• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
• How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions? 
• How do your products represent social groups or issues? 
• How do your products engage with the audience?

 

Branding is a coherent set of values that the audience will embrace and buy into. Throughout the three products I tried to do this by incorporating themes, representation, images and design that are unique across all three products to create a sense of a brand. These being the soft, warm and loving feel, but also showing the target audience to not be afraid of social norms. To create a successful brand, it needs a uniqueness that can be easily recognised by the brand’s target audience. The mission statement states the brand is ‘old school with a modern twist’. This implies that the intended target audience is younger than the typical indie folk genre audience.

Although the intended target audience is younger than usual, I still wanted elements of the indie folk genre present. Nature and wilderness can be seen across all three products. For example, the use of trees on the digipak, a travel/nature highlight on the social media page and the locations of the music video. By including the nature aspect across all of the products, signifies the soft and warm feel of the brand, complimentary of De Saussure’s theory. This was represented within the music video with the natural environments such as the small woodland and pond.

Another way the products work together to create a brand is the brotherly bond between the band members. This symbolic code is present in all three products. For example, the coherence of the family-like bond is shown in the image on the digipak of the band members helping each other play the guitar. The personal aspect, such as going live, on the social media page and the general bond shown between them in the music video indicates the band has a family-like bond.

The authentic honesty of the brand is also present in the products. The band isn’t the typical ‘cool’ inspirations that a younger audience would look up to, however they are presented with an attitude of not caring how people view the band. For example, the costumes that the band wear in the music video and digipak are quite unconventional to the indie folk genre. The social media page shows the bands confidence in themselves as they share more personalised stories. The coherence of the authentic honestly through all of the products creates the uniqueness of the brand.

 

When researching indie folk music, we found that music videos in that genre didn’t have an equal split of performance and narrative in the video. However, they all had a very soft feel to them, with nature being a conventional location. We watched a music video by Mumford and Sons, ‘Hopeless Wanderer’ (2013) which showed us how the use of camera and editing, sound, narrative, performance and star image, also known as Laceys repertoire of elements, show the expectations of generic conventions of the indie folk genre in the music video.

One convention I wanted to include was the natural, rural like settings within the video. This convention was a key one I wanted to include as it really incorporates the indie folk feel. I was able to use this convention by having a shot of the whole band in a romantic pagoda. This created a similar feel that one shot in the Mumford and Sons video had, in a small field, trees in the background with a band member playing the piano.

The mumford and sons music video portrayed the band as a group of close friends that have a brotherly bond between them. I also wanted to embrace this convention as this can paint the band in a good light. It also displays the band on a more personal level for the audience. I tried to show this within the music video with the bands friendship and love towards each other.

A convention I challenged was the costumes the band wore. Typically indie folk music videos have a working class folk look. I wanted to present my star as more of a nerdy character. This adds the ‘pop’ genre element into my music video which is more attractive to our younger target audience.

 

Representation is a key convention to any brand. To represent our stars in the digipak we had to use a range of different colours, typefaces, poses and lighting to convey the generic conventions of the indie folk genre, but also using these things to challenge the conventions. Dyers theory of the paradox of a star represents the two sides of our star as old school but yet still attracting a young audience.

To represent the stars within the digipak, I wanted to create a sense of brotherhood between the band members. I did this by taking ‘natural’ images of the band members such as the one image of them helping each other with the guitar.

Playfulness was another characteristic of the band that I wanted to represent. To do this I decided to use a filmstrip to show a series of serious and fun images of the band. This creates a friendly manner of the band which is attractive to a younger audience, but also indicates that they are serious about their music.

I still wanted to include the generic conventions of the indie folk genre, nature being a common theme within this. To represent this I included a forest like background, behind the filmstrips. This made the album more generic to the genre

Another main idea I wanted to get across was the romantic side of the band. To represent this I used a silhouette of a lighthouse for the double page spread of the digipak. The lighthouse can be seen as a very passionate yet lonely place as reflected in the music video.

 

 

Engaging with the target audience is key to advertise and promote any social media page. One goal of a marketing campaign is AIDA (attract, interest, desire, action). A social media page is good for creating a community or fan base for a brand. It allows fans to interact and participate by liking, sharing and commenting on posts, Shirky’s theory on audience participation. This ensures the brand fulfils their uses and gratifications. This theory by Blumler and Katz explains four key elements to a successful and engaging product. Social interaction, personal identity, entertainment and information. A social media page can offer these by interactive stories, posts on feeds and the community that is created by all of this. Adding in all of these key elements ensures the brand keeps an engaged and active audience.

One way to keep an active audience is with a Q&A. By putting this element onto a story it allowed the audience to ask any question they wanted, that the band would then reply to. This invites the audience to participate with the brand and the fanbase. This interaction with the brand gives the audience a sense of belonging to a community which will keep them engaged for longer.

Other opportunities can arise to keep the target audience engaged. Another way I did this was by using a countdown to the new album release. Adding this to the page’s story daily gave something for the audience to watch out for e.g. information and gave a sense of anticipation for the audience, keeping them engaged. This provides elements of AIDA of gaining the audience’s interest and creating something for that interest. Timing is key in order for marketing to work effectively. Keeping on top of what is trending is not only attractive to the target audience but other audiences and therefore they are more likely to be engaged and interactive with the brand.

One last element that was essential to keep the audience engaged was sneak peaks. I wanted to ensure that there was something to enable the audience to interact with each other. This refers back to Blumler and Katz uses and gratifications of social interaction within the target audience. Small, regular updates will make the target audience want to check the page so they don’t miss out and then to engage and  share what they have found out with other fans.