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?
We know from our research and experience that for someone to love or engage in a brand often there needs to be a sense of desire to follow and know what they are doing. The audience also has to feel a sense of connection in order to follow and engage with the star image. The mission statement of our artists included the key conventions of our genre for example playful, colourful, fun and relaxed sense. We had all of these terms in mind when creating all of our products. We wanted it to include the above features as it was not only included in the mission statement but is also the blueprint behind all of the products we had to create. For example, we needed to be able to communicate these conventions and connotations with media language as the variety of social media platforms can make it hard to get across the correct connotations and colour schemes throughout our genre and our star image so that the audience regardless of whether it was a moving image a print product or online post would engage in the product type. For example, the star image that my target audience would expect to see was a group of four made up of both genders having fun in a band with a sense of family.. This was clearly evidenced in all of the products. An example of this would be in our music video we have clips of when we were not really shooting for the music video and having fun that made it to the final cut as they looked conventional and made us look like a family. As Well as in the digipak we went against traditional branding of our genre with our star image as we included an image on the front of the album this is usually replaced with artwork or symbols in traditional indie-pop covers. The paradox of the stars having a sense of friendship so deep it could be family is both ordinary and extraordinarily clear to see in the branding of both our digipak and our music video.
Dyer argues that all-star images have their own connotations and their individual selling point. Whether this is style, branding or marketing strategies that separate them from every other product to do with the genre or artists similar to them, Dyer argued that as an audience we strive to complete the star image through consuming their products, shows, merchandise etc. For example, in our digipak, we used colourful coats this helped us have our own unique selling point of having an array of colours on the front of the digipak.
We knew in order to create a successful andeasily established Indie pop music video we would have to research what is conventional for this genre. By using traditional elements of the genre Altman would argue that these are the blueprints the audience would be expecting.
From our research, we established that we need to involve Lacey’s repertoire of elements that fit into our genre. For example, while researching we looked at some previous music videos in our genre, in particular Tom Grennan’s Little Bit Of Love Video. This gave us an idea of what we needed to include however we still wanted to involve other research we found. We found most bands in the indie pop genre were incl
uding narrative and performance however majority were more performance-focused. In terms of camera angles, we found that low angles and wide shots are used in indie pop music videos that also fit into Lacey’s repertoire of elements theory for our genre.
We wanted to challenge the normal anachronic narratives in traditional indie pop music videos and decided to do a chronological music video. By doing our music video in chronological order we went against the traditional connotations for our genre however going against these connotations helped us to engage with our audience, and this made it easier for our audience to understand our narrative.
By changing a few of the traditional elements we made our music video our own. This is why we were using some cuts to close-ups which is important when trying to get across our narrative. An example of when we did this was when the audience first met with the animals in the narrative; this helped us introduce them and gave the audience a good view of what was going on.
We made sure although we changed a convention and our music video does not follow all of the traditional elements of an indie-pop video we are still making sure it is what our audience is expecting.
After we had created our music video next in the brief was to create a digipak. We already had an understanding of what was going to be conventional for our genre. It is important to stick to our genre to keep our audience engaged and give them what they should be expecting. We wanted to represent the indie pop genre on the front cover especially therefore the audience would look at our cover and know what they were looking at was an indie pop digipak.
We evidenced De Saussure’s signified and signifier rules to do with the denotations and the connotations for our genre. For example, a visual signifier we used is the main image of our band on the front cover of our digipak. This is conventional for our genre and fulfils the expectations and signifies what the audience should be expecting. This signifies our band and the genre of indie pop.
Also while creating our digipak we evidenced Barthes codes for example the semic code embedded into our digipak would be the costuming. On completion it was clear that there was evidence of Barthes semic code ideas for example in our music video it would be the positioning of the star image and the big colourful coast we used and the media language used for example Mes On scene helps give us insight to the characters this is what the semic code is used for. These elements of media language represent and signify what the digipak is about, for example, the convention of the song titles in a sans serif font conveys the genre.
The way the st
ars are positioned we found a very relaxed pose which goes with the indie pop design we had in mind. We also wanted to make sure our stars were being portrayed as calm and at ease so they seem comfortable in the spotlight. This would be a star’s meta-narrative. For example, if we used an image where the stars were very close to the camera this may come across as intimidating and make the audience feel uncomfortable. The star and genre in our digipak were represented by the pastel tones used. This was to show the personality and playfulness of the indie pop genre. Also, the texts are playful but also have elements of simplicity to the project. The audience could’ve easily rejected the text but our aim was to make it the same but also add our own elements to make them unique while also having the same amount of audience engagement.
We have decided from critical reflections and feedback we had received that at the beginning we were using unconventional serif fancy fonts that didn’t go with the genre or theme of our digipak. We also were using too many fonts so it lo
oked very miss matched with the stars on the front. Therefore we changed the fonts to sans serif which are contemporary and playful fonts as shown to make the digipak more exciting and less intimidating for the audience to look at. This will help them want to buy our digipak.
While creating our social media page we wanted as much engagement as possible from our audience. We used our media knowledge of our target audience and only audiences not only being consumers but are now prosumers. Prosumers is what Gauntlett suggests about the audience and how the boundary between the audience and producers is now more blurred. (Shirky) Also how they are engaging more with the media we produce whenever. Producers now expect audience engagement in everything they produce.
For example, on our social media page, we put up a Doing our Q&A to engage with the audience fits into Blumler and Katz’s ideas about social interaction being essential in order to gain the maximum amount of audience engagement. Dryer argues that all-star images have their own connotations and their individual selling point. Whether this is style, branding or marketing strategies that separate them from every other product to do with the genre or artists similar to them, Dyer argued that as an audience we strive to complete the star image by consuming their products, shows, merchandise etc.
For example, in our digipak, we used colourful coats this helped us have our own unique selling point of having an array of colours on the front of the digipak. This is unique as other indie pop albums only have a couple of colours that are conventional for the themes involved in their album.
We used the media language of social media for example the fonts and the tone of voice we used in our post introductions in hope of maximising the audience engagement by providing them with the information they would want to be hearing and by giving our stars a personal identity that is relatable to them. We then used this Q&A on our Instagram story to come up with questions for our Radio 1 interview which we staged and produced ourselves. Another way we made sure to get our audience engagement up on our social media page was by having an interactive questionnaire poll that meant that the viewers/ audience could choose between 2 items. For example, we used it for our merch to ask our target audience and followers which colour t-shirt/hoodie they like better. This makes the audience feel connected to the star as they were asked their opinion on a product the artist is going to release.
The semic and narrative codes of the thoughtful positioning in the digipak as well as the cultural codes of the wildlife in the music video contrast well to the genre with it having a sense of nature which is heavily indie-based but also having the traditional band of 4-5 in our bran which is more down the route of our music video. The cultural code of the setting is all examples that would term the narrative code. (Barthes) Our audience is able to decode the idea of our brand and why we have visualised the band in this way. We know already from previous reflections that the majority agree our conventions are clear to the correct genre. We promoted our products on both our social media pages in multiple ways for example; BBC Radio 1 (Bathes) interviews, posters, websites, merchandise, stories and Q&As about the tours and products coming up.
For example, in our digipak, we used colourful coats this helped us have our own unique selling point of having an array of colours on the front of the digipak. This is unique as other indie pop albums only have a couple of colours that are conventional for the themes involved in their album.