Fernanda Arcay (@fefiarcay) is the head of marketing at NEON16 (@neon16), an up-and-coming independent record label currently taking over the Latin music industry. She is from Venezuela and has worked alongside the biggest artists and producers for many years.
We talked to Fernanda to know a little more about her career as head of marketing at NEON16 and we also asked he some questions about the label and current projects.
Q&A
[Here is a summarized version of the interview I conducted on Sep 15, 2020]
Q: Do you think that growing up in Venezuela has shaped the way in which you relate to coworkers and artists?
A: Yes, Venezuela gave me my Latinhood. I’m a Latina because my whole life I lived there, and even though I moved to the States a few years ago, I’ve never lost my culture, I’ve never lost my roots. I continue–every day–to practice everything I was taught, as a Latin. I speak Spanish every day, as well. It’s my first language. It’s so interesting that because I work in Latin music, I’ve been able to keep my roots, and like I said, what makes me a Latin.
Q:Isaw that in college you interned at a public relations agency, how important do you think this was for you to advance in your career?
A: This was the most important thing I did in my college years. I did this internship twice, and when I graduated, that’s where I started working officially, and this is what made me a professional today. Everything I learned, I learned from working in this agency. I met a lot of people. I met a lot of artists. I gained a lot of experience, in advance, in award shows. It was definitely the highlight of what made me. And then, I would say it was the jumping step towards making now the head of marketing at NEON.
Having experiences during college is the most important thing you can do because you get to apply everything you’ve learned but in the actual work field.
Q:I saw an interview you did for a YouTube channel, you talked a lot about the narrative behind a release…
A: That’s very important. When you’re launching an artist, or working with your current artist, even if he or she is well-established, you always gotta have a story to tell. You always got to have these key messages and key images that you want your artist to portray so that when people look at them, they can automatically connect them to what you’ve been implementing in your strategy and in your campaigns. Trying to find that narrative for an artist is challenging, but once you have your narrative very clear, you take it from there and you work so that that narrative keeps making sense until it’s time to change it to a new narrative.
Q: Is this narrative supposed to be congruent across all forms of music media (e.g. cover art, music videos, posts)?
A: In everything. It all has to make sense between all outlets. Your cover has to make sense with your narrative, but also with the artist branding you’ve been doing, as well with the music videos, and the music that you are releasing–the actual sound, the lyrics. Narratives tackle every single part of the artist, both creatively and music-wise.
Q: Building off that, do you think this takes away from the artist’s creative side, or do both parties work at finding a mid-point between what they want to do?
A: We always try to find a mid-point because you’re trying to keep the artist’s effort, as well, and their creative vision, and what actually motivates them. That’s why you always have to get through to your artist, connect with your artist, hear them out, know what they like, what they don’t like, and then, try to find a narrative that makes sense to both of you in the business side, but also in the personal side because it is essentially their life. They are the ones who are actually communicating the message through their socials or through their music.
Q: What’s it like to work with celebrities? Do you think you have to adapt who you are to relate to them or is it important to always be true to yourself?
A: It’s always important, no matter who you’re meeting, to be true to yourself. That way, you can keep your feet on the ground. I think it’s very important that you never change or adapt because of someone because that someone will notice that. You’re gonna reflect it. You reflect it in your energy, you reflect it in your attitude. At the end of the day, artists are normal people, and they like normal people, as well. So if you’re trying to act like something you’re not, you’re gonna show it off.
Working with these artists was such a great experience. I met so many people. And it’s not only the artists that you meet, you meet the artist’s team, you meet everyone around them, and by doing so, you’re essentially expanding your network, which is, at the end of the day, what matters the most because you don’t know who’s gonna help you tomorrow, you know?
Q: What role do you think that social media plays in music today?
A: Social media, today, is one of the most important tools. Social media has helped all the artists, especially during this pandemic, because everything went digital. A lot of the initiatives, a lot of the activities that were being made, were being made through social media or through their YouTube channels, and that’s what today has taught us: everything is going to turn more to the digital side, especially with this pandemic, and even after. The music industry has been shifted a lot.
Q: What role do you think TikTok plays in all of this?
A: TikTok is one of the most important tools, as well. In the Latin side, TikTok became important because people started replicating and using your sounds and your music in little dances or challenges. That shaped, when you are doing a song, how you choose what part goes to TikTok. Sometimes, the chorus is not the part that will be delivered to TikTok just because it’s not the most TikTok-friendly. When we’re choosing what we deliver to TikTok, we’re just saying “what makes the most sense?”, “what could go viral?”, and “what can people relate to?”.
We did it with Agua–J Balvin and Tainy’s record that we released under NEON and is going to be part of the new SpongeBob Movie. We saw how TikTok basically made the song go viral in the digital side. In the first weekend, we had a million TikToks, which is crazy. It became one of the top 5 challenges on the platform, according to Billboard. The article said that Agua is in the top 5 because everyone was doing the challenge, and it all happened organically. The biggest influencers in Latin America vibed with the song, wanted to do the challenge, and did it. We learned a lot. TikTok is very important in today’s music.
Another example can be seen with KAROL G’s Ay, DiOs Mío!. The part on TikTok is not the chorus. As well as with Tattoo Remix, by Rauw Alejandro and Camilo, I think the part that they used wasn’t the chorus either.
Q: Is NEON16 considered an independent label?
A: Yeah, we’re independent, but we have a partnership with Interscope. We’re an independent label but we have partners where we release music and Interscope is one of them. We have Republic Records, as well, for another artist we signed. It’s just doing partnerships with different labels until we can be completely on our own and distribute completely on our own.
Q: I saw an Instagram post on HUMAN (X) (@humanx), would you like to talk a little bit more about what it is?
A: HUMAN (X) is a multimedia charity initiative that we launched in partnership with Charlie Guerrero, which is Sofía Reyes’ manager (she’s an artist), Tommy Mottola, and NEON16. We are gonna be releasing several records under HUMAN (X).
When you look us up on Spotify, HUMAN (X) appears as an artist and we just released our first record called Pa’ La Cultura with David Guetta and other featured artists. All the streams, all the royalties that we receive from that song, are gonna be donated to an organization that we chose for this record called NDLON, which is the National Day Laborer Organizing Network that helps immigrants work in the United States. Everything we raise is going to be donated to them because a lot of them were affected during the pandemic.
We also labeled today [Sept 15th] as Pa’ La Cultura day. We’re doing a lot of initiatives to keep raising money for this foundation. This record is in Spanish but the next one might be in English so it’s gonna have a variety of genres and languages so we can give HUMAN (X) a. global aspect.
At NEON, we like to do stuff like that. We like to innovate, to lead different types of events, types of projects. We also did the first Latin gaming event in the industry. A big tournament like Esports. We like to do stuff that’s out of the box that makes us stand out from the rest of the labels and other companies.
