The Streets Case Study

1. Summarise how the image has changed/developed over time, and the music genre.
The Streets primarily started as a band made up around the creator and lasting member of The Streets, Mike Skinner, began making hip-hop and garage music but adopted a more indie feel when success came in 2000. However, the music has always maintained the garage beats, keeping true to the music despite breaking into the charts.
In 2008, Skinner made a point to highlight the new "peaceful, positive vibe" to his new LP, Everything Is Borrowed, in comparisson to 2006's The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, which was more grimy with darker lyrics.
However, Skinner has said that the fifth record, the next to be released, would sound like the city of Berlin, and that the album will be "ravey". but will still be "one more banger" and, as strange as it sounds, "dancing music to drink tea to".

"The final Streets album (the fifth one) will be dark and futuristic. This could not be further from the album you're about to hear, but it's what is on my mind at the moment. I feel inspired by the synthesizer exhibition we just visited in Austria after the gig we just did."

2. Who are the fans? Do you have any sense of how the music companies have segmented the audiences? To what extent has the branding of a band been linked to target audience?
The Streets have a very widespread fanbase ranging from teenagers of both genders to students and young adults and even to drug users. Skinner's realistic and revealing lyrics often mention his battle with alcoholism and drug addiction which both widens and narrows their fanbase. Many drug users will be able to relate to his music and his lyrics and even seek advice in what he sings, whereas other people will be put off by the truthfulness of his songs and for the reason that he openly says he has used and abused drugs.

The Streets have not got a definite branding such as other bands apart from the 'cockney, typical geezer' type look, with Skinner wearing normal everyday clothes of polo shirts, jeans, t-shirts tracksuit bottoms, and caps. The recognisable image of The Streets is the clipper lighter that is on all of their albums, and once again this is just like an everyday object that makes him more normal and less of a celebrity. In a way the branding is to not look different to the people who listen to his music which links him to the fans and makes him familiar and almost like just one of your mates.

3. What marketing strategies can you identify? What kinds of stategies can you list?(above/below-the line? unexpected promo stunts? etc). List any examples of the use of synergy with other industries to promote other media/products in connection with a band/artist.
Skinner is an big fan of Reebok Classics shoes, often seen wearing a pair of white Workout Plus trainers, and has even mentioned them in the lyrics for his song "Let's Push Things Forward", in which he says, "Let's put on our Classics and have a little dance, shall we?". Therefore, in 2005 he signed up to appear in a twelve-month ad campaign for Reebok, joining other prominent celebrities in Reebok's "I Am What I Am" campaign. Skinner also collaborated with PETA2 in a campaign urging KFC to demand that chickens raised for them be treated more humanely.