Category: Year 13 Coursework

Key Terms:  style, brand, inspiration, integrated advertising, genre, repertoire of elements, blueprint, audience, preferred reading. 

Task:

As a group, contribute to the overall moodboard for all the ideas, styles, fonts, images, colours that could and should be appropriate to your ‘package’.

• You should all contribute @ 10  images each so that the tablet moodboard has about 20 – 30 images in total.
• You can get inspiration from anywhere – could be a news photo or a TV advert – but as long as it serves as inspiration for your eventual digipak and social media page ‘look’.
• Use your music video as inspiration too but REMEMBER, the digipak is not an advert for the music video but an advert for the star/band/artist
  • The track for the MV is just one track on the album.
• Caption the images – what is it about them that is relevant?
  • What does it represent/connote/signify/portray in relation to the overall mission statement/brand.
• You will have to do some research about your genre of music – what are the core values, aims, background to the sounds?
• Think about your audience too
  • How do you want them to ‘read’ the image/design/ideology?
• Complete a post in the padlet with the common key descriptors that you have used – these key descriptors will inform your approach to the design of the Digipak, Social Media Page and launch of the Music Video.

Example

KEY TERMS: brand, integrated advertising, package, continuity, coherency, promotion, audience, USP, mission statement, call to action, reject the text, star image

Remember the brief?

“A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video (major task), together with a social media page for the band and a digipak for the album’s release (minor tasks).”

It is important to note from the beginning that you are not making a digipack and social media page to advertise your music video! You are launching a new album, which contains that song, but which also contains a number of other tracks.

So before you start planning the print and web elements of this promotional package. You need to be clear about the mission statement for the whole campaign. You must think more holistically about the album, the band (star image) and the brand and create an integrated advertising campaign…

Your Marketing Strategy & Mission Statement

• Complete a Google presentation to complete as A GROUP using slides to address the questions below:
  • Remember to lay it out well with bullet points – less is more sometimes.
  • Include the question at the top of each slide.

Who is your Audience?

• Who they are (demographics)
• What other media they consume and participate in.
  • Which other ‘communities’ do they belong to?
• What their values attitudes and beliefs (ideology / psychographics)? (see the sheet attached)

A Call to Action

• How do you want the audience to engage with your star / album?
  • Think Blumler & Katz (Uses and Gratification – entertainment, information, personal identity and social interaction).
• How will they be persuaded to invest time and money in your star / album?

Who are the competition?

• Name three similar bands / artists.
  • What are the trends in album designs of similar stars / bands?
  • What do their social media pages look like?

Your USP (Unique Selling Point)

• Is your star already established or are trying to establish a new presence in the market?
• What is your star image & how are you trying to innovate / develop that image?
  • Are you mixing up elements of different genres?
  • Are you trying to re-brand your star?
  • Are you emphasising the ordinary or extraordinary?
    • Remember according to Dyer, ‘meta-narratives’ include both .

Your Mission Statement.

• In 50 words or fewer write an agreed mission statement that includes the central idea that will unify your brand.
  • This will include ideas represented in your music video, but must also bring in a wider range of ideas that you will develop as you make a Moodboard.

TASK.

As a group, create a Google slide (example) that addresses the various aspects and complete brief notes in response to the questions.

Then, complete the mission statement in production groups and copy it into your blog.

This blog post is essential for when you come to complete Creative Critical Reflection  and have to address the following question:

‘HOW do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?’

TWO EXAMPLE MISSION STATEMENT:

One

“Sunnies puts the vibe into indie rock.  Influenced by the best of Poland’s underground punk scene and the top tenners of UK Brit Pop, the Sunnies aim to go ‘where no man has gone before’. Combining a musical landscape of hard rock rifs, abrasive punk lyrics and indiistic themes, the band will satisfy the hardest of new wave critics. The new album, DON’T RAIN ON MY WELLIES,  is destined for a Grammy – making it number 3 on their mantelpiece of success.”

Two

“Skye is this decade’s rising moon.  Mixing indie folk and Appalachian A Capella, Skye’s haunting acoustic tones and her quirky and experimental performance style, combines the best of festival fantasy, giving her fans a visual and auditory kaleidoscope.  The new album, SKYE HIGH, features the hit song, ‘SIGH NO MORE’ and will tease the socks off the best of British female artists including Kate Bush and Florence and the Machine.”