Evaluation Task 2:
We used the CD digipak and website as a promotional tool to promote the single ‘Ignite Me’. All these elements have come together to create a promotional campaign. A key marketing strategy the music industry uses is star image, it is rarely all about the music. Keith Negus argues that the pop music video is used as a promotional tool, we agree with this because for us, creating Honor’s star image makes her more popular through strategies like social media.
CD digipaks are one of the most important promotional tools because it markets the image of the artist before the music is purchased online or in-store. They are carefully constructed with conventions to communicate certain messages about the artist, with Honor’s, we have a double exposure, glitchy portrait picture of her on the front of the album cover, suggesting that she does not want people to judge her on her image but on her music, being mysterious to the audiences.
Websites have the basis of promotion and information which is given to the audience. It serves 3 purposes: promotion of the single or the album release; promotion of tour or live appearance and merchandising like sales of posters and T-shirts. It contains information that promotes and publicise the artist's image to an audience. We include social media like Twitter, Instagram and the link to the single on every page on the website in order to let the audience co-opt with the artist.
How important is the image of the artist? According to Dyer, the visual star image communicates an individual message to each audience member. Audiences associate the look of the artist to the style of music they are listening to, called a genre. Marketing of a pop star has become iconic and famous and this has helped maintain the popularity of current favoured artists.
As part of a campaign, we have created a brand image for Honor by looking at current conventions of the genre of music we have chosen. Her look is very plain at first, but once put with an attitude and a song she fits in with it. We have attempted to represent an organic artist by having the look of minimal makeup, being open about her sexuality and in essence being only herself. All the pictures throughout the campaign are consistent because they all have a blue, pink and purple vibe to them.
We represented a girl with an attitude trying to sell her music to her favoured audience. We have achieved this through her attitude towards the camera in the music video and in the digipak. Her unique selling point is her sexuality because she can be identified with and the way that audience members that haven’t come out will feel more confident if they know their role model has.
Philip Kotler defined the marketing of a campaign as: “Human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes”. For Kotler, the key to success is marketing. We agree with this. Although, It includes 4 variables: Price: how much it will cost/consumers will pay for; Place: how is the product distributed and marketed to the target audience; Product: what is being branded; Promotion: how it is advertised where and publicised.
The single is going to be released at the same time when the music video comes out, and we are going to publicise the artist through the website, hyping fans up about when her album ‘Venus’ was going to come out at around September time. It would be released by the record company called ‘Island Records’ and subsidiary of the conglomerate Universal Music Group. The music advert would be placed on some billboards in cities, snippets of the music video on her social media. She is going to have secret sessions with bloggers and journalists which get to hear her music first and they can write on the internet about it to hype up the release of the album. The music video will be released on Youtube and iTunes. The debut of the album will be on a popular radio station like Radio 1 at prime time, around 9am. Radio 1 has a commitment to lifting new artists and most teens will be listening around that time on the way to work/school. The digipak will be available to buy physically in stores like HMV and digitally on iTunes. The album would be advertised on TV on the channel MTV on a channel which promotes new artists.
The intended audiences we are targeting are old teens and young adults who are laid back and resonate in the fact that she is herself and doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her. The VALS we expect our target audience to have are experiencers - young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious people. They seek variety and excitement, looking for risk. We also look of innovators, people who wish to make their mark, and rebels who wish to remake the world in their own image.
The campaign itself is effective in showing the star image because on the website, it is a full-screen picture of Honor looking calm but powerfully into the camera; on the digipak she is double exposed, suggesting she is mysterious and you must find out more about her through her songs; and the music video, where her attitude is relaxed and passionate.
