QUESTION 2:How effective is the combination of your main

products and ancillary texts?

Colette Olumide

What is a brand?A brand is not the same as a product. A brand is a particular make of something, for example, with coffee; coffee is the product and 'Kenco' or 'Nescafe' are brands. Branding is all about creating an image that is memorable to the customer.

Branding became important as there was an occurance of mass production of products, therefore each product needed their own distinct brand to make them stand out from all the rest and give them their own unique mark. “Competitive branding became a necessity of the machine age within a context of manufactured sameness, image based difference had to be manufactured with the product’ Naomi Klein

How does branding relate to the music industry?.

 All musicians will have some sort of brand image. That could be a logo, type of colour they wear or the kind of costumes they wear. It's important to establish a brand image, so their audience will have something to associate that particular artist with, and gives that musician a bigger and more interesting personality.  As a result, this brand image will be repeated over and over again to their audience; i.e. on album covers, in their music videos or in promotional photoshoots. Again, this creates a memorable image for the audience, and they'll be able to link the brand image to that artist. Logos, designs, advertising and marketing can help the audience deduce certain ideas from these particular things and give them an overall idea what a person's brand image is. For example, if the artist's brand image is a skull and cross bone, they'll have certain ideas from that image, i.e. they're from a rock genre and their songs are likely to be dark. This same idea applies to colours, clothing etc.

Branding can make a particular artist unique and gives them something that other artists don't have. It gives them something their fans can relate to and a special connection between them and the artist. Branding is all about creating a positive image that can be recognised easily and as a result things like having an artists logo on something can boost the sales of it.

Examples of branding

Kasabian are a British Indie rock band. They’re branding as a band helps to portray their image as quite a dark, raw and gritty band. This is shown through their whole image from, the logo , which uses just black and white with the large bold font, these combined definitely connote a band belonging to the indie rock genre. They’re clothing tends to always be dark/earthy colours and usually all the band members were slightly matching outfits, the leather jackets and hairstyles are typical of an indie/rock genre. This image is shown repeatedly and consistently throughout all Kasabian products.

Why did we need a brand image for our band?

It was important that we could create a clear brand image of our brand that was consistent, memorable and simple across all of our products. This would help to get our target audience interested in our product. We did this through the production of our video; ie characters, costumes, editing and also the design of our ancilary tasks; colours, images, props, costume. We wanted to create an image that was instantly recognisable by the audience and we did this by repeating the same image throughout all of the products.

Our brand image

The image of our band is fun, quirky,quite retro and down to earth. We want audiences to feel that this band is on their same level and are a band d to by the audience.that can be relate We wanted our band still to come across as a band belonging to the indie-pop genre and considered various elements that would en enable us to do this; colours, costume and characters.We had to repeat these elements throughout all of our products in order to create a clear brand identity and increase awareness of our brand and the products within the brand.We have used consistent colours, costumes, characters throughout all the products, one aspect that I felt definitely gave our brand a distinct look was the repeated use of the fox throughout our products, for example the fox appears on the video as well as on the album cover and digi-pak panels, the poster and also the logo for our band. This feature definitely helped to enhance the bands’ image as fun and quirky and would definitely grab the attention of our audience.

Our image differs, from just an ‘indie’ or ‘pop’ genre. We also wanted the band to have a slightly retro indie image, that was slightly more traditional than really modern, niche indie music. A typical indie band, is possibly more unusual, dark and moody.For example, bands like Kasabian, The Horrors and The Arctic Monkeys. Their image is much more toned down and serious and possibly more aimed towards an audience that is much older (16+).

The pop genre can be seen as more cheesy, mainstream and not necessarily unusual or different, their image tends to appeal to the masses and is way less serious and usually aimed at younger audiences (under 16). Artists that adhere to the ‘pop’ image would include: JLS, The Saturdays, Pixie Lott.

Colours: We decided to use typical ‘pop’ colours that were vibrant and bright that would connote fun and positivity. Firstly, we wanted the actual band members to exude a fun image by wearing bright colours in the video, we didn’t want them to have matching colours like ‘indie’ band members who tend to wear all matching dark and earthy colours. Our video was very bright and used bold vibrant colours. We had the logo in the background shots of the band, instead of just a plain background. We also had split screen parts of the video that changed colours with each shot, the colours very bright and ‘poppy’.We used colours to maintain the element of fun also in our ancilary tasks, however we did tone it down abit as we didn’t want to make the album cover and poster too busy and distract away from their main purpose. On the album cover and poster we mainly kept the colour running through the costumes with bright pops of colour. However with the digipak panels we included alot of colour and fun editing that gave the panels a really fun and quirky look.

The video also included the logo we designed that appeared in the background of the band shots, the logo started off very plain however we edited it to have aspects of vibrancy, with the pinks and turqouises, we also included a cream background that gave it the more retro look.

Costumes: As mentioned above, we decided that the costumes of our band members and characters in the video would be bright and vibrant to portray fun and positivity. The band does belong to the indie-pop genre,so the costumes were slightly more unusual, quirky and have a slightly retro look to correspond with the retro/indie image. However, we wanted the band to have a downto earth image and felt that if the costumes were also very casual and looked like outfits that the audience could go out and buy and wear themselves, they would be more on the audiences’ level and also fulfil aspects of Maslows’ Hierarchy of needs; ‘Belonging needs’, which are the social needs; the fact the band are dressed in a way that can be seen as cool and easily copied, can make individuals feel as if they can fit in and have a sense of belonging, this can also link with the ‘Esteem needs’ in Maslows’ theory, the fact that the individual has a sense of belonging and being able to ‘fit in’ this could higher self esteem. The choice of costumes, could also fit in with 2 of the categories of Blumler, Mcquail and Browns’ theory of Uses and Gratifications: Personal identity and Surveillance. Personal identity because as the costumes are casual and look like clothes that any individual could go out and buy, individuals could find it easier to base their own personal look on aspects of the bands look and style. Surveillance, because individuals can gain information and insight on whatis current in indie-pop style and clothing.

The fox: We maintained the fox throughout all of our products. The fox became an important image of the brand, and we felt that it really gave our brand a clear unique selling point. The idea of the fox is very different and something you would never really expect to see with the branding of a band.We featured the fox all the way through the video, and the narrative of the fox and the girl being in love also gave a quirky and interesting aspect to the video as again, it is something you wouldn’t tend to see on a music video. Throughout the video the fox had quite a comical personality, were we see the fox dancing and behaving humanly, which enhances the fun aspect of our music video.We used the fox on both the poster and the digipak, again we gave the fox a fun personality by using photos were the fox is doing funny poses.

Logo and font:As mentioned, we did include the logo on the background of the band shots on our video. As I have already discussed the colours used, I am going to explain how other features of our band logo help to create the image of our band and contribute to the branding of our band. We wanted our band to have a more retro feel than other indie-pop bands, we looked at retro logos and designs such as these:#

We took inspiration from the retro diner fonts that looked slightly more traditional and old-fashioned to other band logos and fonts.I think using this font also gave the logo a more quirky image as this isn’t the type of font you would usually see for an indie-pop band.

Conclusion On conclusion, I feel that the brand image we created for our band was successful. We did very well at keeping the image consistent throughout each product belonging to the brand. It is clear that each product belongs to the same brand and I also feel that we have created an image that is eye catching and would appeal to our target chosen audience very well.On feedback from our products we found that the fox was a very distinctive part of our brand and worked well at making our brand unique and stand out.