Question II

It was vital that there were distinct connections between the music video, digipak and magazine poster. In order to do this successfully there had to be strong themes of brand identity and consistency displayed throughout the digipak in order for the combination of our ancillary texts and media product to be effective. Below is an example of a digipak and music video for pop artist “Katy Perry”, the combination of her media product and ancillary texts is extremely effective as it follows media conventions while keeps consistency throughout her digipak in order to create brand identity.

The Digipak and Video keep within the conventions of pop, with the use of glossy colours and wacky costumes and aspects of voyeurism. Similar conventions are also seen within her digipak, with the voyeuristic image of Katy Perry sat on the clouds, and the dream like font and pink colours, which appeal to a young female demographic. Katy Perry’s digipak is effective as the image on the cover is similar to a scene in the music video, as Katy Perry sings on pink fluffy clouds. The same colour scheme and images are continuous throughout the digipak. The use of the candy CD’s also illustrates the candy world that Katy Perry ventures into.

In order to create an effective combination between our final

product and ancillary texts, we looked in to the typical conventions of album artwork and magazine adverts using other examples within the real world. By doing this research we could apply these conventions to our own work in order to create a realistic and professional looking final piece based off our music video and real media texts. Some basic conventions of albums digipaks included:

Band Name

Artist Image

Company Logo/Record Labels

Track List

Single/Album Title

Barcode

Whereas basic conventions of magazine adverts included:

Band Name

Artist Image

Album Cover Image

Release Date

Album Name

Website

Rating

Company Logo’s

We applied some of these conventions to our own work. These are three images which appear in our digipak, one being the album cover, the second is one of the inlays we created and the third is our bonus disc. These three images appear in our music video, which is typical of digipaks and also means that the artist can be marketed easily as audiences recognize the images and are then inclined to buy the album. The images used also create strong brand identity, as the second image was used as our magazine advert, although this is a different image, the use of mise-en-scene creates consistency through costume. The artist is also branded as being sexy and flirty but also strong as the images are striking. This will appeal to a female audience who aspire to be these three things. The use of the third image as our bonus disc also creates consistency as the image appeared in our music video multiple times and means audiences can identify this image easily. Using images that also appear in our music video makes the combination of our ancillary texts effective as there is consistency throughout and the digipak has conformed to certain conventions which makes it recognizable as an album.

To keep consistency throughout the digipak and magazine adverts, rather than just through use of images, we also achieved this through use of font. The font used on the albums back and front cover and discs is the same as font used within the magazine advert. Although typically pop artists tend to use popping colours and dream like font, we challenged this convention and used a simple font that was sophisticated. This enabled us to create brand identity throughout our ancillary texts as the font created a mature and sophisticated brand rather than something fun which would tend to appeal to a younger audience, as our music video is more suited to an older mature audience. Using the same font makes the artist more marketable as audiences come to recognize font used and this establishes a brand identity and makes the artist distinctive within the market.

The use of a close-up image is also typical of pop artists as immediately audiences are able to recognize and identify them, this is an important factor which is used within digipaks for upcoming artists as it creates the basis for building a brand , and in order to do this it is important that your artist is recognized. The images also reflect the artists “style” the quirky costumes and flirtatious image suggests the artist is more likely to be part of the pop genre, as images are more relevant to artists such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, who use similar images. This creates an effective digipak as it needs to be recognizable and this is achieved through the use of close up images and a recognizable face , in order to market the artist, this also reflects our music video, as close-up images are repeatedly used throughout in order to force audiences to remember her, and this is then again achieved through the digipak and magazine advert.

We also conformed to certain conventions when creating our magazine advert, such as website, release date, record labels and rating. We used these conventions in order to create brand identity, as they were each used to suggest the type of audience who would buy our album. We had to suggest an audience through our music video, this was done through the use of quirky costumes, locations and sophisticated editing which suggested our music video would appeal to a teenage or young adult audience . This was also shown through our magazine advert. The use of a web address suggests our audience is likely to be connected to the internet so are more likely to go online and find out more about the album, this implies our album targets a young audience as typically they use the internet more often than older audiences. The use of a star rating from “Look Magazine” also suggests a younger audience, as typically females around the age of 18 tend to read glossy fashion magazines. The use of the MTV and Itunes logo also suggests a younger mature audience as these are both companies targeted at young people, there is also the use of MTV in our music video. This makes the combination of our music video and magazine advert effective as both are targeting a young mature audience, keeping consistency through who each elements of the product are targeting.

Overall the combination of our final product and ancillary texts is very effective, as there is consistency throughout which is vital when creating an effective magazine advert and digipak as this means that the artist can easily be recognised by audiences making them an easier product to sell. Also consistency through the use of images, which come from the music video and font which reflects the sophisticated elements of our video means that a strong brand identity is established which is important when creating an effective combination. We also conformed to typical conventions within each elements creating professional products, having three professional looking elements means our ancillary texts and music video are easily recognizable as a package.