Advert

Adverts are used to attract the target audience to a new product. It is part of the promotional pack used to raise the artists profile and increase sales of the new product. The advert will have to be similar style to the digipak and the video. For example they will all share a similar mise en scene (costume/location etc).

Here are examples of two adverts from the pop/electropop genre:

The first is Ladyhawke, who is electropop. This advert is particularly small.

The advert contains the artists name/logo which will instantly draw fans of the artist already to the advert. It also contains the name of the single they are advertising and says "out now". There is a brief description of what is in the product. It then advertises the album and says "out now" and then lists some of the tour dates for the artist. It also shows a link to the website of the artist.

The colours used in this advert and pretty basic and sticks to greys, beige and white.

Overall, I think this advert is very simplistic. I think it is mainly targeting people that are already fans of the artist as it doesn't instantly stand out as something appealing. I don't think that smaller adverts are very effective.

The second is Katy Perry, who is pop. This advert is A5 sized.

The main focus of this advert is the big picture of the artist, Katy Perry. There is a strong theme that is evident throughout this promotional pack. For example, there is an image of the album they are advertising and the picture in the advert is very similar to that on the album cover and predictably there will be video to match a similar style.

The artists name/logo is another main feature on the advert and is big, bold and use the colour red which instantly draws the audience's attention on the darker, duller background as well as standing out from the other text which is white.

They have included the name of the album they are trying to sell and it is in the same font as the digipak (seen in the picture).

The purpose of the links between the digipak and the advert is so that people can establish a connection with the artist and know what they're looking for.

Here are the flat plans for my advert:

I drew three flat plan ideas that would be used toadvertise my digipak. In all three flat plans I used a picture of the artist so that the target audience would recognise her instantly and be attracted to the advertisement.

This is the picture I chose to use on my Digipak cover and so I didn't feel it would be appropriate to use again on the advert as I wanted a different pose. I also didn't like the advert in portrait, I much preferred landscape.

This digipak was a mid shot photo to the left hand side of the advert and then all the writing on the other side. I chose not to use this digipak as I didn't like the photo. It also had no stars on it and I knew I wanted to include those as it is already a common convention of the artist.

This is the digipak I chose to use as a base for my final product. It was my favourite because I liked the photo and I liked the way there was text on both sides of the person.

This is my final advert:

Evaluation

For my advert, I used the same costume I did for the photos in my digipak as well as the video. This is to achieve a strong connection between the whole promotional package. I also used the same location that my video is set in. I had the artist pose in front of background that appeared open span and empty, this was to evoke a feeling of emptiness and loneliness as the narrative of the video is about her being alone after a break up with her boyfriend.

I used the same colour scheme on the advert as I did the digipak, as well as the same fonts. This is, again, to create a strong connection between the two. I used a goldy/yellow colour as it stood out well on the background enough to stand out to the audience without being too bold as although I was trying to portray an emotional subject.

I included three reviews from well known magazines which included a rating. This is so that people will feel the product is worth buying and will influence their decision to buy it positively.

I wrote a brief description of what was included within the digipak and used persuasive language such as "exclusive", "never seen before", "bonus tracks". This is so that the audience believe they are getting something new that they cannot get anywhere else and means they are more likely to buy the product.

Ultimately, the most important and main reason for the advert, I announced the release date "out now" to the audience so that they know they can go and buy it.

I developed skills in photoshop that I had previously learned in my AS coursework. This included using new and different brushes, different colours and fonts and tools to get everything the way I wanted.

Feedback

I created a Facebook group where I uploaded my advert and got family and friends to comment on what they liked/didn't like about it.

Here are the comments from the photo of my advert:

To obtain further research and feedback for my advert and digipak, I created an online survey (via surveymonkey) and asked people who were a member of the group I had created on facebook to take the survey. These are the results I obtained: