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

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The TaskAs part of our A2 media coursework we were asked to create a music video as well as produce two ancillary tasks. These ancillary tasks were to create a digipak and advert for our chosen song. When combined with the finished video these two products would demonstrate a marketing campaign for our song, complete with branding and house style.

A style guide is a set of standards for the writing and design of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication. The style guide provides consistency in style and formatting of a document.

This is often known as "house style".

What is house style?

Many publication use style guides to demonstrate the preferred layout and formatting of a published page. They often are extremely detailed in specifying, for example, which fonts and colours to use. Such guides allow a large design team to produce visually consistent work for the organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide

Why is a house style important?The quality of the corporate identity reflected in all printed matters and all online marketing emphasizes the excellence of your products and your business attitude. A sloppy presentation doesn’t result in huge turnovers. The first contact with a future consumer has to be incredibly good and first impressions mean everything.

A house style needs to reflect the latest design and business trends. The colours have to match and the design must be original.

The house style must reflect your branding strategy and the values of the brand. Most of these values are described in a tagline like refreshing, innovative, inspiring, 24/7-attitude etc. You will understand that the brand value of a self-catering tourism business will differ from that of a high tech engineering firm. http://www.eyeon-newmedia.co.za/pages/style.html

Branding

A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, colour combination or slogan. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand

Why is branding important?Branding is a way of clearly highlighting what makes your product or service different to, and more attractive than, your competitors'.

There are four key elements in a successful branding project:

The big idea - The big idea is the starting point for any branding project. It is a summary of your business' or product's 'personality', and what makes it different. To find your big idea, you must first look very carefully at your business and the marketplace you operate in.

Vision - An understanding of where your business is going, or where you want it to go, so you can plan your journey. Your vision may be large scale - such as switching the emphasis of your business from one core area to another - or simple, such as offering an existing product in a completely new way.

Values – Clarifies what your business stands for. Your values are an important part of how people see your business - however, it can be tricky to communicate values.

Personality - When you start communicating your brand to consumers, you will also be expressing the personality of your company through the tone, language and design you use.

To create a coherent marketing package I first investigated genre based CD adverts and digipaks.

Gwen Stefani – Love. Angel. Music. Baby CD Advert

• The advert is a whole page of ‘Glamour’ magazine. The advert was placed near the middle of the entire magazine, at the end of one of the main articles.

• This is a good idea because when the reader has finished reading the story they would turn over the page and immediately see the advert.

• The advert is a close up of the artist on the cover of the album. The image has been photoshopped to look like a watercolour painting making it more entropic than the actual digipak cover therefore more interesting to the audience.

• An image of the album is also featured on the advert. The font and colour schemes used are the same that are used on the album cover, keeping with the house theme.

• The advert also tells you what singles are featured in the album and that the album is in stores now. There is also a logo of the record label that she is with and the web address of the artist connoting that the audience can view or engage with the artist on a variety of different medias.

• The artist is also sexualised, fitting in with Laura Mulvey’s theory of the media portraying women only for the male gaze. Yet the fact that she is on a throne and holding a crown connotes that she is in control and has lots of power over people.

• The artist is also looking straight at the camera which connotes a more personal feel to the album and may make the audience feel that they know her on a more personal level.

House Style – between advert and digipak

Sexualised Female

Crown – connotes power and dominance?

Small picture of CD cover

Music label logo, star web address, songs included, date released

Watercolour effect – entropic and more interesting for audience

Artist name, name of album in big letters

• The advert was half a page in ‘The Sun’ newspaper.• This is a good idea because when the reader has finished reading the story

above, their eyes would immediately look downwards and see the advert. • An image of the album is also featured on the advert. The font and colour

schemes used are the same that are used on the album cover, keeping with the house theme.

• The advert also tells you what singles are featured in the album and that the album is in stores now. There is also a logo of the record label that she is with and the web address of the artist connoting that the audience can view or engage with the artist on a variety of different medias.

• The artist is also sexualised, fitting in with Laura Mulvey’s theory of the media portraying women only for the male gaze.

• The artist is also looking straight at the camera which connotes a more personal feel to the album and may make the audience feel that they know her on a more personal level.

• Fairly plain advert so draws attention to the artist.

Marina and the Diamonds – The Family Jewels

Name of artist and CD name in biggest font

Image of the star taking up most of the page – sexualised

Website of the artist

Simple colour scheme – white, black and a pink/purple colour – links with colours of CD cover

Picture of CD front cover on the advert – relates to the picture and text on the advert

Details at the bottom of the page such as when it’s released, quotes about the CD etc.

From this research I discovered key conventions that I will use for my CD advert in order to produce a house style and a coherent message;

• An image of the album will be featured on the advert. The font and colour schemes used will be the same that are used on the album cover, keeping with the house theme.

• The advert will tell the audience what singles are featured in the album and that the album is in stores now or soon. There will also be a logo of the record label that the artist is with and the web address of the artist connoting that the audience can view or engage with the artist on a variety of different medias (micro marketing).

• The artist will only be mildly sexualised, making it more entropic than usual pop CD adverts and digipaks.

• The artist is also looking straight at the camera which connotes a more personal feel to the album and may make the audience feel that they know her on a more personal level.

• Fairly plain background on advert and digipak so draws attention to the artist.

• Finally there will also be some reviews that show all of the praise for the album, making it seem desirable to the audience and making them want to own a copy.

Genre Based Digipaks; Katy Perry Teenage Dream

The front of the digipak is filled with pictures of the artist, usually with nothing behind or around them so that the audience can concentrate solely on them.

These are all MCU's so that the audience can feel connected with the artist and possibly buy the album.

The artist is sexualised and wears revelling clothing. This is primarily for the male gaze and widens her target audience.

Simple, clear designs and has such items like a barcode and media label.

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The CD is fun and quirky which connotes an air of mischief and almost childlike humour as the CD resembles that of a candy cane. This not only implies that the artist is still young and carefree but also widens the audience to younger children as they would enjoy the sweet themed digipak.

Michael Jackson – This Is ItThe artist is shown in iconic poses so that the audience can instinctively recognise

that it is him.

They are MLs or MCUs so that the audience can relate to him and feel that they know him personally which may give them reason to buy the album.

The left and right sleeves are filled with pictures of the artist, usually with nothing behind or around them so that the audience can concentrate solely on them.

Simple, clear design and has such items like a barcode and media label.

The shots of his last ever concert and a small book detailing the events and unseen footage is an example of micro marketing, doing small things that we attract the audience to buy the album.

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Madonna – Sticky and Sweet TourThe left and right sleeves are filled with pictures of the artist, usually with nothing

behind or around them so that the audience can concentrate solely on them.

These are both MCU's and ML's so that the audience can feel connected with the artist and possibly buy the album.

The artist is sexualised and wears revelling clothing. This is primarily for the male gaze and widens her target audience.

Simple, clear designs and has such items like a barcode and media label.

The shots of the ever concert and a small book detailing the events and unseen footage is an example of micro marketing, doing small things that we attract the audience to buy the album.

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By completing this research I believe that I have found many key forms and conventions that that the pop genre uses within their digipak.

The front and inner sleeves of the digipak are filled with pictures of the artist, usually with nothing behind or around them so that the audience can concentrate solely on them.

These are all MCU's so that the audience can feel connected with the artist and possibly buy the album.

The artist is sexualised and wears revelling clothing. This is primarily for the male gaze and widens her target audience.

Simple, clear designs and has such items like a barcode and media label.02/03/11

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A part of our brief was to make the ancillary print tasks relate to our music video, providing a house style and therefore easily recognisable as a marketing package to our target audience. I admit that as I went through my research I didn’t look in depth at how my print tasks would relate/match to my video. If I had to complete the coursework again I would have conducted and documented some background research into contemporary marketing packages for our genre of music.

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Taylor Swift – Love Story

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It is clear from looking at both the screenshots of the music video and the print productions that this is a good example of a marketing package to promote Taylor Swift’s album with a lot of coherence between them.

This marketing package creates it’s own brand by using the same key media forms and conventions including; mise en scene, colour scheme, fonts that relate to the narrative era of the music video, locations, artistic style, tone, props, lighting, body language and overall theme or ‘big idea’ throughout the video itself, the digipak and advert to promote it.

This high level of coherence creates a fluency over all three of the media products for the target audience to relate to and easily recognise. For example if a member of the target audience first saw the video on MTV, without realising who the artist was or what the song was called and they walked into HMV the next day, the album would immediately catch their eye and they would then know instinctively that it was part of the same marketing package as the design is so original and reflects the values of the brand.

Locations

Costumes

Font

Style

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Katy Perry – Teenage Dream

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Katy Perry’s marketing campaign is a clear example of a coherent house style and brand. In this album Katy Perry uses bright colours and the idea of sweets and treats to connote a fun and lively feel to the album and her music. She uses this brand very effectively and the house style is shown throughout.

The brand;

Bright colours,

Theme of sweets

Sexualised females

Fun and wacky fonts

Similar lighting,

Similar tone

Similar costumes.

Bright colours

Theme of sweets

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After conducting this research I looked through my ancillary and music video to see how effective my house style and branding was.

As mentioned earlier I could have done more research into how ancillary tasks and music videos link and form coherent marketing packages. On the other hand when looking through my coursework I believe that my print productions and my music video form a coherent message.

Location match

Logo Match

Same colour scheme

Same font

Throughout my ancillary tasks I wanted to ensure that there was a coherent house style. To do this I thought that it was imperative to use the same colour scheme throughout. To ensure that this was the case when designing my product in Photoshop I used the eyedropper tool to select the colour from my advert, then on my digipak I was able to match the colours by using their CMYK (or HTML) code. The advantage of using this specific method is that you get the exact shade of colour across all texts, after all there are many different shades of purple for example.

The main colour scheme that I used through out my ancillary tasks were purple, white and black.

Black – C = 75%, M = 68%, Y = 67%, K = 90%. HTML - 000000

Purple – C=87%, M=98%, Y=0%, K=0%. HTML – 48289d

White – C=1%, M=2%, Y=0%, K=0%. HTML – fbf8fc

I then did the same when using my chosen font. On both pieces of print task I used Trajan Pro font as it provided the artist with a sophisticated yet not to middle class or fancy image. I used the font for the logo as bold so that it would stand out against the normal font of the album name and track listings etc. Similarly for both digipak and CD advert I used anti – aliasing method of strong. The majority of the sizing is similar however due to the size of the advert compared to the digipak I had to resize them accordingly so that the information would be easy to read at a quick glance.

As an important part of artist recognition I developed the concept of a logo for Rox. This immediately gives the audience a point of recognition with the artist and with other fans as a form of micro marketing. Logos are important for consumer recognition and help form a confident brand. A 1991 study in US found that 30% of 3-year-olds correctly matched a product and the logo or character used to sell that product.

In the wider market a logo can be printed on other media products. Anything from packaging, marketing materials, websites and signs can be embezzled with the Rox logo, providing a fan base that the audience can feel connected with. The goal of using a logo in marketing is to put your logo in places customers are likely to see it, and reinforce that recognition pattern with multiple viewings. I would have liked to try and place the Rox logo in our music video however as a group we couldn’t find a suitable place to put it without being too garish or tacky. After all we wanted to keep the sophisticated yet down to earth image of our artist.

It is also important to ensure that the same posture and proxemics are recurrent. For our media product we didn’t want the artist to be too sexualised, as a form of entropy. After all within our pop genre many of the lead female artists like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are frequently sexualised. For our media product we wanted to show the artist in control of her sexuality and for this entropic behaviour the majority of the shots show the artist looking directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall and inviting the audience to look. Yet this disrupts the idea of voyeurism in the media, where the audience can look at a person without the fear of getting caught. Even on the advert where the artist is looking away this picture connotes an air of indifference where the artist doesn’t care that you are looking at her.

Our frequent use of close ups does show a form of redundancy as this reflects many pop videos in contemporary society. This running theme of MCUs help form a bond between the audience and the artist (micro marketing) and help form a recognisable pattern between all of the tasks.

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We wanted our artist to look real, not like the manufactured Cheryl Cole etc and we wanted our print productions to reflect this. As such I haven’t used any unnecessary props as I didn’t want them to detract the audience’s attention from the artist. This is coherent throughout our video and my print tasks.

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We wanted our artist to be known for her fashion sense and range of contemporary fashions. As such we have taken great inspiration from the latest fashion trends. Throughout our video there is a running theme of changing outfits, providing a sense of audience recognition and consistency. It makes our target audience want to emulate our artist as she is shown to be cool, trendy yet still down to earth. However between the digipak and CD advert I wanted the artist to be dressed in similar clothes, due to the fact that I wanted them to reflect each other, following conventional examples of La Roux and Gwen Stefani’s advert and digipak.

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To appeal to our target audience I wanted to have matching linguistic style. My target audience was B - C1 therefore to appeal to them I used short, sharp language, so that they could scan read the advert or digipak and still get the main idea of the product. I didn’t use slang to appeal to the wider masses and likewise I didn’t use fancy words or phrases that may alienate the D-E jicnar groups who would see the artist as to upper class. I used this linguistic style of both my CD advert and digipak to produce a coherent house style and to provide the audience with a method of recognition.

Example of matching linguistic style

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To present a coherent message for our target audience we wanted to use similar lighting throughout our video and ancillary products. We wanted the products to have a professional feel and therefore I choose to photograph my artist in our photography studio. This provided professional, high quality lighting which I used to my advantage.I tried to avoid shadow as I wanted the artist to appear open and ‘honest’ with the audience as opposed to hiding away behind shadow.

We also used the photography studio for our video, interlinking studio shots alongside the town ones, however at first finding similar lighting was difficult. Yet as we filmed in popular public place thorough Worcester high street there was always ample lighting for us to use. We didn’t want to hire out the lighting kits as this would provide un natural lighting, something that we wanted to avoid in all areas of our work.

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Throughout this coursework there have been many key visual themes. We wanted to show the artist as an independent woman, not blatantly sexualised like other female artist (the artist is in control of her sexuality) as the audience should like the artist for her music and not by showing off her body etc. To do this we didn’t use too many fancy edits, locations or props; we kept the video and ancillary products simple as to not detract anything from the artist and her music. This is shown throughout the video and print tasks as we have used minimal props and fancy costumes or locations (only those immediately available to us) and also we have used natural lighting in order to make our artist more realistic and providing a connection with the target audience. This was also symbolised at the end of the narrative by the artist throwing away the ring what he had bought her.

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Overall I believe that throughout my coursework I have shown consistency and a house style. Although at the time of completing my ancillary tasks I had not thought too far ahead into how they would match my music video, the fact that as a group we had such a clear idea of where we wanted to be and what we wanted to achieve my ideas stemmed from our discussions and the ancillary tasks could not help but match and provide consistency with our final video.

If I had to complete this coursework again I would have conducted more research into how print productions relate to music videos and used this to further benefit my coursework. Overall I am happy with my house style, that I created a brand logo for our artist and how well the three pieces fit together.