Having a house style or brand identity is so important, and not just when creating multiple media products. Having your adverts and products shown to the public repetitively, they will begin to associate iconic things you have included in your house style, with things that they will see on a day to day basis. For example, an iconic example of this is the Morrison’s advert. They have the song “Shine” by “Take That” playing in the background of almost all of their recent television adverts, so now, whenever I heard the song “Shine”, I immediately think of Morrison’s. Another positive of having a brand identity, is that the public tend to warm to things that they know about, think is good, or feel safe with. An obvious example of this is the brand “Heinz”. Even though in terms of quality there is hardly any difference between the majorities of other like products, people will still buy “Heinz”, the more expensive choice, as they believe that it is better, and they feel comfortable buying it. In terms of how having a house style or brand identity will benefit our multiple media products, is that people will begin to recognise the artist/ brand much quicker. If I had a music video, digipak and advert that were all about the same product, however they looked nothing alike, people may see them as separate items. It would take a period of time for people to begin to group the three together. If I had the same scenario, however the three products had the same house style, people will begin to immediately recognise the three as to be selling the same product. This enables people to feel comfortable, warm and safe much quicker with the product, just like I explained with “Heinz”.
The main technique we have used when attempting to create a successful brand identity is using similar images and locations through all three pieces of media. As the music video itself is the main and biggest product we have, we decided to base our brand identity around a location that we felt was really significant. This location was the river in Kingston. We felt these shots really stood out to us as to being really effective. Because of this, we have use a still image of Sam leaning against a lamp post in front of the river for the front cover of our digipak. We have tried to make this a really iconic image throughout our brand, so we made the image on the advert the same as the front cover of the digipak. The other images that we used in the digipak were also from the same location, even though it may not be as clear. The same colours and tones are still there however. The text style and colour we have used with both the digipak and advert are both the same too. We used quite a plain font style for both, and used the same colour, white. We believe this puts across quite a modern, slick, stylish effect, which is the image we are trying to portray to our target audience. You can see both our digipak and advert above and to the left.
I believe that our digipak will be successful in selling our album to our target audience, as it has close ups of the type of people who they will be able to relate to. These people are the younger generation, who are socially orientated. If the audience finds themselves attracted to any of the people on the digipak, they will feel more obliged to buy the album, especially if there are close up images of the people they are attracted to. The target audience are also the type of people who enjoy alcohol, and regularly drink it. Because of this, we have created the third side of the digipak quite distorted with the quote “I reckon you’re about an 8 or a 9… maybe even 9 and a half in four beers time…” This indicates to the target audience that the content of the CD will have a relationship with alcohol, and a strong one at that, otherwise it wouldn’t be on the digipak. Finally, the other tracks that are listed on the back of the digipak have a close relationship and appeal with the target audience. Titles such as “Tales of a Kebab House” are not only funny, but the target audience can relate to the name. Same thing applies with names such as “At Her Place”.
Our advert sells our product to our target audience well as right at the top it says, “Including the music video for the NME award-winning single “How to make a grand””. This does two things. It firstly lets the audience know that the artist is good and successful as they have won an award from an established music company, and also gives clues as to what the rest of the album is like, as the title of the song featuring in the quote is “How to make a grand”. This indicated the genre of music to the audience, and shows that the content of the album has relationships and connotations with the target audience. The font of the main title looks quite like graffiti, and this again shows what genre of music the advert is advertising, which will appeal to the target audience. The way the artist is standing in the photo also has connotations with the target audience. It is a typical way for young “lads” to stand, and that is exactly who the audience is. They therefore may either relate to this, or find it amusing. Either way, they have noticed it and have become attracted to it.
The elements of my advert and digipak that communicates the genre of the music video and the style of the band are as follows. For starters, the close up shots of both characters within the pictures that are on my advert and digipak indicate that the music is aimed at the younger generation. The style of their dress indicates that the music genre is quite urban because of the jeans, jacket and branded shoes. The quote on the digipak obviously shows that the album includes references to alcohol. One of the main genres of music that have correlations with alcohol is urban music. Something I haven’t talked about yet, but is a huge genre signifier, is the actual name of the band, “Class A Heroes”. Whilst “class A” could be a reference to intelligent people, within the context of urban music, it is clear that it is a reference to Class A drugs. Whilst not always the case obviously, urban music is well known to talk about drugs in the lyrics. Finally, the choice of fonts for both the digipak and advert when writing, “Class A Heroes”, both look like graffiti. This is probably one of the biggest genre signifiers, as you will have trouble finding something that has a bigger relationship with urban music that graffiti.
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