Business Case Studies
Tom
Johnson/GoldFlakePaint, Glasgow. Scotland
https://www.goldflakepaint.co.uk/
“the journal is a collection of conversations with our favourite artists, as well as new music recommendations, personal essays and more."
Overview
Tom Johnson is a music blogger/freelance writer, who founded and edits Gold Flake Paint – a music journal and blog founded in 2010 and based in Glasgow, Scotland. They write about smaller artists, usually from the indie and alternative scene. As well as publishing their own music journal (re-launched in the autumn of 2018 as they took a 2 year break for unknown reasons) and blog on their website, they also give professional reviews on other websites, such as Fluence. Johnson claims to have first gained a love for journalism and publishing when he was younger, in which he religiously started collecting Empire magazine – a popular film and TV magazine. As of late, Gold Flake Paint has won a Scottish Magazine Award commemorating their success. Their biggest success was winning the 'Launch of the Year' award in 2019, awarded by the Scottish Magazine Awards.
Executive Summary
Showcasing writers from across the globe, GFP offers a heartfelt and in-depth look inside our favourite new music, via a combination of reviews, conversations and unique mixes. Our aim has always been to try and discover those special artists and albums that can change the shape of your day and celebrate the pieces of music that have done so to ours.
Audience
The company has their own Twitter, Instagram and Spotify which infers that they are eager to engage with younger audiences, which demonstrates a good level of self-awareness as that is the subject of their writing. In addition, as Instagram is the most popular platform among young people, it is a main source of their engagement with their younger audience – as well as being aesthetically pleasing. This is effective and beneficial to the company as younger people have a much more malleable mind-set, and so the music written about can be easily altered to fit their tastes.
Marketing
The website itself is relatively modernistic, with a range of images and media to grab the attention of the audience while also presenting their professionalism. The company's engagement with their audience has also allowed them to demonstrate efficient marketing, as they have gone on to work with other publishing companies such as The Guardian and MagCulture. One of their more unique features is that they are a proud supporter of Keychange's pioneering international initiative in which GFF are committed to achieving at least a 50% representation of women and non-binary staff across their writing team, as well as the same representation within each published issue.
Staff Management
Not much is shown in regard to his other staff, but Johnson himself is adamant that he is responsible for the general admin tasks, whereas his staff members mainly focus on editing and writing. Johnson understands that he cannot live a sustainable life purely from freelancing, and so he also runs his own record label, does PR for brands and has written articles for bigger names, such as The Guardian, The Independent and Bandcamp. Johnson claims to have main ownership and running of the website, managing the marketing, distribution and finances. He claims that starting the website was a huge leap of faith, as he had no experience in music but knew that he wanted to work with music using elements of writing that he had experience in previously.
Finances/Sales
Johnson has faced a lot of struggles with regards to running his own site and record label; as his company is relatively small, financial struggles pose the biggest threat. As a freelancer, you have no constant income, and so relying on freelancing as your main source of income is risky. Therefore, Johnson acknowledged this and started his own record label to support his company with their finances. Lastly, his site, Gold Flake Paint, also sell their own merchandise and physical copies of their magazines, which demonstrates how the company thoroughly thought through and considered their financial options. Although they depend on advertising in their copies in order to support printing costs and general costs, they also sell a range of merch, including tote bags, posters and t-shirts with their own branding. The website is still up and running as well as the magazine and blog itself, so Johnson and his staff have successfully managed to support themselves financially as a company, even throughout the pandemic which has been massively detrimental to the creative industry.
Raziq
Rauf, London/LA
http://www.thrashhits.com/?1021612152go=shane%20sparks%20molestation
“This
isn’t a news blog. We review albums. We interview bands. We do the funny sh*t
that the other mags haven’t thought of yet.”
Overview
Raziq Rauf has been writing about music for 15 years; more specifically, he specialised in writing about heavy and metalcore genres. He has written and worked for the BBC, Kerrang, The Guardian, Prog and Metal Hammer. As well as this, he has also worked with and interviewed big bands such as Lower than Atlantis. He co-founded the heavy music blog called Thrash Hits, which has unfortunately been on an indefinite hiatus since 2015 due to unknown reasons, although it can be inferred that they just lacked engagement and interest. Rauf now runs his own yoga pop-up studio from home, which he manages completely.
Nowadays, Rauf has returned to his freelancer roots and continues to occasionally write pieces for big companies such as the BBC, Huffington Post, etc. In contrast, he now runs his own pop-up yoga studio called Downward Grog, which appears to be the source of his success as inferred from the multiple brewery brands they have partnered with – therefore, this has become his main focus after it revealed itself to be Rauf’s main success., although it most likely couldn’t have been done without the stepping stone of his music journalism career.
Executive Summary
This isn’t a news blog. We review albums. We interview bands. We do the funny sh*t that the other mags haven’t thought of yet. We don’t rely on Google to send readers our way. We rely on quality content. We don’t ever expect to be the biggest. Quality breeds quality. You cannot buy your place on this website. There will be no conflicts of interest. Everything you read on this website will be written without prejudice.
Audience
The site itself is outdated, regardless of the fact that it’s 5 years old. They had accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram and Tumblr, so it is more than clear that the website was catered to the younger generation - it’s evident from the informal language of the content on the blog that it was intended for younger audiences with interest in the metal-core and post-punk scene.
Marketing
They gained around 7000 likes on Facebook, so their online presence was quite significant. However, they did also have their own Radio station, which signifies that they did plan to become quite well-known someday, and could also use this to their marketing advantage. This would have also allowed them to become more recognisable as a brand, although it didn’t work out in this case. They could have saved themselves if they transitioned to other platforms such as Instagram and Spotify, as this is more relevant to their younger (target) audience.
Staff Management
Thrash Hits was co-founded and owned by Rauf himself and his friend Hugh, but not much is available in regards to their finances. It can be inferred however that Rauf and Hugh were the only writers and editors of this blog, and so their demonstration of staff management is limited, which may have led to their demise. It is clear that the lack of staff and interest became an issue, thus, the editors lost interest and decided to abandon the blog – this is an understandable struggle of smaller music blogs as they are usually founded and initially run by one or two people, so a lack of funding and interest as the time passes is highly risky, which is something to consider if I ever start my own music blog and brand. Rauf and his co-editor themselves stated that, “it’s become evident that we don’t have the time or resources the site needs to maintain our own internal standards”, thus, this puts it bluntly that the pair simply lost interest in the blog.
Finances/Sales
The only income for the company came from advertisements on their website, and so money became a real issue and hindered them to the point that they no longer saw any point or interest in their blog. They had no other income to my knowledge apart from the website itself and some freelance work on the side, and so they decided to abandon the website altogether.
Sean Adams, London, UK
“The Indie Mumsnet.”
Overview
Sean Adams is the founder of the UK music blog Drowned in Sound - which he has been running for 20 years - and the founder of CCCLX music. He has released records by Kaiser Chiefs, Bat for Lashes, Metric and more. Although publishing on the site went on an indefinite hiatus for about 18 months, they have come back with a weekly newsletter, taking small steps at a time. Despite their indefinite hiatus, this has impacted their recognition online as well, with companies such as Pitchfork, Billboard and Metacritic, which ironically improved their marketing after their demise. This can perhaps show an improvement in their marketing skills and awareness.
Executive Summary
Drowned in Sound are an online music blog and newsletter, who write album reviews, recommendations and also handle their own record label (Adams' label CCCLX). They aim to raise awareness of newer and smaller artists, while giving honest and critical reviews.
Audience
The site itself is fairly modernistic; it has its own podcast, which hasn’t been seen on the other sites mentioned thus far – which infers that the company’s target audience was among the younger generation, of whom are the majority of podcast listeners. As well as this, they also have multiple socials such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Therefore, it appears as though they aimed to cater towards older teens/young adults due to the professional presentation of their website and lack of engagement with younger teens/audiences. Their podcasts are recorded on their website, where they list the songs/artists they discuss as well as the podcast itself. However, this appears to have been another website severely affected by a lack of funding and public/online interest as they have archived their website and have moved their online threads over to another page.
Marketing
Although they had multiple social media accounts, the company lack an Instagram account, which would be crucial when it comes to engaging with their audience, who are inferred to be the younger generation.
They didn't have much engagement or collaboration with other companies until after their hiatus, so this would have dealt a massive hit to their PR and marketing influence and reputation. They are still active on Twitter though, despite their hiatus. However, it does say on their website that they are set to return as a weekly newsletter, and so this suggests that perhaps they are back on their feet in terms of finances.
Staff Management
They have a thread which is still active with multiple posts
a day – despite the fact that the majority of their staff have been
laid-off - so Drowned in Music itself
is still quite a relevant company. This demonstrates their poor staff management skills, who are suggested to have had a lack of motivation as a result of their higher-ups' management skills and engagement.
Finances/Sales
It is inferred that the majority of the company's finances come from their advertising, as their website is full of ads, which is beneficial as it shows that they do still have a reasonably steady income. More importantly, their most recent blog post posted on 8th September 2020 states that “we decided to ‘pause’ publishing due to what you could call financial constraints”, meaning that Adams has fortunately decided to revive the blog after the 'financial coonstraints'. Moreover, they have their own community page for their fans to discuss their interests with relevance to music, so it’s clear that Adams thought about engagement with his audience and the effect it would have on his company. Through this, he has been able to amass donations from fans in the community which are crucial in potentially reviving Drowned in Sound’s webpage and business.
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