Creative critical reflection

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

Branding is definded as the promotion of a product by means of advertising, this should be recognisable and easily accessible to the audience. These products have to closely link to the mission statement which will include a key description of the nature of our stars and their values and beliefs. The products work together to represent the artists as edy or rebellious  throughout their different appearances. De saussure says this is the use of denotations which evoke relevant connotations. (signifier and signified) This helps the audience feel included and encourages preferred reading. A lot of these features used to create the overal branding can be seen in the SMP where posts are made about the artists.

For example the star image my audience would be looking for is the different, edgy and playful persona of our artists. This is suggested by our products, for example on the digipak where the singer is made fun of for being hit by a car.

Our stars aim to recreate what is acceptable in the norms of indie rock, as suggested in the mission statement they aim to represent the “little guy” this is proven in the music video as one of the members has a dress on which challenges social norms resident in the culture of our genre idie rock.

Lastly the SMP communicated the mission statement through posting personal posts that convey a less serious approach to music compared to other artists in the genre who would have a generally serious persona. This also highlights the paradox of the artist being ordinary and extraordinary. 

The social media pages main aim is to market the stars and thier music by using engaging advertising and making the audience interactive prosumers. This relates to Shirkies theory of the nature of audiences.It is crucial to note the importance of the audience’s involvement becuase if there were not, the success of their brand would be much less.

Some of the ways the SMP can involve the audience of Mark and the Sweeps is that they can like, share and comment which is a great tool for marketing as word of mouth is the stongest form of advertisement. This relates to B+Ks theory as it gives the audience social interaction, identity, entertainment and information.

One example of our Smp allowing the audience to engage is that the audience can chat to eachother and the star through text messages on instagram which is a solid example of what B+K would say is an element essential for engaging the audience. This is good as it allows for word of mouth marketing and the stars to collect feedback and interact with the audience to gain a fuller understanding of the audience’s wants. They will also be able to gain information which can consist of event dates and such.  Also note it is important for the page to have relevant information and entertainment so they can keep up with the bands trends and music and feel fulfilled as a member of the audience. For example tour dates, personal posts, teasers and sponsored posts.

Another example is that the audience can interact by buying merchandise from a link on the SMP. This is a good example as it makes the audience feel included within the fanbase and be associated with the band. All the posts in the Smp are produced in order to get the most clicks and audience engagement as possible from the target audience.

Representing the star in a way so that they can be as authentic and relatable as possible all while creating a successful and engaging package. We have achieved our mission statement in the digipak because we have included a show of our views which conveys a modest, honest but playful feel throughout the digipak. 

A brief of our mission statement:

Our stars views on society are taken and expressed through thier music

They have a dystopian view so they choose to take a less serious but more honest approach to making music.

The artists create irony and mock the dystopian view and declare it lunacy due to the peace achieved in modern society.

They propell themselves to stardom and represent the “little guy”.

 

In relation to the band being genuine, Dyer suggested the paradox of being present and non present. This is represennted by the photo of the singer being run over as it is playful and down to earth unlike the other photos which represent the artists as stars. You could sau he has a sort of redemption within the digipak as he is run over but is still a star at the last page of the digipak.

Another point to make would be that our mission statement suggests that our band has a dystopian view on the world and that is why they do not take everything seriously. As shown in the first photo I have provided as a screen shot. This can be shown as by de saussures theroy as the seriousness of the last photo of the digipak suggests a casual  image, while the other images of the car sugguest the lack of care and playulness. The casual image borrows from gangster films to get the cool outlaw look, for example Tarintinos Resvoir Dogs.

Illustrated in the car scene, our band has rejected generic conventions in the fact that they have strayed away from the smart casual serious approach done by most bands and created a different approach of messing around a bit and taking it in a joking way. The car can be seen as an action code as it suggests something else will happen to follow up, in this case the singer being hit by the car. 

I have done extensive study on the genre of indie rock  and have found that some of the formal conventions of these videos include a narrative, a performance, 3 minutes long video, an issue in narrative, lip syncing and many others. Ive also looked into the generic conventions of our genre and found that the costume of dark casual dress wear including blazers and jeans is prominent while other conventions such as the setting, camera, actions and performance. I have found that most music videos in the genre use these such as The Kooks- she moves in her own way, which includes heavy use of the costumes and the serious dark casual approach. These are what Lacey would call the repertoire of elements that the audience would be expected to see, while Altman would argue that it is a blueprint for a successful and conventionally recognisable indie rock music video. 

We chose to have clothes similar to other music videos within the genre, which is somewhat formal, jeans, balzers, shirts and all have a darker coloured outfit type. The impact of this convention being included in our video is that it will be more conventionally recognisable. (altman similar)

We also have one character that goes against generic conventions in that he is a man in a dress, this would not be conventional and we have not seen this happen in any videos we have watched. We have challenged the conventions in the fact that we have spotted nothing wrong with doing this. What this does is provide our vidoe is has used altmans theory in that the video should be similar but different, meaning it uses most of the generic and formal conventions however it is aldo different in that it challenges the norms and includes something that may not be so conventional. Another point to make is that perhaps this is the indie rock genre catching up with current issues and letting more moden day acceptances in.