Evaluation Question 2

2. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

Our main product was our music video itself, but we also constructed an album cover for our artists debut album, along with a website promoting the new band.

Whilst designing our video, album cover and website, we made sure there were high levels of synergy and consistency in regards to our branding. This had to be maintained across all platforms, as is extremely important for a debut artist to build a strong identity as they are selling themselves to the industry.

A constant colour scheme is used throughout our products; mostly black, with some cold blues and white used in contrast. Our Wix website is all black, with white text and blue highlights. Our album cover is all black, with blue smoke; a graphic which is also used on our website. We also colour graded the video using Colour (a piece of software on the Macintosh), to give the narrative sections a cold, blueish tint to them, and to make the performance sections seem dark and moody. 

An example of our colour scheme on our website

The first decision we made was to anchor our band to a symbol; something simple and instantly recognisable. Being a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, i was aware of how a symbol can stick firmly in your memory, and we wanted to use it across all platforms as a motif for ourselves. The decision to make a symbol was made before we had even picked our band name!

The Red Hot Chili Peppers Symbol

Our Logo, used throughout our products

The symbol was then used on the front of our album cover, and we spray painted it on to our backdrop for the performance in our video.

The logo in our video:

The Logo on our website

We designed the products with very consistent branding throughout. The website is the hub of our marketing campaign; it offers the greatest deal of contact and interactivity with the band and as such is crucial to launching an artist.

The aim is to make accessibility as easy and integrated as possible, the end goal being for the consumer to purchase our track and / or video.

You can see on our website here how we have integrated our products together. The menu buttons and all content above them stay in place permanently; so the consumer always has the option to purchase the debut album, by clicking on the link and being redirected to the iTunes store.

The band logo is also always visible, as well as the triangular symbol in the top right; both of which make up our album cover. On the main page of the website you can look at the album cover too; the insides and back as well. The website is simply a tool to help consumers invest in a band through interactivity, and we decided a permanent link to purchase the album was necessary. 

As you enter the website, our track plays automatically, and there is a tab which lets you view the finished video. There is also a link to YouTube in the bottom right of the page which takes you to our video. We also wore the same costume for our promotional shoot as we did for the video; some cross platform marketing, this would become the image and dress style of our band.

The same costumes again used in our album cover

The website generally offers a level of interactivity which would hopefully increase audience engagement and interest with the band. You can check tour dates, get updated with the latest news about the band, view through a load of pictures in the gallery, and read biographies for each member. We also made a Facebook and Twitter page for our band; as our target audience is young men, and over 90% of 16-24 olds use social networking sites, we wanted to broaden our reach and appeal to suit their needs, integrating it all together through the website.

There is also a page to leave comments for the band, you can sign up to our mailing list to receive updates, and there is a competition which involves 'The Storm' playing a secret gig at an undisclosed location; tickets are free and only released for about an hour.

We created a shop with an array of merchandise available for the consumer on the website. This works well for the brand as the T-shirts and hoodies feature our logo, and it allows fans to own an exclusive piece of clothing available nowhere else. You can also purchase guitar picks and a customised guitar; tying in with our quite musical fanbase.

Finally, we decided to create a symbiotic relationship with another groups band: INFLUX. We created a poster advertising a one night only collaboration event between the two, and put a link to their website on ours, and vice versa. This type of relationship is mutually beneficial and would be commercially viable as the genres are not too dissimilar from one another.