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

Synergy • First of all it remains crucial that music videos, digipaks and adverts all share a

common consistent theme. This not only improves the marketing of a product but it allows the artist to essentially become a “brand”; also by establishing a common theme allows the artist to be associated with their desired genre/style of music. For the consumer a consistent theme also allows each and every product to become associated with one another. An almost arbitrary theme does not tend to market well as it proves incoherent to its desired audience, so in turn the album doesn’t generate enough profit. It’s vital for a theme to be appropriate and consistent as this leads to a successful marketing device which then appeals to its target audience. When planning to produce our digipak and advert we soon established that a clear and regular theme was key to creating an effective digipak and advert.

Example of an existing artist (Ben Howard) use of a common theme

Website home page

Screen shot taken from his music video

Logo

Merchandise

Album cover

Album advert

Impact of the themeThe previous 3 slides are all examples of the consistent theme used to market Ben Howards album. Firstly a common factor used within all aspects of his products is the use of an outdoor naturalistic setting, which in this case appears to be a sea-side location. This remains a coherent and appropriate theme to use at it represents his “simplistic” style of music and focuses on his natural talent as an individual artist. The use of this simplistic theme also occurs again on the website homepage where a neutral grey colour is used as the background colour which again fits in with the “true-to-life” theme but allows the font and artist logo (both simplistic and written in bold black font) to stand out. By keeping the logo simplistic allows it to be used on each form of media at it proves fitting for each of the album, advert and website.

Creating our digipak and advert• when in the process of crating our digipak and advert we also used

common themes of the indie genre (outdoor setting, natural colours, casual clothing etc.) as without using these we would possibly run the risk of our genre becoming unidentifiable.

Final digipak

Final Advert

Outdoor Theme

Screenshot from music video Front panel from digipak Advert Image

We consistently used an outdoor theme throughout our music video, advert and digipak. During the research stages an outdoor setting was used in numerous indie style music videos, digipaks and adverts used by artists such as The Vaccines, Ben Howard and The Maccabees. Our main reasoning for using an outdoor setting through out all three products is firstly for the audience to become familiar with our bands “style”. And finally a simplistic real-life setting highlights the bands natural talent with no need to over glamorize anything.

Font

Font taken from advert

Font taken from digipak

Our choice of font differs between our advert and digipak. Although we used the same consistent colour (black) which tends to go with any theme I believe in retrospection we should actually keep our choice in font consistent throughout all of our products otherwise you tend to run the risk of a theme becoming disjointed and loose the familiarity the audience has with the product.

Colour scheme

Digipak panel Advert Music video screen shot

Throughout all three of our products (music video, digipak and advert) we almost stuck to the “outdoor theme” regarding our choice in naturalistic colours. We chose an autumnal colour scheme which reflects the mood of our choice in song making it a logical decision. Again this also allows the audience to associate all three of our products with one another thus making it both a successful yet suitable marketing device.

Brand image

Digipak Advert Music video screenshot

Our main brand image throughout our digipak, advert and music video is really using the band as a whole. This particular method not only allows the audience to become accustomed to the band but in turn also showcases the band and their musical talent. Our choice of mise-en-scene also has an impact on our brand image as we consistently use acoustic guitars, casual clothing and an outdoor setting to form our simplistic yet talented identity for our target audience to recognise.