SHR5E020P~001 Marketing & Branding Portfolio

by

Callum O’Reilly 24104477

Keo is a grunge band who have been on the rise over the past year thanks to an excellent marketing strategy which has made use of multiple marketing theories such as the social exchange theory and the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The bands recent success is thanks primarily to social media platforms with “the buzz and hushed whispers and mysterious rumblings” “coming primarily from TikTok” (Young, 2025). Keo, however, have followed a branding strategy quite unique to themselves which makes them an interesting candidate to analyse the marketing strategy of.

Many associate the sound of Keo with an increasingly popular grunge guitar band sound. With their first EP being a suggestion of what is to come from the band, they have established a specific sound and genre which fans love, with “a scratchier and old-fashioned way of doing things” (Reilly, 2025). “When you are able to prove that your brand can provide value, then you’ve built brand equity and the customer’s convictions will spread to others” (Hawker, 2019). In Keo’s case this involves the emotional associations their music offers, Keo frontman Finn Keogh said, “We all have our fair share of faults and I’m not sure if writing about mine has gotten rid of any. But I’ve found that writing can help [me] understand them.” (Carter, 2025) The idea of accepting your faults is a theme that many young adults especially can relate to and creates an emotional connection between the listener and the band which makes the listener form a sense of loyalty with the band.

This leads into a marketing strategy which Keo have used intelligently; Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP). This is where brands segment and target campaigns at specific demographics of people to maximise engagement. Keo’s target audience is clearly teenagers/young adults, however a result of their 90s influences and sound is that they open themselves to an older demographic as well with a “90s influenced take on folk.” (Gillicker, 2025) This influence is present in all manners of the bands presentation on and off stage. Keo are one of many recent bands to be much more focused on sounding live, in a similar fashion to grunge bands in the 90s and they maintain that image through their promotional material on social media such as Instagram and Tik Tok where the majority of their target demographic is likely to have accounts. Tik Tok itself has an algorithm which helps direct certain things at people who have similar interests which made targeting their music at those who are most likely to enjoy it and relate to it easier. The band sharing these videos was significant to their rise in popularity. “The buzz was being generated by devoted fans rather than the band themselves doing anything to particularly push it” (Young, 2025). Their ‘I Lied Amber’ Tik Toks went viral and caused a lot of excitement to gather around the band. Only the chorus of the song was uploaded on TikTok which meant many people felt the need to follow the band across social media in eagerness of the release of the song. This is the positioning aspect of STP which involves, “placing the product/service in the minds of the target customers and making the image of the product/service superior.” (Geeks For Geeks, 2025) Tik Tok is a fast-moving platform and as such to successfully use it as a marketing tool a brand must appeal to the dwindling attention span of users as “if your video doesn’t stand out immediately, users are likely to overlook your content.” (Teleprompter, 2025). As a band which were primarily relying on people’s immediate interest to rise in popularity, Keo had to use the chorus of the song to catch attention in seconds and make them want to hear more. This is quite a widely known method of growth on Tik Tok known as the “TikTok 3 second rule” and is applicable to any manner of content. However, Keo’s use of the idea in their early marketing worked effectively within the segmented demographic they wished to target. Ultimately, however, Keo cannot credit social media as the main catalyst of their success, and it was mainly used as a tool to attract the attention of likeminded individuals in a broader picture alongside segmenting the musical market.

Most of the band’s success is due largely to a marketing strategy which more closely aligns with the AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The AIDA Model helps to identify the stages that consumers go through during the marketing/buying process. In regard to Keo, their ‘Attention’ was created through the use of social media and their segmentation and targeting strategy. Their interest, however, has been established in a more personal manner, with their dark and deeply relatable lyrics hooking into the minds of listeners, Finn Keogh said, “I wanted to be the realest thing you can go and see because I know it’s real to me.” (Young, 2025). This personal connection that the band establish with the audience of their shows aids in a growing trend within the music industry, where “Wunderhorse and Fontaines D.C. went more melodic and suddenly it felt like the thing to be doing” (Reilly, 2025). Keo follow in a similar vein where they are straying away from rhythm and danceability to put more focus on the heartfelt harmonic and melodic content of music. This resonates with their fans and forms emotional bonds with them, making fans want to stay loyal to the brand. Since the band mostly strayed away from over posting on social media, a level of mystery and intrigue surrounds them and the majority of what started to gain traction and excitement across social media was videos of them playing live. Finn Keogh described this as “Letting fans fill in the gaps rather than putting a camera on everything we’ve ever done” (Young, 2025). This is a completely abstract method of marketing for a band to use in the modern day, forcing fans of the music to see the band live if they wanted to hear or experience the full songs which were getting stuck in their heads. This relied entirely on the principle that the emotional and personal connections fans formed with Keo’s music would be enough to make them want to experience the band live. This leads to the third part of the AIDA Model, ‘Desire’, which is fundamentally almost entirely what Keo’s marketing strategy is built on. Whilst they originally had a small catalogue of songs released on SoundCloud, the band chose to leave only 2 of the songs up for people to listen to and for a long time had no other releases on any streaming platform. This meant that their growing fanbase was limited to only a snippet of the music the band has to offer. This was intentionally done, however, to “make people have to find us rather than us going out there and saying, please listen to me” (Young, 2025). This is the stage where Keo set themselves aside as something original. Through both their band logo using a monotone desaturated yellow and their promotional material and music videos establishing more sepia tones, the band sits firmly in the idea of grunge and has carried their desaturated look through the release of their first EP ‘Siren’ this consistency which follows into their music creates a desire within people for specifically that aesthetic. By capturing sounds and styles that resemble that of the 90s, they introduce an excitement for a new take on an old genre which keeps their older audience reminiscent, and their younger audience excited for a sound which hasn’t been heard or seen in the charts for 30 years. Knowing this, Keo made the choice to leave fans waiting for an official release beyond their SoundCloud releases, and instead they chose to ride their hype, focusing on gigging and building the desire for a release more and more through word of mouth and eventually, releasing a single in early 2025, ‘I Lied Amber’, which resembled a Wunderhorse track and got an incredible amount of playback upon release. The single only made fans want more from the band. Keo choosing to release ‘I Lied Amber’ as their single was smart as it gave fans of the band a sense of familiarity to what is currently being release by guitar bands, before their second release, ‘Thorn’, widened the scope of their sound, creating an intense anticipation for their eventual release of the Siren EP. The band effective use of mystery within their music and public presentation has formed a strong relationship with the fans who are in the desire stage of their marketing. However for all their mystery, Keo maintain a level of honesty which attracts consumers to listen to their music and want to see them live. “When an audience trusts that someone genuinely uses and values a product, they’re more likely to want it themselves.” (Lanier, 2025). In this case, the product is the music or the bands gigs, both of which the band have outwardly shown themselves to be emotional and brutally honest experiences. By creating such an emotional soundscape across their music, Keo have created a desire to hear more of their music as people have an innate want to connect to the music like how the artist does. The final part of the AIDA model is action, which, thanks to their excellent restraint in releasing music, has become less of a possibility and more of a definite. Over just the course of 2025, Keo have become an almost household name, selling out an entire UK tour in seconds and selling vinyl of their EP out almost as soon as it dropped. Frontman Finn Keogh said, “We sold out Oslo with no music out and had an organic fanbase that cared about it” (Young, 2025). The band can quite fairly credit their fortunate position to the fans who continue to be loyal and have a constant desire for more music, gigs etc. but the band can attribute that to the vulnerability within their music allowing fans to form a deeper and less parasocial relationship with the music and the band. Inevitably, Keo’s use of the AIDA marketing strategy will continue to work effectively as they constantly give more to be desired.

In conclusion, Keo are an interesting showcase of a more classic approach to the way they market themselves in an ever-growing internet presence. Relying more on the loyalty and word of mouth of fans as, “When the fans start to believe in you suddenly the labels do” (Young, 2025). They use social media as a tool to advertise themselves to a target group without the need to entertain trends, which in turn creates a longer lasting impact on the consumers of their music. By forming interest and excitement from their music and most honest forms of themselves they have built a fanbase filled with loyalty and a constant desire for what’s to come from the band and more importantly have the grounds to continue in their success with a growing consumer-base.

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