Artist publicity research and analysis – Chase & Status

• Remix tracks to capture the eye of the original band’s audiences
• Toured into 2009 from Plymouth to LondonTour with large bands such as The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx & Plan B, who they have remixed tracks for
• DJ sets at smaller venues which allow their music to spread, as it means audiences do not have to pay a lot of money to see them
• Myspace, Facebook, Last.fm, Discogs & an official website
• Produced & co-wrote for Rihanna’s album ‘Rated R’
• Official website includes competitions, newsletter & exclusive tracks for those who sign up

Chaseandstatus.co.uk has been a great way that Chase & Status have been able to advertise themselves. Unlike many official band websites (who are usually constricted to the use of Myspace for their official website), Chase & Status have made a point of giving their website users extra content and opportunities. For example, Chase & Status ran a competition in mid-2010 for those who were a member of their website to have the band play at a house party of the user’s choice. This generated a great surge of fans to their website to enter the competition, which captured their interest in the band further. Fans of the band would also then refer their friends to the website to enter the competition for a higher chance of winning, which in turn increases the amount of people who know about the band. Competitions of this manner are a great way to advertise a band, especially those which can benefit even those who do not win i.e those who go to the winning house party.

Bands that use social networking sites such as Facebook & Myspace increase their audience greatly simply by signing up and putting a few sample tracks. By using virtual word-of-mouth, a band can be ‘friended’ or ‘liked’ by a fan of theirs, which will then appear on the news feed of that persons friends. From there, any of his friends can see that he has liked the band, and can then find out who they are and listen to their songs as if they were recommended by their friend. If that person then likes the band, their friends can see the band, and so on. Similarly, the website Last.fm will choose bands that are similar to the artist, and then listeners to those similar bands will be recommended to listen to the original artist. This means that fans of Chase & Status’ genre will be referred to them via Last.fm, as they have a profile & songs uploaded onto this network.