How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?TASK 2

Star image A star’s image allows her/him to be recognised through several different forms, it is used in many different media texts, such as websites and CD digipacks. It can be a very successful way for an artist to advertise.

A prime example of an artists star image would be 50 cent, this is because everybody notices him from his baggy clothing and baseball caps, which he has been renowned for.

I tried and successfully created a star image for our artist, we did this as her name was ‘Luella Rouge’, and as rouge French for the colour ‘red’ we decided to dress her in red for the music video.

Below is a screenshot of our music video, where our artist Is dressed in red portraying her star image.

Miley Cyrus- star image ‘twerking’• Miley Cyrus has become a phenomenon for her rebellious

attitude and her ‘twerking’, which is a key example of a star image.

• The music industry often uses visual techniques in order to promote and market the music.

• Keith Negus argue that ‘the pop music video is used as a promotional tool’, promoting the artist and the song.

• Branding is used to create and strengthen an artists value through the consumers positive views and affiliations of the artist.

• The artists star image is also used to brand products. Branding means that an artist can create numerous products in order to attract its audience, and a range of products through a range of styles and different styles, the theorist ‘Anderson’ calls this Long tailing.

• A good example of this, is when you go to a concert you can buy artist merchandise , which promotes and helps market the artist as well as brand the products.

To the left is a stall specialising in the artists ‘Ed Sheeran’s’ merchandise, promoting the artist with unique and individual designs which his target audience would buy.

CD digipack

A CD digi-pack is a crucial bit of artwork which conventionally helps promote the artist and markets their image. My CD digi-pack clearly promotes the artist as she is the main focus of the cover.

Dyer examines how the visual star image communicates messages to their audience. Most of the time, artists match the genre and style of their music to their star image, for example, above is ‘Ben Howards’ album cover for ‘Every Kingdom’, he is an alternative folk singer, which is communicated through the image, as it is very mysterious and deep.

As we are very much living within an online age, an artists website is a very key marketing strategy used to market the artist or promote them, as when you enter an artists website you are instantly hit with promotions on new shows or new singles and all the music made by the artist. Below is a great example of an artists website used to market the artist, Ben Howards website clearly promotes the artist, as it instantly allows one to access new singles and live recordings and shows from the artist, and allows the audience to keep up to date as it has a ‘Blog’ Feature.

My website is clearly well laid out and easy to direct yourself around it, it helps

the audience find the latest shows and promotes

the artist.

Our website links in with Boyd's term ‘co-option’, this is because the website supports the artist but also offers guidance for fans.

Websites often provide an autobiography for the band or individual artist which allows the fans to keep up to date and allows them to feel included in the progression and the current activities of the artist. This can also be done through the videos on the website, these also keep the fans alert. Bands and artists also put alerts on their website, e.g.- tour dates (like the 1975, left), this is the same with my website.

PROMOTION

• Usually websites are used to promote the artist and inform the audience.

• They usually promote new singles or inform the audience about new singles or album releases, or a tour or live performance coming up.

Making a CD Digipak• Whilst artists or bands are busy recording and making albums and music videos, there are always people

behind the scenes who are working on the whole campaign, in which they plan for the launch, promotion and the circulation for the new tracks. The designing and making of the CD cover art is an integral part of this process.

• There are many CD covers which feature heavily airbrushed and extremely unrealistic vain pictures of the artist or bands, however, there are plenty of covers which are far more creative, the most successful covers are those which appeal to the target audience, but also portray the genre of music which the CD is, for example, James Blake does this very well as the album cover appeals to his Indie/Alternative audience, but also illustrates how the music is going to be dark and mysterious through the blurry face.

• CD digipacks are constructed according to certain conventions in order to communicate certain messages about the artist or band, images may consist of texts, album artwork and photographs of the artist.

• Digipaks are constructed to appeal to aa target audience, in order to draw them towards the product.

• The artist website and the digipak can support the star image of the artist, and establishes the style and genre of the music.

• The audience are able to keep up with the artist and read about them, they can view information and read articles about them, keeping them happy as they are interacting with the artist.

• My digipak was aimed at both a male and female audience from the ages of 18-35, this is backed up with th euse of colour in the website and digipak.

• The campaign overall, helps to expand the audience, and keep them feeling involved, the audience are able to comment and approach the artist, making them feel included.

Philip Kotler

• ‘Human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange process’

• Whilst targeting my audience and during the marketing campaign of my product I had to consider the 4 P’s.

• Price- I considered the price I would set for the products in order to guarantee profit but also make it affordable.

• Place- How would I distribute my product so that it ended up in my desired target market.

• Product- How would I brand the star image.• Promotion- Where would I advertise the product so that a

large audience could view it.

• Our artist is very French looking, thus portraying a very flirtatious look about herself, this was supported by her promiscuous red dress big eyelashes and deep voice.

• The digipak supported this as she was sat in an elegant pose and she was the main focus of attention.

• This was also supported by the website as it was focused mainly on her and there were many elegant photos of her on it.

Real media examples

• Examples of real media text which use the same marketing campaign would be those of Ellie Goulding and Jesse J.

• They exhibit their products on mainstream platforms such as MTV and VIVO, selling there chart hits.

Campaign

• I think that our campaign was very succesful and the digipak and the website enabled this.

• The campaign allowed us to take a dance/urban track and turn it into something alternative.