Timothy Sherrill

Prof. Leslie Wolcott

ENC 1102
7 October 2015
Genre Analysis
Genre, as defined by Amy Devitt in Generalizing About Genre is the result of a
repeated rhetorical situation within a specific discourse community (Devitt). Before analyzing
these genres, we must first consider a background about the marketing industries discourse
community. A discourse community, simply put, is a group of people that communicate with
each other in some shape to achieve a common goal. Other criteria for establishing a discourse
community is that the group has a specific lexis, they share common goals and use a specific
genre. The community is inhabited by professionals and scholars within the marketing and
advertising world. Much of the lexis used between individuals in the community is foreign to
outsiders. Therefore, the marketing discourse community could be considered very excludable.
Alternatively, we can infer these things about the community by studying the genres used,
however it helps immensely to know these characteristics beforehand.
In the world of business, specifically marketing, many situations present themselves to
firms that beg the question of how to best advertise your product. Marketing firms ask just that,
and as such, present their ideas and findings through what is known as a Marketing Strategy.
Marketing strategies are essentially blue-prints of how a firm will execute a plan to advertise a
specific business, brand, product, etc. Throughout this essay, three marketing strategy plans (and
their authors) will be dissected and analyzed to further understand the goals of the marketing

community. The first example is a marketing strategy for a concert, headlined by a band known
as, SideSteps. The second piece is a marketing strategy for the brand of a Malaysian musical
group called, Sing is King. Finally, we have a strategy for an information systems company,
e-motion software. Music Marketing, a special niche in the advertising industry, will make up
a bulk of this essay. However, from one niche to the next, almost no variables are changed, and
many, if not all, of the concepts from one can be transferred to another.
In the United Kingdom, prominent musician and globally recognized marketing
entrepreneur, Tommy Darker, also heads an up-and-coming music group known as SideSteps.
From his website, www.tommydarker.com, his revolutionary work has been featured in, Tedx,
Berklee Online, Berlin Music Week, Midem Music and the SAE Institute. Darkers seven plus
years in the marketing industry give him a competitive edge in regards to creating a successful
brand with his group among the competition of other indie bands. To take full advantage of his
position, Darker has created a marketing strategy to increase SideSteps exposure.
My 9 Month Marketing Plan by Tommy Darker starts with a table of contents which
includes five headings with multiple sub-headings underneath each. Immediately, we are greeted
with the content of this genre. The titles of each section are larger and appear in a different color
then the rest of the text. The first section is an abstract that defines what the band is all about, in
addition to what they are required to do to achieve their goals. Underneath the abstract, is a bullet
list of the aforementioned Goals. The goals are explicitly stated and include specifics such as

Play one exclusive show per month in a unique venue

Grow number of Facebook fans to 2,000+
Acquire 500 new mailing lists

The second section is concerned with the release of the bands music to social media
platforms, and the employment of a new strategy known as Guerilla Marketing. Guerilla
marketing is a term used to describe any strategy not used by the mainstream. For instance,
building your fan base from the ground up, as opposed to reaching a mass demographic from the
beginning. Further along, the author sums up the main points in an overview section, and again
explicitly details steps in the strategy that are vital to the marketing campaign. Interspersed
throughout this piece are small, neatly organized graphics to illustrate key concepts of the
strategy.
Our next marketing strategy is a document that focuses on gaining popularity for a
Malaysian band named Sing is King. Immediately, one can observe similar organizational
patterns between the two texts. To prevent any redundancy, assume that this strategy has roughly
the same characteristics as the last. Specifically, a table of contents, a summary, headings with
text underneath, explicit goals in lists, and so forth. Instead, we will begin to analyze the second
half of the strategy concerning the economics of marketing. The first thing an individual would
notice at first glance is the presence of bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts, and other tables. These
graphs help to illustrate the economics and different calculations that the firms must take into
consideration. Upon further inspection, we can start to see the use of some community specific
lexis such as Break-Even Point and SWOT Analysis.
SWOT Analysis are an important part to all marketing strategies. SWOT is actually an
anagram for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Most of the time, the author will
organize these points separately with the common Title, Content organization, to make
skimming the document easier and more effective.

The last marketing strategy to be analyzed is from an information systems company and
how they plan to market their new computer software. First, it is plain to see that this marketing
strategy has nothing to do with the music industry much like the two strategies above. However,
as mentioned before, almost all the concepts can be transposed onto this strategy, making them
universally easy to read. We start with a table of contents. All the text in the document is
organized with titles, headings, subheadings, etc. Similarly, graphics depicting calculations for
spending and budget appear throughout. A SWOT analysis can also be found.
From these examples, we can see that the world of business and the genre of marketing
strategies is largely universal because they all have a similar format. This is crucial in business,
as different teams including those from international corporations must be able to easily identify,
analyze, and communicate different ideas and concepts.
Another characteristic we can identify from these strategies is that they are primarily
organized to be scanned, as opposed to being read from top to bottom all at once. We know this
because of the standard Title, Content organizational pattern that allows for the isolation of
information. Also, most marketing strategies begin with a summary of the strategy for a quick
overview of concepts and goals. The primary reason for this is again, for ease of locating
information, as well as being able to easily and transparently display information.

Works Cited:

Darker, Tommy. "My 9-Month Marketing Plan." Dotted Music. N.p., 15 July 2013. Web. 07
Oct. 2015.
Devitt, Amy J. "Generalizing about Genre: New Conceptions of an Old Concept." CCC 44.4
(1993) Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
"Marketing Plan." Dictionary of Marketing Communications (2004): n. pag. Web. 07 Oct.
2015
"Sample Marketing Plan - Music Industry." Sample Marketing Plan - Music Industry. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.