 Baw, what's up everybody, once again, it's brand man Sean Ann. We got to talk about the artist known as her and the brilliant strategic branding move that she made that a lot of people didn't even notice. Most people didn't even think about, but I promise you, you will understand at the end of the video and see value in it and how you can move for your artist or you yourself if you are the artist and even a producer in terms of your branding. So starting at the beginning, when her launched, if you just happen not to know who her is or much about her, when she launched people didn't know who she was. She dropped her volume one amazing music which made it even better because it was this blue cover silhouette of a woman looked like it could have been an attractive woman and to add on to that her name was her. It's an ambiguous thing, right? What is her actual name? All of this added up to an effective packaging, a mysterious brand with amazing music. People wondered who this person was and the internet never fails. People did research and found that it was Gabby Wilson, but she never spoke on it actually being her. She never confirmed or denied her identity even when people dug it up. And that silence kept the brand going, kept it moving, but she did also say I'm going to reveal my identity one day when it's the right time. She didn't say it was going to be in one year, two years, ten years. And of course if you're a fan of her, you probably already have noticed that she has revealed her identity. She has music videos that show her face. She has some pictures here and there where you see her face. Although she kept it running for a while where she would go even to interviews with these shades on, kind of hiding her identity. She still performs like that at shows and does interviews because she doesn't just break character completely saying, hey people know who I am now. I could just go out here and act like Cardi B or just move like any other artist, but people in fact do know who she is. So if you missed kind of where I'm getting at, this right here is the most important part of the strategic brand move. As I already said, she's revealed her identity, but there has never been a huge fuss about her revealing her identity. She signed the RCA. These type of companies definitely make sure that there's a fuss about those types of things if they want it to be known, but she never put much marketing around her face reveal. Why that's so important to take note of is because she said she wanted her brand to be about the music since the very beginning. And mystery is cool. Mystery is great. It helped create a buzz for obviously, but if she heavily marketed her face, if she really focused seriously on the mystery, her brand at some point would have became more about the mystery and the face reveal versus the music itself. So it started off great and it started to actually become about the mystery, but she revealed herself so it didn't actually overtake her real brand, which is the music. Even in revealing herself, she had to make sure she did it in a way where that didn't become so much of a big deal that her face once again became the face of the brand when the face of the brand is weirdly enough her music and that whole aesthetic that she has. If you wonder about a similar case, you can think about an artist like The Weeknd who started off very mysterious at first because he didn't want to do interviews. He said he wasn't even comfortable doing interviews. That was really why he did it, but eventually he broke out of that. You start to see his face a lot more because being mysterious is great. At the beginning it creates a lot of buzz, but when you're too mysterious, when people really don't know who you are, if you have a certain type of brand, it could be against the goal you have because it's highly limiting. For Weeknd, it became highly limiting. Just like his hair started to become so much of his brand, he had to cut his hair. Sometimes the things that people identify you with and brand you by can be so strong that it overcomes everything else and locks you into a box. Her was able to avoid that box by showing herself, not making a big deal about it, and this is the difference between a core brand and a gimmick. As a matter of fact, this video is a launch pad for a bigger video that I'm going to be doing pretty soon that's talking solely about core brands versus gimmicks for the artists who don't understand the difference because this strategic branding is extremely important when you're talking about being able to be free as an artist and make the moves you want and also just having some sense of longevity to keep reinventing yourself without deterring your fan base. And lastly, speaking of strategic branding, once again, I finally dropped the master music branding guy. You will be able to find that in the link in the description below. Full name is Master Music Branding, an experts guide to artist image. If you take your branding seriously, it's something you should definitely check out. I make sure I answer everybody's questions, anything you might be wondering, but it's not just focused on general branding. We're talking about strategic branding, and I made it pretty cheap for you guys. And even bigger than that, I have a super surprise because a lot of people do not understand that there's a difference between branding with your fan base and as an artist branding to companies, corporations, and other brands. There's a lot of artists that don't have huge fan bases, but they still have legitimate partnerships, sponsorships that are helping them go on tour, giving them good money or having them in positions as brand ambassadors. This extra that I made, which is called professional music branding for dummies, is focused on creating a professional template for you, the artists that you could then market yourself with to the company when you reach out to them or come across somebody and get that money. You can check that out as well. A separate link will be in the description for that. But other than that, I would love to know what you guys think about hers brand, that move, and you notice that move, but what you can take away from it yourself. Other than that, stay tuned for the core brand versus gimmick video that's coming soon. And last but not least, if you like this video, go ahead and hit that like button. If you like your minds, we'll share it. And if you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe button.