Jesse Butterworth: A Singer-Songwriter Comeback
Jesse Butterworth is no stranger to music success. He was the frontman to the chart-topping band Daily Planet. But injury and family kept him away from his love of performing and connecting with others for too long, so he brought on the Gold Sheep team to strategize his comeback. We developed his messaging and identity, researched his fan base and competition, uncovered his personal style for his design team, and provided a touchpoint map and implementation plan so he knows every step he needs to take to get his groove back.
IT’S ALWAYS MORE FUN
TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE
THE SCOPE
Brand Strategy & Messaging
Personal Style Discovery
Get Back to Where You Once Belonged
Jesse Butterworth fought long and hard for this comeback. After leaving his chart-topping band, Daily Planet, due to injury, his life looked a lot different. He became a dad. Settled down. But he missed the music life. The live shows. Connecting with the fans. So we set out to define who he is now that he’s on his own. We worked together to pinpoint his purpose, his genre, and his own personal style and place in the music industry and aligned his identity to the identity and values of his super fans to create an action plan for now and years to come.
PROJECT GOALS
Gain clarity on Jesse’s brand as an artist and develop meaningful messaging to present to record labels
Craft specific language around what the brand means internally and externally
Create a timeline for rolling out various brand strategies
Develop Jesse’s personal style guidelines for design implementation
Defining the Brand
Jesse worked with our brand strategist, Stephanie Owens, for two days of intense brand jam sessions on Zoom. Before tackling anything else, we defined Jesse’s purpose- why he makes music outside of making money. From there, we determined his monetary mission, his vision of success, and created achievable goals for the next 1-5 years.
“Gold Sheep helped me drill down not just to the core of what I uniquely have to offer the world, but also how it meets the specific desires of the community that I’m trying to reach. The jam sessions were painless. Even though we covered A LOT of ground in our sessions, it never felt like a slog. There was always a new discovery, a new strategy or a new innovation right around every corner.”
Jesse Butterworth
Defining the Fan
Now that we identified who Jesse is, we got into the head of his super fan- the ride-or-die tribe that will go to all the shows, buy all the merch, and tell all her friends. By immersing ourselves into the world of the Suburban Momma Bear, determining her aims, values, and preferences through demographic interviews, we were able to see how Jesse fits into her world, how she consumes music, and the best opportunities for sync placement.
Scoping Out the Competition
Competitive analysis- talk about some sexy work! But it’s important to see how other artists are positioned and who they’re reaching so we can carve out a whole new niche in the music world for Jesse. ‘Cause there’s no point in going into a category that’s oversaturated. It’s also great to see who you’re aligned with the most for collaboration and tour opportunities.
Defining the Genre and Positioning
Jesse’s pretty different in his musical style. He’s a craftsman and he’s top-shelf; he’s more fun than Michael Buble but not a frat boy like Ben Rector. He’s refined like Mumford and Sons but not as rustic. Developing his internal messaging such as genre, brand archetype, and onlyness statement gave clarity to who Jesse is and gives a filter through which all content and design touchpoints are run.
Genre
Gentleman Pop
Brand Archetype
The Everyday Gentleman.
Onlyness Statement
Jesse Butterworth is the only gentleman pop singer-songwriter who provides top-shelf, interactive experiences for everyday folks.
During our strategy sessions we explored various brand archetypes that best fit the Jesse Butterworth brand. We landed on a variation of the Everyman archetype and the Everyday Gentleman was born.
Personal Style Discovery
Jesse needed to clarify his own personal style and tools to communicate this to his design team. We narrowed down his brand muses for visual inspiration, determined his brand attributes to keep all content, copywriting, and visuals on-brand, and developed a list of descriptors that describe the brand aesthetic while also determining who he isn’t to bypass any off-brand design decisions from his team.
Reaching the Fans
Time to turn strategy into an experience! We mapped out any and all possible touchpoints for Jesse, from shallow to deep, general to personal, to determine various ways in which fans will journey through his brand. We then took all these ideas and prioritized them into an implementation road map so his team knows what to work on and when for ultimate brand awareness and record label growth.
“If you’re serious about setting yourself apart from a sea of look-a-likes, Gold Sheep is one of the best investments you can make into your brand. I’ve been able to share my strategic brand playbook with my team and it has brought a laser focus to what we’re doing and made decisions so much easier.”
Jesse Butterworth
READY TO JAM WITH US?
