Musicians are cultural entrepreneurs, operating as human brands in the South African music industry. The ability to manage their brand effectively may give them an added advantage to compete successfully in this industry. This study sought to explore the integrated marketing communications (IMC) practices of South African musicians in brand promotion. Using a qualitative design, interviews were conducted with practising South African musicians to collect data. The results revealed that South African musicians use multiple marketing communications tools to promote their brands in multimedia campaigns. However, not all the elements required for integrated marketing communications were in evidence. Results from this study may be used by entrepreneurial South African musicians to create a strategy for integrated marketing communications in promoting their brand in the South African music industry and may also contribute towards the practical application of IMC within the broader field of marketing management. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

This thesis is primarily focused on collecting insights regarding rock music fan that can be applied to marketing communication. Its main aim is to describe how the rock fans are different from the major population in terms of descriptive characteristics, values, opinions and lifestyle. The points of parity and the points of difference are investigated on the level of rock sub-genres. The message, symbolism and main ideas present in rock music are examined, including historical and social context leading to the formation and development of the genre. We also tried to assign a specific archetype to rock and its sub-genres. We assume that rock fans are in some ways different from the rest of the population and that we are able to observe the differences on the level of sub-genres. However, we also expect that there are some points of parity symptomatic for all the rock genres. We suppose that artists and music marketers approach marketing communication mostly from the point of their own intuition and that they frequently use symbolism, historical references and archetypes in their way of communication. The research is comprised of three parts. First part is the analysis of secondary data from MML-TGI database by Median Research Company for year 2013. Used methodology: General analysis and cross analysis. The objective of the analysis was to determine differences between genres and subgenres in terms of descriptive characteristics, value system and verdicts about lifestyle. The next part of the research was the content analysis of notable rock album front covers for the purpose of deeper exploration of rock symbols. The last part of the research is comprised of interviews with music industry professionals who shared their opinion regarding genre characteristics, fans and marketing communication in real life.