VICTORIA BURBRIDGE: Day 1. What Does Nicki Minaj's Butt Feel Like?

20 . 05 . 13

C H A N N E L 4 / 4 Music @ Box Television.

From humble beginnings came 'Box Television', a musical phenomenon!

My first day for channel 4 could not have gone any better! Having been at university the last two years, the 6am alarm was a shock to the system. On my first day I was scared about boarding my first array of over-ground trains and tubes, however it was not long until I became used to that sardine-like feeling of rush hour central London.

The variety of questions that I got asked on my first day generally summarise my experience quite well, they ranged from the complex to the absurd. "Welcome to 4Music Vicky, *Soft handshake*, what do you think our brand personalities are here?", "What do you think is right/wrong with our business tone of voice?" and my personal favourite "What do think Nicki Minaj's butt feels like?". The 4Music office could only be described as a state of hyper-productivity spread across a large floor, fresh young talent certainly excelled here and there was a real sense of camaraderie in the air.

My first day was spent with the web team at 'Box TV', they are responsible for all elements of 4Music.com. The teams manage the media presence behind '4Music', with a strong focus on Facebook and Twitter. They also create video and written content for the website. The Box team amalgamate across the board with other music channels, such as Kiss, Magic, Heat, Smash Hits, The Box and Kerrang, combining the efforts of production, programming, the music team, commercial sales and TV promotions to ensure that 4Music.com offers users all the latest music news and popular culture gossip, as well as a variety of information readily accessible about '4Music' shows. Their mission statement is to represent the '4Music' brand in an exciting and fresh way online.

‘Melissa Pine', floor director for the Box Television’s online sector, provided me with a light introduction to life at 4Music, she implemented my first initial task. This was to oversee and develop a brand ethos, which detailed the services from ‘BoxTV’ in conjunction with the organisation's fast output demands; I had to meet Melissa's agreed deadline which was the end of the day. In order to do this, I was advised that I analyse the relationships with partner channels, look for weaknesses within their existing content and conduct some research in order to identify market requirements for current products, how the company achieves positive media coverage across all available media channels and use ‘BARB’ analytics to present and report trends in user behaviour.

Not only was it my first day, it was my first cooperate media based industry role that I'd worked for, executing everything I'd learnt throughout my Advertising and Media degree. I'm nervous, I tried not to show it, everybody around me specialises in their niche, this is a big deal here, and I had to get this right. Where did I start?

To a degree I had read through a stream of branding and brand equity literature, I noted a few simple critiques and typos, arguably relatable to the 4Music's brand identity, whilst evidentially absorbing the professionals around me. 'Box TV' was difficult to find a niche on which to focus ones efforts & cognition on because the objective of the brand, was to manifest into diverse personalities, I was able to comply existing theory such as 'Al Ries & Ries (2000)' to generalise the community as having 'The Law of the word' however arguably the brand disputes 'The Law of Contraction'. ..But then I paused for a second. It was almost as if I was trying TOO hard to incorporate second year knowledge, I was being too theoretical for this stage, so instead I utilised my points of view as an outsider ready to feedback to Melissa.

Having linked a layer of theory to my instinctive understanding, this was my result: Click me.

Whilst executing my primary task of the digital strategy, I took the time to engage and integrate myself with my stimulating desk space neighbours: 'Trent', 'Jenny' and 'Nicol' who's intent it was to increase the hits and dwelling time spent on the 4music media drivers, they do this by exceeding themselves to reference quality content, whether that is producing pregnant Beyoncé speculations to Madonna flashing her pins on the red carpet. Their pioneering ideations really drive the digital marketing world to upper the ante from their competitors, such as MTV, and innovate the music celebrity online presence. By excelling 4music's resources to regularly execute and update the content on social media, they make this beneficial with a steady stream of interesting and witty material, consistently suitable for the needs and wants of the brands target segmentation.

Digital media becomes complicated, if I've learnt anything from my own experiences of running social media for my part-time job at Topman, I would urge them to remember that the digital world and the trends within it are always changing. I should refer to it as a universe, as it is never ending. Change with it and change your formula, don't be scared by it, embrace it! You can't loose out.
Monitoring 4Music as an outsider, the sufficient tools and wealth of media the brand has to offer in this regard, heavily optimises their equity. However, truthfully my beliefs of the popular culture music broadcasters are stigmatised. It is apparent that BoxTV corners the music market on all levels and caters for more traditional revenues of music television. Channels such as 'Kerrang' seemingly have less of a profound measure of consumer traffic and popularity, having collectively noticed from 'BARB'. In addition, how long will it be before this profound threat establishes the other channels. Matters at hand suggest a loss of traditional routine, contemporary culture today is heavily dependant on travel and the tangible experience, hence there has been a marketing boom in devices which convey readily available information, especially amongst the youth culture. This can be transcended into user-generated content such as 'Youtube' which provides users with that sense of tailor-made taste and less of a focus on celebrity. 'Youtube' is user friendly and suggests 'videos you may like' to its viewers as opposed to having to wait for the preferred choice's airtime.
Nevertheless in despite of the criticism, subsequently it appears that 4Music acts to ensure music stays for the long run, it is ubiquitous and fan driven, the artists mature with their audience and the most dominant USP is the nature of celebrity adornment, this will continuously provoke commercial interest for the brands long and prosperous reign.