Purpose of the music video

There are 2 main purposes for a music video:

• Promotion / Publicity
• Make money – increase sales.

Promotion

A music video is used to promotes the artist, single and the album. This is because the music video adds more content so the audience will be exposed to more of that song/artist meaning that the audience may like the song more and buy it along with the album and maybe even older songs. So being as the audience see more content this will persuade them to buy the song/album. Furthermore if there is more content for the audience to be exposed to, This means that the artists profile can get more awareness so that the audience may know more about that artist and may end up become in long term fan. They may also buy older songs and tell their friends to make the artist more popular. 

Music videos are also used as promotion for product placement. Popular pop artists usually promote their own fragrances in their video. A few good example are popular pop artists like Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Christina Aguillera - here are some videos:

Within the first 20 seconds in "Work B*tch" by Britney Spears see her fragrance that was new at the time.

The Music Video exists as only one strand of a multimedia campaign as it is primarily used to promote the song and artist. Furthermore, different people like directors and animators can get involved meaning they can be promoted as well. Other platforms that can be used to promote the song and artist include: Television shows, radio, adverts etc.

The music industry as a whole has a relationship with a number of different media: Radio, TV, Print media, Film, New Media.

Making money

Synergy

Synergy is where different people/organisations from different media areas come together to make a video that may help to promote something that is closely linked to that music video. The best example is when a music video is made for a song that featured in a film. This video will then have some shots of the film which will make the viewers go see the movie and vise versa for those who watch the movie, they will go watch the music video. This means more money will be made as customers are going from different media areas and spending more money. This benefits all the media products involved.

An example of synergy with films and music videos is "Skyfall". Adele sang the main song in the James Bond movie and this helped both the film and artist. The film benefited as a huge artist like Adele was featuring in the song track and helped to make exciting trailers. Adele was benefited as she got to have a music video with movie scenes and James Bond fans also where exposed to her song.

Here is the music video:

Here is another example, this is "Love me like you do" by Ellie Goulding and the film this song is from is "Fifty Shades of Grey"

What makes a music video successful 

A successful music video has to be original but artistic. This is so the video matches the lyrics and portrays the right image but also has good and quick editing with some effects, props and good acting to make it believable, eye catching and artistic.

A music videos success can be measured on YouTube views and downloads. If these numbers are high in a short amount of time then the music video is considered successful. YouTube will help with word of mouth as many people can see the video so may tell others. However the risk of illegal downloads increase when a video is posted on YouTube as people can use YouTube converters to get the video for free. Other platforms can be on TV channels like MTV. Usually people put this channel on so they can have music videos playing at a party/event so this can help create word of mouth.

Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Music videos are important for artists as it helps create a brand and image. However music videos would most likely not be popular if it wasn't for Queen making "Bohemian Rhapsody" music video. This was the first music video to be taken seriously as if it was artwork. This music video helped to get the song to number 1 in the charts and it was therefore considered a big success.