2. Digipaks and Adverts
The purpose of both marketing products is to promote the artist adnt eh
album as well as sell Dyer’s concept of the star persona, constructing a
particular representation of the artist, cementing a firm brand identity.
Given the age of my genre and examined artists, when it comes to advertising
and digipak, there is a limited pool of resources to pull from. However, in
my research, I did discover some common factors that were frequently
apparent and adopted them for my own products to give them an assured
authenticity and industry standard professionalism.
For the most part, the construction of my ancillary products was a fulfilment
of the base conventions of these products, adhering close to my research
examples while drawing specific connections between my video and these
advertising materials though I feel that the actual visual aesthetic of the
imagery, specifically in what influenced it, is an interesting break from the
norm.
3. Conventions -
Firstly, there is a constant emphasis on star persona and the overall presentation of the artist,
themselves being the prime point of interface with an audience, either attracting or cultivating a
fan base who aspire to be like the artist or have some means of relating to them. Images are
mostly, if not totally, focused on them or some important iconographic element of their
iconography, to continually reinforce their star image and communicate their overall aesthetic to
an audience succinctly. In my case, there is the added element
of emphasising the artist’s legacy, drawing on widely known
connotations that connects to people’s nostalgia, affection or
relation to the artist over a storied career.
In this Elvis digipak, you
can clearly see the repeated
use of close up/medium
shots of Elvis, playing on
his iconic appearance as
well as featuring him in a
classic Elvis costume.
4. This repetition of imagery is something I keenly adopted and is
readily apparent in my own products – The magazine advert is
entirely based around a medium shot of my artist and he
features prominently in the majority of the digipak images. This
continually reinforces his star persona since his costume and
featured props are highly reminiscent of the Sinatra/Bobby
Darin image I wished to play upon. This star image is key to
attracting my audience and I positioned Cinnamon Hague
similarly as having a career behind, using an implied legacy to
frame the whole persona.
5. Conventions (cont’d) –
Vital album information such as the title, release date, where the digipak can be
purchased and critical acclaim have all been featured on my advert.
These features were taken
from non-genre-specific
examples such as the one
above, to provide a basic
template for my own
product but also due to the
fact that magazine adverts
for digipaks for my chosen
genre are rather hard to
come across given the
format didn’t exist in the
genre’s heyday
This is all basic contextual information that serves to promote
the artist and album by informing the audience of all the
necessary information they need to purchase the product,
allowing them to form a connection to the artist should their
interest be peaked while also playing upon existing fans by
prioritising the artist himself who is the major draw.
6. Conventions (cont’d) –
Additionally, I have included the appropriate institutional
information (Record label) and external media links
such as the artist’s website as well as iTunes and Amazon
connections which allows the audience greater access to
the album and its content as well as enabling them to
follow the artist online.
Once again, these are basic conventions that nonetheless
were crucial in selling the product and my artist, feeding
the audience the most information possible to maximise
the product’s exposure.
Elements specific to the digipak release such as a barcode,
track listing and further small print were also included.
The track list, aside from being a typical tenant of album
design, also allowed me to play into the concept of legacy
since it assumed a familiarity with the listed tracks,
acting as if they were hits that fans could easily
recognise.
7. Links to Music Video –
Another common element of this type of promotion is a sense of synergy which
demands a level of intertextuality between the marketing and the actual product, in
order to maintain a consistent brand image across the whole campaign.
In my case, there are a number of ways in which the digipak and advert relate to the
music video, increasing their connection and therefore, the audience’s awareness of
both.
The links between them are largely visual. The costuming and locations in both the
images and the video are identical -
- Which draws a distinct parallel between the two products, making their relationship all
the more apparent and generating an effective synergy between them.
8. Aesthetics –
The aesthetics of the promotional products
are the main areas where my products
embrace their own sense of identity that
is distinctly more in line with the
presentation of the artists I emulated as
opposed to a more modern sensibility.
In accordance with the examples I
researched, I found simplicity was the
best means of creating an assumed
legacy for my artist. For instance, in this
Sinatra digipak advert, there is a lack of
promotion for specific tracks or singles
since it assumes the target demographic
is already familiar with his discography,
whereas modern advertising is keen to
promote a single as a pre-ordained ‘hit’.
This is apparent on my own product
wherein I refrained from this type of
promotion in favour of this simpler style
as well as in my aforementioned
continual focus on the artist using close
ups and medium shots (also evident in
the Sinatra digipak).
9. Aesthetics (cont’d) –
The monochrome imagery across both promotional
products serves to connect them as well as linking to
the use of monochrome in the music video but the
choice of appearance goes deeper than that simple
purpose.
The imagery was inspired by the photography of Terry
O’Neill (see right) and their use of the style whose
chiaroscuro effect, I felt, really captured these
legendary artists with a sense of history and were also
extremely evocative of a certain time and place,
connecting to a sense of nostalgia for the connotations
both of those elements convey. I felt that this style
was perfect to immerse my artist in his own assumed
career, further selling him as a legacy character by
aging the images appropriately.
Though my choice of shots certainly emphasised my
artist, using this style in tandem with my
compositions, I felt I was able to create that sense of a
revered, iconic figure, emboldened by the fact that the
use of aging techniques such as monochrome and
sepia are used in real-world examples such as that
previously referenced Sinatra digipak.
With the heavy use of shadows, he appears frozen in time
and somewhat eternal, not only cementing his legacy
but also linking to a conceit within the video that the
central character is rooted within a time and place in
the past while the world around him has modernised.
The adoption of this aesthetic was a very successful
means of not only capturing a unique style for my
products but also gaining a sense of thematic
consistency from video to advertising.
10. Personalisation –
One final component of a digipak release that commonly features is a message from the
artist to the fans, providing additional incentive for them to purchase this special
edition by appealing to their identification or aspiration with the artist.
Taken from Drake’s
Take Care album
When it came to my own digipak design, I felt that such a message would dilute the
overall artist persona I was constructing since the type of artists I am emulating had
a sense of mystique that engendered a sense of aspiration from the audience to be
like them. Having such an open message to the fans reduced the distance that fosters
this mystique.
11. Personalisation (cont’d) –
In order to achieve the appropriate effect, generating some degree of connection
between fans and artists that would speak to an artist with a history while retaining a
suitably unreachable, iconic figure, I decided to deviate from the standard,
conventional approach. Instead of featuring a direct message, I decided to overlay
quotes from my artist onto the panel images.
The quotes were created (or selected) to be emblematic of Cinnamon Hague’s persona,
his outlook on life, the overall tone of his character and his music and their
combination with the images proved to be quite evocative. I think that this approach
was effective in giving my audience a personal insight into the artist, allowing them
to relate to him while not removing the sense of romance and allure that surrounded
him, cementing his persona while not pulling the curtain down completely.
12. Conclusion
Overall, I feel that my use of conventions found in my research in these products is
successful in communicating with my demographic and conveying a star persona as
well as adhering to the necessary standards of the industry, promoting the album and
artist effectively.
The deviations from the norm are few yet purposeful and unique to the type of artist I
wished to portray. My success in this field was evident in the feedback on my final
advert piece.
