How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our primary product was the music video and as a group we decided the most effective ancillary texts for our artist would be an album cover and artist website.
I think the combination of all three products we created worked really well in creating an artist identity. The video set up 'Lexi Grace' as a quirky, independent artist who followed certain conventions of the industry but also had a different side to her. Early on in the project we decided to use a reverse footage technique to add quirkiness to the video - it was a concious decision that fitted with the theme of the video and we were determined to ensure that the concept didn't backfire and look like a cheap way of filling time. From our audience feedback and the general reception of our video I think we achieved this, the reverse technique fits very well with the artist and the song and doesn't come across as doing it for the sake of showing off our editing techniques.
After establishing this quirky side to Lexi, we felt it was important to run this through the ancillary texts. The album cover both followed conventions and established an independent feeling, with only one image being used for the two inside panels - something that we had never seen done before. The front cover shot is slightly sexual as she is biting her necklace and half her face is covered by her hair suggesting promiscuity - this will attract males. As this is the artists debut album, it is important that her identity it established and she will be recognisable to her audience in future, and this shot achieves that.
We also developed a motif for Lexi, a silhouette of a swallow appeared on all texts including the music video. This helped the development of her identity, people will be able to recognise the swallow as Lexi iconography in the future and while we included it all of these products (all four panels of the album, the music video and the website), in future products it won't be necessary to include it as much.
To increase audience interaction on the website, we also created a Lexi clothing range. We were aware that it could quite easily turn into a cheap marketing strategy so we tried to make the clothing line as classy as possible. We used neutral colours like white, grey and black because this would be more appealing for the fans - we aren't aiming our artist at the typical 'girly girl' who would go for brighter colours like pink. We also set up a live 'buy now' link which directs to the paypal website.
In order to maintain a professional standard to our ancillary texts, it was important to use cross-platform marketing. Both the album and the website advertised each other and this encouraged the audience to buy into the artist brand. The URL address featured on the back cover of the album with the other industry information and gave the audience a chance to interact with the artist online. In turn the website had several links to download the or order the album and really highlighted that the album was available now.
The website also promoted the brand in other ways, for instance there was a live twitter feed and links to Lexi's myspace, facebook and youtube channels which furthers the interactivity of the artist and also adds a personal touch - allowing the fans to feel like they know the artist as she is talking to them via twitter. We looked a lot into real industry websites and realised that we should run a competition to win tickets to see Lexi, allowing the artist a chance to give back to her fans. The fans could also sign up to the website to have Lexi news sent to them via email and also allowing them to leave a comment on the site.
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