440, known in the music world as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or recreate a musical note without the benefit of an external reference. It is the A above middle C, tuned to 440 cycles per second. 440 Artist Alignment was created to intuitively align artists with their perfect pitch: their true selves, their brand, and their marketing image. 440 Artist Alignment is a fusion of two division’s online marketing and creative services.

How is 440 different? We started 440 Artist Alignment to help artists market themselves creatively and effectively. We have seen what works and what doesn’t. We have a fresh new structure for marketing that few companies can come close to. We take a different approach to marketing believing that it is an artistic process over a forced corporate structure.

440 Artist Alignment |+1.818.793.8891

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Press

Article: Amy Houck | November 2009

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year….

In the fall of 2008, I had been working for Universal Music Group as a Marketing Coordinator and Designer for over a year and decided it was time for growth, and with that I welcomed change.  I had a vision of how to help artists and improve the way we communicate our art. Using the tools I had learned in both my own musical background and my time as a Marketing Coordinator with Universal, and the head of Creative Design for our Island Def Jam Division, I resigned from Universal and formed 440 Artist Alignment. A year has passed but the goal remains the same: “We must represent our art with the same passion and vibration in which we created it.”

At 440, we work with each artist directly, to channel their creativity through music, from art to design, translating ideas into marketing. We focus on a niche that fits who the artist is and what they represent. We build a cohesive brand and image around the artist. Every arm of 440 is developed in house, step by step. We start with an album, a single, a book, a company, or even and most often and idea. We build the designs, the MySpace, the Website, the Twitter, when the image is cohesive, we then grow the fan base, the twitter, the Facebook, etc, we then market the product, and publicize interviews and features in online magazine, forums, and blogs. Each project is different but the goal and outcome is always building awareness and creating streams of revenue. I am proud to say, we do not work a project we do not believe in, and in saying that, it also needs to be said, that each project carries a vibration, each artist an energy. I am very sensitive to energy, to color, to light. When I feel it, it is the battery that powers how I market it. It is a very comprehensive process, no stone is left unturned.

Over the last year, I have watched our company and our clients grow, from artists, to corporations, from albums, to books, from consultations to seminars. We have planted seeds that attract some of the most vibrate artists in all fields. I am very pleased with our direction, our goals, and our company’s future. As we expand, so does our art. I have always believed you attract anything you want in the universe. Imagine what you want, build your dream, but then protect it. Art knows energy more then anything else, it travels and translates to audiences in this digital world, from Twitter to Facebook, to websites, to iphone applications. I can promise you, there are companies lager then ours, companies smaller then ours, companies newer then ours…. but I promise you will not find a company who understands your value, energy, and art like ours. I believe in all the internet pollution, an artist who is channeled properly will always shine.

“There is always a balance of new and old, of art and understanding, of change and seasons but there is no balance so great, as self to purpose, we must always find our way to balance ourselves and our art with the earth.”

Happy Anniversary 440!

Regards,

Amy Houck

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Universal Music Group | Article: Amy Houck | 2008

Read this article here: http://www.fullsail.edu/recording-arts/grad-features/14015-amy-houck.html

In an industry that finds more and more of its promotional focus concentrated in the realm of online media and social networking, Amy Houck is in charge of making sure that word of mouth about the artists she represents spreads on a global scale. As Netreach Coordinator/Program Manager for Universal Music Group, the Full Sail Recording Arts graduate steers a unique form of online promotion that is quickly emerging as the definitive way to promote and sell albums in the digital age.

“We are actually one of the only departments – and the largest – in the music industry right now that does what we do,” Amy says. “What we do is total grassroots media marketing for different artists under Universal, Universal Motown, and Geffen/Interscope. We create entire campaigns for an artist and their project and promote it across the internet through different social networking sites.”

Utilizing avenues such as MySpace, Facebook, and community message boards, Amy creates marketing plans, creating buzz around the latest new release. As Amy describes it, the work environment in the offices of Universal is one that’s as fast-paced as it is creatively vibrant.

“Our whole department of Netreach is very much connected,” she explains. “There’s a hierarchy, but everyone has to work with one another in order for the flow to work. On a single day, you work with anywhere from 15-30 people on a project. We are always having meetings where we talk about the industry endlessly for hours, and everyone is always excited to hear what we have to say as a department, because no one else in the industry is doing what we do.”

Amy first got her foot in the door at the company as an intern, not unlike the same ones that she delegates assignments to today. “There were about 25 other interns who started out with me, and only three of us got promoted – and two of us were Full Sail graduates,” she recalls.

“I would definitely never be where I’m at or know what I know without Full Sail,” she continues. “The more knowledge and understanding you have going in, the better a position you can get and the more prepared you are for what you might encounter. The other intern who got promoted and I already knew about the terminology of the business, numbers and figures, dealing with marketing and industry types and labels. We had both been reading Soundscans since square one. I feel like our past experience just gave us that something extra over everyone else.”

As a music lover who also operates her own recording studio out of her home in her spare time, Amy’s work affords her a wonderful first-hand experience of how the music business functions, from the initial steps all the way up to the final payoff.

“I love the environment here, and being able to see where things start and end in the music business,” she says. “I like to take an artist or a project, whether it’s someone who has sold over a million records or someone who is brand new, market and promote them, and then watch them win a GRAMMY® or get their record sales back. It’s a really cool feeling to see the results and think, ‘I was a part of that. I helped them get there.’”

440 Artist Alignment |+1.818.793.8891