Justin Bieber is a Canadian pop star who was discovered on YouTube as a young teenager. His debut album went platinum in several countries. Initially portrayed as a love idol for teenage girls, Bieber's image and reputation were damaged in recent years due to legal issues and negative media attention. Bieber is now focusing on rebuilding his image and career by releasing a new single, using social media promotion, and modeling for Calvin Klein to attract a wider audience beyond teenage girls. His image has evolved from innocent love songs to more mature collaborations with artists like Skrillex to stay relevant with changing tastes.
2. Justin Bieber
• Justin Bieber is a Canadian pop star who was discovered via YouTube. His
debut album, My World, went platinum in the United States, Canada and
the United Kingdom. Born in 1994 in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, to a single
mother, Justin Bieber took second place in a local talent competition at a
young age and later turned into a YouTube sensation. He signed a record
contract with Usher and became the first solo artist to have four singles
enter the Top 40 before the release of a debut album. His record "My
World" has gone platinum in several countries. He lives and works in
Atlanta.
3. How is artist's image currently promoted and why?
• Bieber seems to be refocusing on his music career whose legal woes have
been centre stage for the past few years. After a years-long absence from
the MTV Video Music Awards, Canadian singer closed the first live
performance of his new single by wiping tears from his eyes. After a tough
year or so Justin Bieber has been focusing on his music and trying to stay
away from negative media attention.
• When Bieber signed for Ushers record label he was portrayed as a love
idol and attracted loads of female attention. Bieber is currently trying to
win back some fans as he wasn’t very popular in the year 2013 and in
2014. Bieber was getting into trouble with the media and he reputation
and image was getting damaged.
• Bieber is currently modelling work for Calvin Klein and appearing on
different TV shows around the world. Justin Bieber has currently released
his new single “what do you mean”. This song is similar to some of his
singles that he released in 2013-2014. He used his Instagram account to
promote his new song by getting celebrities to post pictures of them
holding signs stating how long it was before the release.
4. How and why has the artist's image changed over time?
• When Justin Bieber released his first debut album called my world in
2009 he was still so young and innocent. In his first music video ‘one
time’ he portrays himself as a young boy falling in love.
• Throughout his first album his image stayed the same and was
focused around love and girls. As he grew up Bieber had to change his
image as he lost a big proportion of his fan base and he needed to
gain a wider variety of people with different tastes in music.
• In his last twos singles ‘where are u now’ and ‘what do you mean’ are
different to his past releases such as ‘baby’ and ‘boyfriend’. Bieber
has added a different dimension to his music to attract a wider and
more current audience.
• He has done this by working with artists such as Jack Ü and Skrillex.
These collaborations have added something different to his image
and to make him more iconic to a wider variety of people rather than
just young teenage girls.
5. What is the commercial imperative?
• One of Biebers main commercial imperatives is his vevo channel
on YouTube which is his main platform for people to view his
music as it is free and makes more people want to see it.
• However he makes money off of this as there are adverts and
the adverts pay YouTube to be put on YouTube and if the video
generates a certain amount of views YouTube pays them per
thousand views they get.
• Apart from his music Justin Bieber stars on many television
shows and is the face of many global brands, such as Calvin
Klein. Bieber uses this as a platform to promote himself to
attract different audiences.
• Many of Biebers videos have gone to number one due to his
gaining popularity among different audiences.
6. Is the artist's image invented or ready made?
• At the beginning of Biebers career his image was purely
based on his voice and talents. Through is first 2 albums his
image didn’t change and his target audience stayed the
same. He used his personality and charm to win over fans
and create romantic songs.
• His image changed slightly when he brought out his
acoustic album ‘believe’. It was more relaxed and wasn’t as
high budget as his previous albums. Currently his image has
changed a lot due to his bad media attention. Due to his
young age he made some childish mistakes which cost him
and damaged his reputation.
• This has made it harder for Bieber to redeem himself to the
public. His image now is more invented as he has gone back
to his old ways to attract a wider audience. His image now
is more humble and is similar to his image back in 2013.
