On the 29th of September 2023, the Ph.D. candidate Adrian Remus Chețan defended his doctoral thesis entitled Visual promotion in the music industry. Examining the influence of visual branding and brand communication on music perception. The thesis was defended within the Doctoral School of Communication, Public Relations, and Advertising at the Faculty of Political, Administrative, and Communication Sciences. The supervisor of the thesis was Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ioana Iancu.

The oversaturation of the music market makes simple musical talent insufficient for novice musical artists to break through. For this reason, artists are compelled to use a multitude of promotional tools, nowadays mostly online, to promote themselves. Since all communication strategies must be consistent, shaping an attractive brand identity is essential. Although a large part of the literature talks about the positive effects of branding and brand communication, it is not completely understood if a visual identity has an impact only on the way the artist is perceived, or if it manages to change the perception on the artist’s music as well.

Thus, this paper comprehensively investigates the way visual communication in the music industry can influence a songs’ perception. Specifically, the thesis tests, qualitatively and quantitatively, the way visual identity of an artist can change the consumers’ perceptions of that person’s music from the point of view of the attitude towards the song, the emotional attachment, and the behavioral intentions. The research methods used are the semi-structured interview and the experiment. The results show that the experts believe that the visual stimuli can have a positive effect on the way a song is appreciated, on its quality and emotional vibe. However, the effects can be influenced by the context and specific situations. Moreover, based on the experimental design, the results indicate that, contrary to expectations, the existence of visual stimuli together with the song does not necessarily determine a more positive attitude towards that song.

The paper’s contributions are twofold. On the one hand, it fills in a theoretical gap by studying the influence of visual communication on music in a modern context that imitates a current brand identity. On the other hand, it offers the music specialists valuable information that helps in creating effective promotion strategies and in discovering new variables that influence the way music is perceived.