Hotdesk Unltd: Plum Identity Brief

IN A NUTSHELL: Make Plum famous by creating a strong identity for her and her lovely music.

DEADLINE Sunday 18th September 2011 Wednesday 28th of September

DIGITAL PRODUCER – Jim Wolff PLANNER – Claire Paterson CREATIVE DIRECTOR – Michael Kinlan

PLUM brief BY CLAIRE P

WHAT’S THIS PROJECT ALL ABOUT? Plum (Shona MacGuire) is an Edinburgh based songwriter and producer of magical and emotive music.

Her music focuses on the harmonious merging of the natural and technological worlds.

Having released three previous albums, ‘Whispering Chamber’ ‘Glory Feast’ and ‘Different Skin’, she intends to unleash her BEST EVER album shortly.

The first single is called ‘The Seed’ and is currently in the final stages of production, part of an album “Meme” - or the spread of ideas.

Plum is raising funds / interest via Sponsume: http://www.sponsume.com/project/m eme

WHAT’S THE POINT OF THIS TASK? Our mission is to develop an over arching identity for Plum that can roll our into a music-infused marketing campaign.

We’ve already got a few experiential bits and pieces, but we need to cement these into a coherent overall look and feel.

Initially, we need to create a logo that can run across all of Plum’s communications.

Then we need to create communications such as posters, website etc - so examples of how this identity would work across different applications are welcome.

WHO ARE WE SPEAKING TO? A few different ones.

The Music Press to begin with. These guys are interested in the original, but have little time – so any artist that’s put in front of them has to be newsworthy and fascinating to deserve column inches. We need to grasp their interest, so that their ears prick up and listen to the wonderful musings of Plum. Obviously, they’re also key to inspiring interest and awareness of Plum to new fans – so we need to WOW them.

Plum’s current fans are around 25-35, predominantly in the UK and quite evenly split between male and female. A lot of these guys will be cruising around with their smart phones, so think about how we can engage them.

IS IT BELIEVABLE? You simply have to listen to her music to believe in this. It’s what Plum’s whole sound is rooted around.

The track ‘Fairies’ uses almost Aphex Twin style beats that sound like flapping bird wings.

Also her music has been described as: “ The sound of coquettish woodland nymphs with sampled electronic bits ricocheting off some abandoned satellite.”

Wrap your ears around the sound of Plum: where nature meets technology.

There is definitely something other-wordly about Plum, but her expert music production skills means her music is very contemporary.

See for examples of her music and work:

http://www.sponsume.com/proje ct/meme http://vimeo.com/6607329 http://www.plumtunes.com/ http://www.myspace.com/plumtunes

WHAT DO WE WANT THEM TO THINK/FEEL/DO?

HOW ARE OTHER PEOPLE TACKLING THE SAME ISSUE?

THINK: I’ve never seen anything quite like that before – then – I’ve never heard anything like that before.

Bjork is producing Biophilia, which is a marriage between music, nature and technoloyg, and she’s doing this through releasing a series of 10 ipad apps. http://mif.co.uk/event/bjorkbiophilia/ and http://bjork.com/

FEEL: Intrigued about Plum, her music and her mission.

DO: Find out more, listen more, donate more, talk to more people about Plum.

Kasier Chiefs latest website to ‘create your own album’ is brilliant.

It’s received masses of press and deservedly so. http://createmyalbum.kaiserchiefs.c om/ Lemon Jelly for their early gigs gave out T-shirts instead of tickets, so that if you wanted to get in you had to wear your Lemon Jelly T-shirt.

The result was a colourful uniformed crowd.

WHAT WOULD BE THE RIGHT WAY TO SAY IT?

AND THE WRONG WAY?

Fascinating

Cheesy

Msyterious

Mainstream

Intriguing

Annoying

Exciting

Generic pop-culture rubbish

Intelligent

Not that I’d ever think you’d decide (or be able) to make Plum into the next Jedward

WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO REACH THEM?

Ok Go are infamous for their videos, and their latest one is the best of all ‘ look up All is Not Lost. http://www.allisnotlo.st/index_en.htm l Mr Scruff released his last album on a re-usable memory stick instead of a CD.

We need an identity which will work on its own, and across album artwork, posters, online, music videos, social media and anywhere else.

HAVE YOU GOT ANY GOOD IDEAS YOURSELF? Using a plum (the fruit) is an obvious starting point.

IS THERE ANYTHING THAT ABSOLUTELY HAS TO GO IN? The word “Plum”

HOW WILL WE KNOW IF OUR IDEAS HAVE WORKED? We’ll get lots of press about the creative marketing of Plum’s album.

Lots of website traffic Lots of engagement Lots of downloads.

BY WHEN? Sunday 18th September

HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH?

£300

A.O.B? This is one of Plum’s previous posters to give you an idea of what’s been before: