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

1. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE
COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN
PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY
TEXTS?

2. • The ancillary texts, similarly to the main product reflected both style and
personality of the band as well as the main themes of the song. I used
images from the narrative section of the piece, using mostly images from
the Brighton cliffs to create a strong association between the music video,
which would be used as a marketing tool and the digipak which would be
the final product that the consumer would buy.

3. • I also used images with mostly blue and white colours to keep with the
broad colour scheme of the music video and featured the main character on
the inside cover. In terms of photo editing I used Adobe photoshop to make
the photos fit more with this colour scheme such as the photo below. I
achieved this using the hue/saturation tools as well as brightness and
contrast to achieve the colour I wanted. I also added a lens flare to the
inside cover to make it more interesting and aesthetically pleasing, again
using photoshop to achieve this with the render subsection of the filter tool,
meaning it was not simply a display of the lyrics but also an interesting
image in its own right.

4. • My research into music videos helped me a lot in understanding the connections between
album covers and music videos. Particularly the video for Bloc party’s octopus influenced me
as I noticed how the four colours (blue, red, green and yellow) featured on the album cover
were repeated throughout the song to encourage a subconscious association in the viewer and
making the album cover more recognisable. The front cover of my digipak is featured in the
music video at a key moment (just before the main character scatters the ashes) and therefore
anyone who had seen the music video would recognise the album cover when they saw it. The
inside cover is also a shot which is prominent in the music video, it is repeated several times
throughout the video. At first with the line “took a drive to the edge and stopped” to give a
sense of foreshadowing and to further enhance the adherence of the music video to the lyrical
content of the song. Later in the video the same shot is featured again (at the same point as
the shot from the front cover) giving the video a sense of circular narrative whilst also
enhancing the connection between the video and the digipak.

5. • In terms of the magazine advertisement I wanted to reflect the band more than the narrative section of the
music video and so I used a photo from a live performance of the band to market them as a live band as well
as informing the viewer of the single release. I looked at some existing magazine advertisements and found
that while digipaks did not always feature the artist on the cover, magazine advertisements almost
exclusively featured the artist and so I chose to reflect this in my advertisement. I think the band is quite
recognisable and so those who had seen the music video would likely recognise the band from the large
amount of performance featured in the music video. I also included magazine reviews at the bottom of the
advertisement, not only to make the band look more professional but also to stick to the clear-cut
conventions of a magazine advertisement which audiences are used to. This I achieved with a combination
of photoshop and Microsoft publisher, Photoshop I used to edit out the white background of the magazine,
Spotify and apple music logos and publisher I used to put these images together. I used the same font on the
Digipak and the Magazine advertisement again to strengthen the connection between the two products.

6. • I made the band name release date and album name as
large as possible to make the key information clear and
memorable. I did this on the album cover too and so
there was a level of consistency between the two
ancillary products. However, it is true that the
magazine advertisement does not have much relation to
the music video and so this is something I would change
given the chance to do this project again. I would maybe
include a small picture of the album cover as this relates
to the music video too and would connect all three
products very nicely.
• One thing I like about how different the magazine
advert is from the other products is the lighting which I
think reflects a live atmosphere very well and is
therefore a good marketing tool for the band as a live
band. The smoke in the middle of the photo is, I think,
very effective and works well with the general black and
white colour scheme of the advertisement as well as the
white text in the upper centre of the advertisement.

7. TO CONCLUDE..
I believe that there is a definite level of consistency between the three products
and that this makes the combination of them very effective. Possibly the weakest
product is the magazine advert, I do not think this product is weak on its own but
in terms of its combination with the two other products and how recognisable it is
from the other products I think it is the weakest of the three. However, I think it
still works as a magazine advert and does have a level of congruency with the
other products therefore I think my three products work well together.
Throughout the production of the three products I was thinking about how to link
them in terms of how they could be used together for marketing the single
release and I believe I was successful in this.
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