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

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

2. THE MAIN CONCEPT IN MY MUSIC
VIDEOThe main concept behind my products, and the concept that I used to link all 3 of my products
together, is the idea of love/friendship and happiness. This is encompassed by my using young/
teenage actors and models in my products, because this theme is usually associated with a young
and carefree culture. In all my products I have shown this by incorporating a relationship between
two young people; in my video one of the couples (‘Jade and Alexander) in the song are presented
right the way through and are then carried through into my other products. My influence for
involving a couple in my products came from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s influential photo-
shoot, which has been recreated in modern music videos such an Jhene Aiko’s ‘bed peace’. I
decided to employ this concept into my own work because I think themes of love, peace and
happiness can be connoted through use of a strong couple. Another influence for my use of a
couple in my products came from films like ‘Juno’ and ‘500 Days of Summer’ which feature a
simple and wholesome love between a young couple – these films incorporate music from the
folk/indie genre such as ‘The Moldy Peaches’, ‘Kimya Dawson’ ‘Cat Power’ and ‘Regina Spektor’.
These movies influenced me because I wanted to also show love between a young couple in a
more innocence/ wholesome way as opposed to how young relationships are presented in urban
music. I believe this perfectly compliments the messages behind the song I have used which
features lyrics such as ‘Home is wherever I’m with you’, ‘in the streets we run Afree’ and ‘not the
way I do love you’. It also compliments the genre as a whole. My carrying this theme of a couple
through all of my products I think creates a campaign that can be recognised easily, as It is a very
simple concept but carries profound messages. Whilst displaying a heterosexual couple (Jade and
Alexander) in my video, I also decided to show a homosexual couple as well (myself and Tess). In
my video this couple are also performing the song and then the narrative shows one girl
proposing to the other – I was influenced to incorporate a homosexual couple from the music
video ‘Latch’ by disclosure which follows a straight, lesbian and gay couple. But mainly, because a

4. THE MAIN CONCEPT IN MY POSTER
I carried through this theme into my poster my using my main couple
from the video (Jade and Alexander) as models on my poster. I think
this carries through the themes that I have displayed in my video and
allows people to recognise this easily through the simple design of
my poster. I was influenced my the posters for the movies that I
previously mentioned like Juno, which display the couple together on
the poster. The bottom of my poster contains thumbnails to social
media sites which my target audience (audience 2.0) would
immediately recognise – sound cloud, Facebook and twitter. They
would then be able to search my band on these sites and follow them
through there, using their smartphones, thus saturating the social
media market with my bands campaign. I tried to keep with the
conventions of posters from the folk genre which include lots of
intricate illustrations. However I could not successfully do this so
instead I just added a photograph and then added the small images
of butterflies etc. around it in order to try and keep with this
convention. I have also tried to use these butterflies etc. as
symbolism for the themes of love and happiness which are evident in
my music video, they carry through into my products and represent
key themes. In the image on my poster the couple are smiling/
laughing sitting on the bed with the guitar in the same position as
they are in the video – this allows immediately for my audience to
recognise them as part of one campaign. This also encompasses the
mood of the entire song and allows the audience to relate the lyrics
to the picture. I also decided to incorporate these images of
butterflies, flower and a bird in order to draw a similarity to the rural

5. THE MAIN CONCEPT IN MY DIGIPAKSimilarly to the poster, I carried on the themes derived from my music
video. I made this evident by colour picking from Photoshop exactly
the same shade of yellow used In my poster and applying It to the
background of my Digipak. I used the same characters and props used
in the image in my poster except different poses in order to show a
range of emotions from my models. I incorporated these images in the
style of polaroid pictures, this is because originally I had the theme of
memories running through my video, and this is evident in the fact
that the girls performing are also featured in the narrative of my video
as a kind of flashback – so I have encompassed this theme of memory
or nostalgia through the use of polaroid's. I have incorporated an
image of the guitar used so it shows how important the instruments
are in the genre of music which my video belongs to. I think by using
different photographs of my models I have shown a range of emotions
from them and this will mean the audience can relate the Digipak to
the video more and they will also be able to relate themselves to the
models. It also relates to their part of the video better because in the
video they show a range of emotions. This means there is a strong
connection between the Digipak and video. I have also decided to use
the same butterfly custom brush which I created in Photoshop and
used in my poster. I decided to place this in the corners in order to
create a more subtle look, and then I enlarged it and placed it over
some of the panels in order to create a shadow- like effect. I colour
picked the same brown shades as seen in my poster for this in order to
create a continuous colour pallet (I chose yellow because that is a
colour usually associated with happiness and also sunshine/ thus
relating back to my video.) throughout my products which is important
for maintain a professional look. This has helped me to link my
products together in such a way that they look almost the same, thus
improving the link between all my products. If my poster and Digipak
were professional I would add a code that my audience 2.0 would be
able to scan with their smartphones which take them to the bands
official website. It will also have a link which takes them to iTunes

6. CONCLUSION
Creating a link between different promotional materials is important because it brings said materials together
as a campaign and will make for an all round better marketing campaign and audience reception. I have
created products for a indie/folk band, therefore my products would be aimed at a relatively niche audience –
in comparison with the mass audience of pop or rock music. The old media ways of marketing (print products
– posters and magazine adverts) works well but it becomes expensive to distribute them. This is why I would
upload my video to YouTube and saturate the social media market with digital copies of my poster. In order
to distribute the print products I would need to create a 360 degree marketing strategy that saturates the
market. A band like Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeroes would be able to do this as their success is
international; the record label could make demands for the band to be featured in indie magazines such as
‘INDIE’ ‘NME’ or ‘SPIN’. This, as well as the social media campaigns on twitter Facebook and YouTube will
then saturate the market with push marketing and be readily accessible to my digital native audience every
time they go on their smart devices. My audience will be able to receive this and then make social interaction
with my band by showing excitement or giving feedback for their album. I think all of my products work
together very well and believe I was successful in creating a strong link between all of my products. My target
audience thought so too – as in my survey when I asked whether this link was successful or not – the majority
of them gave me 4/5 out of 5. This means my audience will be able to recognise and enjoy my products as a
campaign and therefore it will be more popular, grossing more profit. The Digipak and Adverts purpose is to
inform the audience, which I think mine does relatively well by providing information – the music video’s
purpose is to entertain and similarly I did this well by creating both a performance and narrative digesis in
which my viewer can get lost. I united these products together through the use of two important aspects;
characters and themes. I then created a very strong link between my ancillary products by using identical
colour palettes, which is a technique common in all professional campaigns. The Digipak is merchandise and
the other two products are above the line marketing. The concept of using one key signifier (the couple, ‘Jade
and Alexander’) was essential to the success of my products, as I have previously said, if my print products
were to be distributed, it allows the audience to associate my products together and also identify with these
key signifiers which would then increase popularity. The audiences ability to recognise a link between my
ancillary products would essentially encourage them to engage with it and without such a link I don’t think
my campaign would be very successful at all. However, my Digipak and poster have a symbiotic relationship