How effective is the combination

of your main product and

ancillary tasks?

When making the music video, album didgipack

and website we made sure that there were

significant high levels of constant branding and

synergy across all products in order to create an

effective campaign. Consistent branding was key

in order to create a strong identity for the band in

this particular project as making a debut album

and music video meant that the identity was

essential to come across to the audience as

substantial as possible.

A consistent colour scheme was used across all products, especially for the

website and album in order to create synergy. We kept a black, white and

blue colour scheme across every page of our Wix website. A black and white

theme was chosen as we thought that it was a classic colour scheme which

would get across the era of the band. An additional blue colour was added

in order to add the modern twist onto the band. This combined the music

video to the ancillary products because it links the black and white colour

pallet at the beginning of the music video into the transition of the colour

pallet, (blue). Furthermore, the colour scheme added to the genre and

conventions of the band by the black and white representing a rock band

and the blue representing a pop band, (however today the band would

have be consider to be rock/ indie). The colour scheme was important in

order to merge both the main product and ancillaries together in order for

the audience to establish the on-going theme.

Linking to Genre Theory: It is crucial that a certain image is portrayed through the debut music video

and album in order to create a formula that is successful in getting the

message across towards the audience. Chandler’s narrative theory would

suggest that due to the narrative created in the music video and ancillary

tasks that ‘pop’ is the typical genre and ‘rock’ being the subversion which

leads onto a further sub-genre of ‘indie’ which makes the combined

products produced a hybrid. However due to genres evolving over time

Altman would suggest that there is “no such things as genre anymore” due

to generic conventions being a thing of the past. I can understand where

Altman is coming from as when The Kinks were around ‘indie’ wasn’t a genre

which existed yet is does today which completely changes marketing

strategies. By combining the music video and ancillary tasks with the same

colour theme it creates a genre which is characterized by negotiation which

Ryall argues. Although genres are surviving due to hybridisation it’s important

to get that theme across to the audience in the debut music video, album

and website in order to gain the audience needed to be successful.

The Logo:

The Kinks logo was added to every page of the

website to ensure that our branding came across

very forcefully in order for the audience to recognise

the bands logo. In order to reinforce this, the logo

was used on every product created; website, album, merchandise etc as the logo is essentially the bands identity. Synergy was created by the font of the logo was standardised as in modern day society it is necessary in order for the audience to recognise any product made by the band. We decided on a font which looked very similar to The Beatles logo as we knew that it indicated iconography of the 1960’s. Another reason for this is that in the 1960’s bands would often take inspiration from one another and try and up one another by doing something similar but making it their own which is what we did with the font. The only aspect of the font that we did not keep standardised was the colour of the logo as on the website it was white and on the album it was black, reasons for this was that The Kinks in the 1960’s never kept the same logo and always changed it up. In order to create a similar context for the audience we decided to change the logo up a little in order to keep the audience on their feet for looking out for our products. As the music video had no element of the logo a combination was not created, but the two ancillary tasks did.

Album/ Digipack We edited the album photos on Photoshop in order to create a

combination of the main products and ancillaries. We added a

warm orange colour pallet to the photo in order to give it the exact

same mise-en-scene that is in the video. We decided on the warm

orange colour as filming was done on particular sunny days and to

set the context of 1960’s as film often had a warm orange tinge to it.

The clothes that we wore during the video was also the same outfit that we wore in the album photos, as we did an on-set photo-shoot after shooting the music video. We decided to do this as it would connote the exact image that we wanted to portray. The album cover portrayed the band as indie and slightly rocky which created genre conventions for the audience to recognise from the music video to the debut album. A direct relationship between the main product and ancillaries was created as the location used was a scene from the music video. The idea being the image was developed from a practice piece we did at the beginning of year A2 which we developed in order to fit the conventions of the band. The poses play on the narrative that was created which combines both the main product and ancillaries by the continuous storyline through our debut products.

In Relation to Representation Theory: In relations to Barthes negotiated meaning theory the message

conveyed through the music video and ancillary was very culturally based on the predetermined knowingness of the 1960’s in England. In order to reinforce the representation of the music video and the storyline behind it we emphasised Hall’s representation theory of the dominant/preferred reading that we wanted to portray. As the directors and producers of the products we wanted to portray the message that the music video was set in the 1960’s with a modern twist which is why genre characteristics are emphasised through the colour pallet and through the carry through of the narrative from the music video to the ancillary products (album).

This print screen from the music

video indicates an alley way which with

predominately with the brick work adds

to the mise-en-scene of the 1960’s.

The name of our debut album sums up our debut music video in

one. The definition of ‘Parody’ is “amusing imitation: a piece of

writing or music that deliberately copies another work in a comic or

satirical way.” For example, as we relied on knowing intertextuality

of the 1960’s we took inspiration from ‘The Beatles’ in the

instrumental scene but made it our own in order for the audience to

recognize the iconic scene. Also, as The Kinks had not made a

music video for this particular song we took what we thought of the

song and interpreted our own narrative to the lyrics. By doing this

the music video had a very playful nature for the purpose of the

audience finding the music video entertaining. ‘Parody’ seemed to

fit perfectly because we took an existing song and made a music

video that added comedy. ‘Parody’ was advertised on the website

secondly as the primary advertisement was the music video.

Our Logo The Beatles

One example of where we have an effective

combination of the main product and ancillaries is

through an editing effect used. Jump cuts re -

occur throughout the whole music video and in

order to recreate this on the website we have a

transition of the album front, back and insert cover

on the website which represents the jump cuts.

The images would transition

from the album front cover

to the insert images and

then to the back cover

which

in a way link to the jump

cuts in the video through

the advertisement of the

album.

As and overall package, all the products work well together, with

the ancillary texts referring to each other. For, example on the insert

cover there is a QR code which directly takes the audience to the

bands website by scanning through a mobile phone device which

encourages convergence within all products for easy accessibility.

Package interactivity is created as the album can take the

audience to the website and the website can take the audience to

buy the album and alternative products. The purpose the website is

that it acts as a hub with links to everything that we have made;

including the music video, the album, and general information on

the band.

Interactivity on the website was very high in order to combine

all the products together. The purpose of this was so the

audience could click through the website easily on their own,

watch our videos, purchase merchandise, and sign up. The

opportunity was there to purchase the song and get more

information on the band via social networking in order to

encourage convergence of all products. This shows that all

additional products that we created on the internet

successfully combine together by linking them all up easily

through convergence.