The study examined whether a popular music artist can be considered as a brand, and whether the interpretation of this brand helps understand how popular music artists exploit the consumer-driven market demand and value to bolster their music artist identity. Past studies on people brands or personal branding had notably considered entrepreneurs, artists, celebrities, CEOs, visual artists and female music artists. However, there is no conceptual and theoretical framework informed by specific research into popular music artists as a brand. The main aim of this study is to fill this gap and in so doing make an original contribution to knowledge. The study adopted a biographical research approach within an interpretive ethnographic research methodology. It employed thick description of qualitative textual narrative, providing a thorough and rigorous insight into the existing career of Craig David, a popular UK music artist, spanning four decades. The study, based on biographical research, integrated the brand management constructs of brand identity, brand value and brand community. These constructs are seen as relevant and pertinent in understanding people's brands and the way popular music artists exploit market demand for their creative proposition of value. A major finding, which emerged from the study, was a conceptual framework identifying popular music artists as possessing a brand identity, emanating from their physical, private and professional identities. These identities cumulatively form the popular music artist's persona, which possesses brand value, which an artist projects, to form a relationship with the publics. This enables the individual artist to derive a portfolio of revenue or return directly proportional to the reputation assigned by their publics. The findings of the study make an original contribution to the literature on people branding or personal branding. The thesis discusses the implications for the practice of brand management and identifies the study's limitations; it also points to a number of areas for further research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:767998 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Sylvester, Ray |
| Publisher | Bucks New University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://bucks.collections.crest.ac.uk/17533/ |
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