How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How well does your video/print sell your artist to the intended audience?In my opinion, our video and print products sell our band well to the intended audience. Our intended audience is teenagers between the ages of 16 and 20 so we decided to make our boy band relatable. The video shows the band messing around in some parts, for example at the very end when the band storm off stage and throw instruments down this reinforces Stanley Cohens theory of teens causing trouble, moral panic. From speaking to people from the target audience group, we found that the idea of a boy band gone bad is desirable, boys want to be them and girls want them, so we decided to add this ideal so that the audience would be drawn in to the band and want to watch the video. An aspect that links to this is the colour used, the laid back chilled vibe of the black and white colour scheme connotes the bands views and what they stand for, how they are simple yet unique and relaxed so people would want to buy the album based on the simple yet classic colour scheme because, like Dyers Star theory, the values of the band would reflect onto the products and people like the idea of being like their favourite band or artist. For our digipak and advert we used the same colour scheme to create a coherent package which would attract the audience because it would be enticing with a theme running throughout that holds the ideals and values of the band such as unique and different. The coherency is the main reason as to how the print products sell easily to the audience because it portrays the band as well put together even though they are seen to be wacky and unusual in the video.

How well have you produced a marketing campaign?I think that our marketing campaign worked really well overall, with a number of coherent themes running throughout it. We have thought about all of the elements we wanted to include carefully in order to create a coherent campaign that would attract the audience:Used different forms of media such as Photoshop to create a modern campaign as our target audience are a generation who use lots f technology so its relating to their needs. On the poster also, we have used Spotify and Apple Music logos to show that our band are in with new technologies and it appeals to the target audience who use these kinds of media platforms.Colours and texts throughout the products are the same to create continuity and to give the overall look a professional feel. The campaign challenges some ideas of the indie genre such as include a clear image of the band on the poster (which is done by The Kooks and Kings of Leon) as we wanted to keep their identity a mystery but we also conformed to ideals of the genre such as the black and white colour scheme and simple images and typography.

What links the products together?The colour scheme of black and white that runs throughout the ancillary products as well as the music video.The images used within the ancillary products (the same image is used on the advert and the digipak to show coherency and to create a certain image of the band, that they are a well thought out band which signifies that they care about their music and think hard about it before realising it.)The typography is the same in the video, advert and digipak. In the video for the sign, Britains Got No Talent, the font is the same as the font used on the print products, again to create coherency and link the products to one another. We found that is was important to use similar fonts within our products, even if it wouldnt necessarily be noticed often because if wed have used wacky fonts, all different, then this would have been noticeable and would make the package look disjointed.

How have you communicated ideas about the genre/concept across the products?Costume black, white and other muted colours have been used within the costume of our characters, something we found to be a popular convention within the genre, with bands such as The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys. The clothes connote simplicity and how easy going the band are, so the audience would feel that they can easily relate to the band. Colour the black and white colour scheme is evident through out all of our products. This was something that was popular within lots of other texts of the same genre that we studied such as The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys it was a structure we found was used over and over again, something that Gunther Kress reinforces when he states that certain genres use certain structures in every text, in this case the colour scheme would be recognisable to the audience because its used in many other videos and print products. Camera shots the camera shots we have used are very similar to those we found to be used in other videos of the genre For example in 7 by Catfish and the Bottlemen, there are a lot of varied shots such as close ups and long shots to convey different things. We used long shots to show all of the band members together to create a sense of unity and close ups to show each band member individually so that the audience can see them in detail, as this is a convention of any kind of boy band as the audience would decide which member they like the best and this was evident in the genre.Editing we didnt use lots of editing techniques, we decided to use simple straight cuts with some jump cuts as we found that many videos we looked at didnt use a wide variety of editing in order to project the ideals of the band being simple yet unique, a band that didnt need wacky edits to keep the audience interested, just the music. However for our print products we used Photoshop to manipulate the main image of the band members merged together as we wanted to create a sense of mystery in the print products, the audience would have to buy the products to find out who the band were beneath the futuristic edit.

How have you represented the artist/band across the products?We wanted to create these values and ideals for the band:Original and unique.Quirky and different.Care more about the music than their identity.

We used all of the elements within the video and print products to create the bands identity and to make it clear. From the dark, laddish clothing to the range of camera shots of the instruments being played, we used these elements to show how the band care about their music and not their appearance. We wanted to make a clear distinction between a pop boy band and an indie boy band, where a pop boy band tends to care more about gaining fans through their youthful, identical appearances whereas an indie boy band cares more for the music so their appearance comes across as quite shabby but as this is now a convention of the genre, the clothing and style of music videos show the love of music rather than showing a disinterest in hygiene for example. In The Sound by The 1975 the lead singer Matty is shown to have chipped black nail polish and leather clothes and messy jeans (as do the other member of the band) however it shows their music is important to them more than fashion and we wanted to create the same idea. The print products do not explicitly show the band, they more show a warped version of them as we manipulated images using Photoshop. It gives the uniqueness we intended within the preferred meaning for the audience, we wanted the band to come across as quirky and weird. This could possibly be considered to be a USP as the audience would want to learn more about the band and what kind of boys they are, so theyd buy the album and listen to the other songs to get what the band are all about.These were values and ideals we found a lot of other bands had from Arctic Monkeys to The Vaccines.

What is your evidence to support your ideas about the effectiveness of your promotional campaign?We spoke to people from our target audience range, which was between the ages of around 16 to 20. We took videos of what some of them thought about our products compared with others and we used feedback from our video to see what people thought.

Many people said that our video and products had aspects of the indie genre which helped them to identify the genre well and this meant that it was effective overall.

How does your campaign link to comparable products?Many other ancillary products and videos we looked at were quite similar to ours even though they were for different bands. Elements that were similar to comparable products included:Colour schemes: a lot of the digipaks and adverts we looked at including Arctic Monkeys, The 1975 and The Neighbourhood used muted or black and white colours, a typical genre convention we decided to adhere to as we found it was the most recognisable feature for the audience in our opinion.Images our ancillary products used simple images of the band members merged together into one so that the audience focus on this focal image. Adverts that used simple or no images were those of Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks and The Killers. We took inspiration from The Killers advert image as we found it to be extremely different to other images and it showed each band member equally in a unique way. There were some print products such as Oasiss poster that were very out there with bright colours and weird images however we thought this was a bit too unconventional of the genre so we decided against something like this.Camera shots/movements many videos we studied used a large variety of camera shots from close ups of band members to establishing shots of performances, such as 7 by Catfish and the Bottlemen and Girls by The 1975. It kept the video interesting and fast paced, which is something we wanted the band to signify (living life in the fast lane). We found that camera movement could include shaky camera or complete static so we decided to use static camera for the majority of the video, with two pans of the band as we wanted to show each band member equally, to signify the equality and relationships that the band had with each other and it would be evident to the audience that the band had strong relationships, therefore being more relatable and approachable which isnt obvious with some artists of other genres.

Comparable products we studied:

What have you done effectively? What would you do differently?Things we have done effectively:Created a recognisable product to audiences by using mise en scene effectively. Costume and colour we have used are seen in other music videos and print products of other artists of the indie genre such as The 1975. Used a wide variety of camera shots to convey different interpretations such as a close up of a band member may convey feelings of closeness to this character and the audience feel like they know them more personally rather than as an idol. Shaped an intertextual reference than most, if not all, of the target audience should understand, showing that we can incorporate other texts into ours to create a certain knowledge that the audience will feel happy for understanding. (Britains Got No Talent links to Britains Got Talent and this also shows part of the bands identity British.)Typography used in the print products is the same throughout which shows consistency.

Things we could have done differently or improved:Perfected some shots so that they werent as blurry as this could affect the audiences viewing and they could interpret this in a specific way that we didnt want them to (oppositional reading).If we wanted to make it more ironic we could have referenced other indie videos perhaps to create a satirical view which would reinforce the idea of different.