“ Musicbiz, 2018. https://musicbiz.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/AudienceNet_GenreWebinar.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Bullock. “Bullock – Where Were You (Official Music Video).” Youtu.be, 10 Apr. 2026, youtu.be/Qqlc0vMPJB0?si=dVkZPAMnL_46zGPG. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Bullock. “Bullock.” YouTube, www.youtube.com/channel/UCfjoDa29UKkD-Wg8xZKaU6A. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Bullock. “Bullock (@Bullockmusic) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram.com, 2026, www.instagram.com/bullockmusic/. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Bullock. “Roots (a Contemporary Dance) by Maya Bullock and Genevieve Wright.” Youtu.be, 28 Apr. 2026, youtu.be/uQgIhR6-RCk?si=kvtMawf2jjcouiLZ. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Chien, Sonia. “2026 Music Marketing Trends: World-Building, Mystery Campaigns, IRL Activations and More.” Music Ally, 18 Dec. 2025, musically.com/2025/12/18/2026-music-marketing-trends-world-building-mystery-campaigns-irl-activations-more/. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Dyke, Dave Van. “Bridge Ratings Media Research.” Bridge Ratings Media Research, 6 Mar. 2025, www.bridgeratings.com/blog/2025/3/6/spotifys-playlist-ecosystem-the-mood-machine-at-work. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Hyatt, Ariel. “Leveraging Instagram Reels – Cyber PR Music.” Cyber PR Music, cyberprmusic.com/what-are-instagram-reels/. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Naquin, Rod J. “Understanding Discursive Leadership.” Substack.com, The Science of Dialogue, 25 Nov. 2024, rodjnaquin.substack.com/p/understanding-discursive-leadership. Accessed 12 May 2026.
Stephens, Megan. “The 3 Key Principles of Branding: Foundational, Scalable and Personal.” Willoughby Design, 26 Feb. 2026, willoughbydesign.com/3-key-principles-of-branding/. Accessed 12 May 2026.
