Brooke Patrick

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The digi-pak had a reasonable amount of connections to our main product, the key one being the colours found not only in the music video but in the disk part of the digi-pak. This connected the two products together as the bright contrasting colours of the music video are now incorporated within the digi-pak and meant that the audience will sub-consciously make a link to the digi-pak with the music video and vice versa. A rebellious feel is also prominent through the production of each media product as we go against the normal conventions of digi-paks and include images from the music video in the digi-pak, although we went against the conventions we made a stronger connection from the digi-pak to the music video. By doing and using these particular images the audience are more likely to make the connection between the two products increasing the recognition.

A link was made between the two ancillary texts due to us following the regular codes and conventions of album adverts. Usually album adverts have the same front as an album front cover which is the convention we followed. Not only does this set a house style across all our products creating a good connection between the products but it makes them easily recognisable with one another with them being so exact. This consistency is more likely to stay inside the audiences head which would increase sales due to heightening the popularity. Not only that but it also adds a more professional look to our media products by having a style in which we follow. This also shows points of entry to the album, the poster design is a form of synergy as it is promoting the album, this synergy creates more entry points for my product making it more well known.

The main link that can be seen throughout all three of our media products is the colour scheme. We went with a grey scale colour scheme as not only does it give of the sense of rebellion and darkness often associated with indie rock, it also gives the meaning of simplicity that indie rock bands like to use, this simplicity often amplifies this idea that the main aim is all about the raw music.

As you can seen not only are they’re consistent bursts of black and white through out the music video (main product), but the album advert only follows this colour scheme and the digi-pak is 90% black and white with the exception of the disk spaces (ancillary texts). This nicely links and hold together all three media images making them instantly identifiable to the audience.

We also made a connection through the music video’s lighting and the two ancillary products by Photoshopping a light beam onto the band logo. This light beam not only is consistent between the two ancillary logos but also links to the beams of lighting that were heavily used in our music video. Although this is a small connection, the lighting played a large part within the music video and links the products together further so.

Looking back onto the all three of the media products I feel like more planning could have gone into the album advert. This is due to the fact that it does not link as well to the music video as the digi-pak does. The album advert does not include any images of the band and only has one common item which is the band name, this means that there is a disconnection between the album advert and the main product.There is also a disconnection between the two ancillary products due to the inconsistency of the ‘download on iTunes’ logo. The logo was placed onto the album advert to increase sales and appeal to a younger audience, however I failed to include this logo onto the digi-pak design creating an inconstancy and a missed chance to further connect the two products.Overall I feel the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are very effective as they create links that will make the audience immediately associate each product together, they create nice connections which form a house style for the band that will be easily recognisable. Although there are a few weak connections with some of the products I feel I have achieved a strong combination of all three media products. My products are a good example of synergy which is the idea of two or more types of media to promote something creating a greater effect overall, by using the same house style and images etc. my audience can see clear links of promotion (synergy) which is likely to make my products more popular.