Saturday 17 December 2011

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?

We create a synergystic campaign between our two ancillary products with the same american highway and red, white and blue themes cropping up all over our website and album cover. This creates a strong band identity and also allows our target audience to recognise our bands image in future.



We linked our music video to our album cover and our website by using the costumes the band members were dressed up in and featuring them on the inner cover of the album and within the gallery on the website.


We decided to create a sense of enigma about the band by covering up two of the members faces and by 'cartoonising' them on the front, and back, of the album. This served to encourage the purchasing of the album and also sparked interest with our audience which caused many to visit our website to find out more about the band. This theme of mystery within our main text and ancillary products was well received by our target audience as they claimed it 'made us (them) want to know more about the band'.

The website, album and music video all support each other. The music video is constantly referenced on the website with links to YouTube, The Live Music Video Premiere and even iTunes where fans can even purchase the video. As well as this the album cover also contributes greatly to the website, it features all the institutional details and even lists the website and the record labels website.
Our record label Sync Or Swim features throughout our products, this gives us a solid brand image and maintains a synergistic relationship with the production country, as not only do they support our band but our product supports them.



We maintain the band image throughout all three products promoting a care-free and silly band image, featuring pictures on the website of the band members pulling faces to the camera, wrestling and dancing. This is also supported by our album cover and video, the inner cover of the album features stupid faces and the video concept is just so whacky and ridiculous it connotes a cheeky and mischievous image.


Our merchandise, shown on the website, aids our band identity as it features the band name clearly on all items and also shows characters from the music video on the t-shirt. This nicely combines advertisement with band identity.


In answer to the question, I believe that the three products interlink particularly well. The website acts as a hub for the other two products and promotes and encourages the audience to explore and take interest in the content our band provides. The use of the website to encourage the purchasing of other products is a clear example of the effectiveness of the combination of our products.

The prominent American theme gives our band a strong and memorable image, the band members are always portrayed in a similar way appearing cheeky and fun in every product.
If I were to do the project again I believe I would have taken into account the link between the video and the album cover as their is not a whole lot of synergy between the two, aside from the costumes on the inner cover, however I do not deem this to be too strong a problem as the band is featured in a similar way to in the video and the album cover serves to strengthen this image even more.

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