Idea Development

When initially starting my EPQ I have a couple of ideas that initially stand out to me. These are all different but similar. These are my 3 ideas.

1- Advertising/Marketing Campaign

My first ideas on this would be to create a campaign for a new musician and do their marketing for a album, tour or music video.  In the future I want to do music marketing and this would an excellent introduction into the industry and do tasks that I would like to work on in the future. I think that my experience taking business as well as media an help me understand what I will need to do and how marketing for an artist can be done. I will be started off by looking into different artist marketing campaign to see what they include. 

Charli xcx - Brat 

Brat by Charli xcx is a 2024 album which has gained global success and this is partly due to its marketing.  Brat has been a global success, gaining popularity from social media marketing campaigns. Brat peaked at number 2 in the UK charts, staying in the charts for 19 weeks until the brat remix album topping the charts. In May 2024, Charli XCX had 13m monthly Spotify listeners (Weiss and Engman, 2024)  and now after the release of Brat in October she has 39m. Brat has been nominated for a mercury prize as well there being speculation that it may be up for Grammy nomination. Brat has become influential over social media, creating and adapting different trends and has made its way into mainstream media. 

Charli XCX is represented by the marketing and representative company "Huxley". Huxley work closely with many different artists and brands such as The 1975, Calvin Harris, Marc Jacobs, A24, Sugarbabes and more. Huxley are the team that have worked on the brat marketing campaign and I will be looking into how the album came out and the marketing that has been done around it. 

The significance of the green colour used for the album is that it is "loud and abrasive, but also flirty and fun" Charli told  Architectural Digest (Gore, 2024) . With the genre of brat being electropop, it is naturally a very loud and upbeat genre unlike genres such as alternative or indie where songs are often quite slow and melancholy so having the album and its cover art match by being "loud" can help Charli and her marketing team sell more copies and gain more interest due to it being intriguing. 

Brats physical marketing (print and out door marketing) used a range of different posters and billboards all over the world. There has been many different examples of print marketing for brat which can bee seen by many different people over the world. 

There is no denying that the marketing campaign of brat has boosted the popularity of the album by creating trends and becoming pop culture gold. For my marketing campaign I would want to use a theming and brand image that would be used over everything - posters, adverts, social media ect. The definition of marketing for music is to promote the song and "boost the visibility of the artist"(Leighton, 2022) .  I believe that  part of the reason brat has done so well is due to the album cover being so simplistic and also having a throwback (to the 2000's) and the rise of EDM on social media, I think that has interested many new fans and this has further more gained more success.

Whilst there is no advert for Brat, in this example I have focused on the marketing aspect of what I would be doing. The overall of what the campaign is trying to sell is the album Brat. The way marketing has been done is what enables the album to gain popularity, sales and help the music get into the charts. This later can help tour sales and have potential of having the album be up for nomination of different awards. 

The use of marketing has been creating an image and aesthetic. This has been by having Charli explain the "vibe" of the album in a tiktok as being “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat” (Caldwell, 2024). This has helped the influence of social media by creating the "brat summer" trend. Which also trended using the Brat font generator, which enables users to write whatever they'd like in the brat style. This has been used on social media, paired with the trends as well as been using in other company's marketing to make them seem more relatable and interesting to potentially the younger generation who may be Charli fans or Brat fans. This has also been paired with the general use of promo before and during album releases - for example, interviews, magazine covers, fan involvement and press releases. 

I think that the use of fan involvement has been majorly successful in the advertising and marketing of Brat. This is due to the use of social media. For instance if we look at TikTok, fans using TikTok can almost be free promotion as songs and sounds can be used by fans or creators, these videos can get on others for you pages making others listen to these songs and potentially grow interest and listen/use the songs. This is a cycle which really helps an artists marketing and brand image as well as getting their streams up and making them trend. There are songs off of brat, such as Apple, that do not have a music video but became a trend on Tiktok and became more of a wide stream song due to one creator, Kelley Heyer, making a dance for the song which now has over 40,000 uses on Tiktok. This again is so helpful to the brat campaign and its growth in popularity. 

As there is no official advert, there are no codes and conventions for me to analyse. I will be taking forward this question and analysing this in Beyoncé's - Renaissance advertisement. 

The print marketing of brat is very cretaing. It matches the colour scheme of the album as well as making it clear to any viewers what it is trying to sell. Something that I think it does need more of would be context. This being that it is Charli XCX's album and when it was being released. I do want to look further into print as this would be a new thing for me to do but I may look at other examples which are more clear than these. 

Overall I think that the marketing for brat has had a major impact on the success of the album and fan involvement. 

Beyoncé - Renaissance

Renaissance is the seventh album that Beyoncé has released. It was released on the 29th July 2022. Leading up to its release Beyoncé did several social media posts and changes which hinted at teases towards a new album and the beginning of her Renaissance era. This first started in June by Beyoncé removing her profile pictures from her different social media accounts. Artists profile pictures are often changed when teasing an album due to personalising their social media to match the aesthetic or genre conventions of the album. Then there was a message on Beyoncé's website saying "what is a B7" , leading to fans speculating that Beyoncé's 7th album was on the way.  Over two weeks after this message was released on Beyoncé's website, Beyoncé shared on social media the release date, the album cover and the title - Renaissance.

Renaissance peaked at number 1 in the UK and US charts and still two years on is still frequently trending. Renaissance had been named album of the year by several outlets and critics. Here are some examples of these:

Renaissance was a subject to trends on TikTok and Instagram with the most popular songs "BREAK MY SOUL", "CUFF IT" and "AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM" being used. These trends included dance routines, posting the renaissance world tour videos, ect. BREAK MY SOUL has over 200K videos on TikTok, CUFF IT has over 2.3m videos and AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM has over 50K videos. This is only a small proportion of renaissance use on TikTok but just goes to show the amount of trends from Renaissance. 

Renaissance continued its climb in the charts and its trends on social media as The Renaissance World Tour started in the following May of 2023 and ended in October 2023. Beyoncé did 32 shows in the United States of America, 8 Shows in the UK, 3 shows in Canada and Germany, 2 Shows in France, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden and 1 show in Belgium and Spain (Setlist.fm, 2023) . It is reported that the Renaissance Tour made $579 million dollars and had 2.7 million fans attending (Horowitz, 2023) .  Tickets to the tour were extremally high demand and many were left disappointed to not receive them (myself included). Tour videos and pictures trended over social media and at the tour finale Beyoncé announced that she would be making a movie off the tour. This was "Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé", this enabled fans to watch the tour and feel as though they were there as well. This film showed different aspects of the tour, the people involved, what each song looked and sounded like, what the crowd were like and what the behind the scenes of the tour were. There was a trailer and fans were urged to book tickets through Beyonces website to find screenings near them. This was the trailer.  

I again like the idea of a additional form of marketing such as a documentary and I think this has been used well. These are my overall opinions for Beyoncé's Renaissance marketing and advertising.

The advert for the release of Renaissance was advertising for the album. This can help with album sales and the quantity of plays. Overall, advertisement is an important aspect of marketing as it can influence viewers and audiences to do or look into the subject of said advertisement. This being Renaissance - Beyoncé. This the same for the tour movie's advert, its aims are to  influence fans and audiences to pay to watch the movie. 

Both of these adverts may influence people to listen to the album, buy the album, go to the tour and watch the tour documentary by interesting the viewers. I would say that as a consumer watching these adverts, the use of shots and visuals compared with the music from Renaissance made this naturally visually pleasing as well as intriguing to the audience. Viewers will see this and look into the album and tour further. It can also remind people that the album is out. For example, there may be fan of Beyoncé that are not "die hard" fans, they will like her music and be interested in what she does next however, the release of her album may not be the first thing on there mind the day of release. By having an advert on social media, these people can see this and be reminded to go and listen.

I think that there are a range of advertising techniques that have been used in these two advertisements. An example that would be relevant to the both of these adverts would be a form of celebrity endorsement. Whilst celebrity endorsement can be more related to celebrity's that advertise products (sponsorships ect) the fact that Beyoncé is the music legend and icon that she is, this can naturally help the advertisement of her album. This could be related to the fact that Beyoncé has been in the music industry for over 30 years so many different audiences, music journalists, music magazines and radio stations will all support and encourage new music from Beyoncé. Another advertising technique would be the use of social media. Social media advertising is a major part of todays marketing, especially music marketing. Through doing promotions, adverts, posts and teasers, this allows Beyoncé's content to be sent around from different viewers and also for it to trend. Overall this can influence the success of the product (the album and tour movie) through the advertising and marketing that has been done.

There are a range of codes and conventions that can be seen in different adverts. This can be related to what the advert is trying to sell and also the mise-en-scen of what can be seen on screen in the advert. This can be the technical codes (camera techniques and lighting), symbolic codes (objects shown, body language and clothing) and written codes (the way any text looks and the style it may be in) (prezi.com, n.d.) . In the Renaissance advert, there is a use of dark lighting/colour scheme, this can match how the album cover uses a dark background and then has a slightly lighter focussing colours. There may also be dark colours used to represent how the audience are "left in the dark" by not listening to the album. This could help market by again intriguing the audience. The camera shots used can also help make the audience want more. The camera shots and visuals are not completely clear to what is happening and the audience cannot infer an awful lot - once again making them want to listen to the album. 

Another aspect of print advertisement would be how the design and be viewed. To make sure that passers by read it and take it in. This is where the design of Beyoncé's print advert is good as it again is clear. (Media Studies, 2021) 

In conclusion there are many parts of the lead up the the release of Renaissance that I may want to use in my marketing. I liked the social media teasers, the trailer to inform fans the album is out and finally the print advertisement. I think that If I wore to follow a similar marketing structure, I may also do more photography of the album cover so that I could have different versions of the album/print advertisements.

Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

Cowboy Carter was the second instalment of Beyoncé's Renaissance album era. Renaissance was advertised as being "act i" and Cowboy Carter is "act ii". The inspiration for Beyoncé to do a country alum came from the fact that there is racial discrimination and erasure in thee country music genre and that Beyoncé said she had experimented with and did not feel welcome in that scene (Fortune, n.d.).  Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé's eighth album and the second album out of the trilogy. It was released just under two years on from Renaissance.

Cowboy Carter once again tops the global charts. It was at number 1 consecutively and made Beyoncé the first black woman to be at number 1 in the country albums chart. The release of Cowboy Carter was monumental for country music history and another reason why Beyoncé has the relevance and platform she has due to her  marketing and duration of her time in the music industry.

Looking into the two adverts used for the marketing of Cowboy Carter, they were used to build suspense and inevitably bring up sales and brand awareness of Cowboy Carter. This is generally what marketing campaigns and advertisements do and once again Beyoncé and her team has done this well.

They have done this by firstly creating "buzz" and discussion between Beyoncé fans, music lovers and anyone who had followed the Renaissance era. By having the super bowl advert, show Beyoncé saying "drop the album" naturally this will cause people and fans to get excited and be ready for what is next to come for. This is the same for the teaser trailer. These both interest people and make the audiences anticipate what is next. 

A advertising techniques that has been used for the teaser trailer for Cowboy Carter would be story telling. The advert shows Beyoncé driving away in a taxi, driving through a very rural, country area and changing the radio station through different country genre songs. The radio keeps on being changed until it lands on "TEXAS HOLD EM"  in which there are older men who are looking up at a sign of Beyoncé. This could represent how there would be a new revival of country music. I think this is story telling as well follow the two characters (Beyoncé driving the taxi and the men looking around at the sign). This links to story telling advertising as it is fictional and is advertising the new single - TEXAS HOLD EM. 

I think that a code and conventions of country music adverts are that there is the use of warm colours. This is due to "cowboy" films (commonly associated with country albums and also the fact the album is called Cowboy Carter) often using gold and yellow colours to represent sand, or a canyon ect. I think that this was used to connect the two and continue with the theming. I think that this was useful as the audience can definitely infer that this is country and that is what the theming will be throughout. 

Based on the print adverts for Cowboy Carter. They have effectively communicated to the viewer that Beyoncé is releasing an album which come out on the 29th of March and the viewer should be able to infer that it is a country album. My first opinion when looking at the print would be that it is simplistic but on further reflect I think that this is a good thing as it once again is clear what is being advertised.

The way Beyoncé does her advertising and marketing is pretty standard for different artists (doing teasers, and announcement and then doing a few music videos) but I also like that way Beyoncé uses advertisements in her album marketing as this is not always done. I want to do something like this in my EPQ.

2. Documentary

So far on my media course I have experimented and tested one documentary but to my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to make another one on more of a personal topic of choice. I will be looking at three different examples, what they have done, why this is good and reflect on what I may do if I choose a documentary.

Miss Americana

Miss Americana is a documentary on Taylor Swift and how her music career has grown over the years and the steps that has been taken for her to get there. 

As I am unable to watch and evaluate the whole documentary I will be looking into the documentary trailer. 

The narrative of Miss Americana explains how Taylors career has grown, and the different situations and scenarios that she has faced over the years. These have been the image that has been pushed on her as a female in the industry (not having an opinion, is polite ect, does what she's told ect), having backlash from the media discussing her "dating life", how the medias comments have affected her mental health as well as her physical health, she touches on politics and how important voting is and then finally her music overall. Miss Americana is a biography documentary with codes and conventions of expository and observational documentary's. This is due to there being and amount of voice overs, interviews as well as scenes where the camera catches what is playing through giving a "fly on the wall" affect.

Taylor Swift as an artist and celebrity has a predominant fan base of mostly teenage girls but this also branches out to young adult women and children. I think that the purpose of Miss Americana was to show the negatives of pop star life rather than the positives that are often seen when looking at Taylor Swifts shows, music and overall content. Netflix gave Miss Americana a 18 certificate meaning that it is not for her younger audiences.

I like Miss Americana as a documentary as I love how it shows a accurate story. In biopics such as Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocket man, Elvis and Back to Black, there are often scenes that audiences or friends and family of the particular person would say are not factual, truthful and accurate. Making documentaries outline any of these incorrect and non fiction scenes. I think that this is why a documentary is better than a short film.

Overall, Miss Americana will have cost a large amount to make and produce due to all of the legal aspects of copyright laws (using Taylors music in the documentary, due to using pre existing images and videos from other sources, having a camera crew following her on her tour ect. It follows Taylor overall but features a range of appearances from her friends and family and other musicians. As it follows a fly on the wall documentary structure, these are people that are in Taylors general day to day life or follow her day to day life. I like that the documentary moves through and follows Taylors day to day life and is not just kept in one singular place. 

In conclusion if I was to make a documentary, I like it following one person and being able to see and understand  their life just by watching it and having the odd interview here and there. 

Amy

Amy is a documentary made by A24 around 4 years after her death. It discussed her life, her upbringing, her music and her struggles with substance addiction. 

With the death of Amy Winehouse that broke the nation, director Asif Kapadia created "Amy". It follows her life and everything involved in her life this means that it follows a biopic documentary structure. Due to Amy's death, any footage featuring her had to be pre existing from interviews, appearances and anything from friends and family.  The documentary features a large variety of familiar faces who talk about what Amy was like and telling moments in her life. 

The documentary was made for Amy's fans, music lovers, her friends and family and anyone interested in her story. I think that the documentary does a great job of covering this as it shows the good and happy side of Amy's life and sheds light on the sad battles that she faced. The audience of the documentary will be anyone who has interest in Amy's life but will specifically be made for her fans. 

I really like the biopic structure to Amy as it is intriguing and informative. It focusses on her whole life and as the audience we are able to understand the highs and lows of her life. Biopics are another way to captivate an audience, raise awareness about certain topics and have audience feel sympathetic towards the subjects story. I think that it enables more people to understand who Amy really was and what her story was as well as carry the legacy that she left. I also like that it features her family and friends and it feels more authentic and touching as its not just talking about her its more personal than that. I think that this makes it a good documentary as it is not just about the music its about the artist and her whole life. 

I would make a documentary instead of a short film as I like that they are factual and authentic to what the subject is (person, place or thing). I believe that it is quite difficult to think of plot and concept to a short film that's not already been done or has not taken inspiration from something else where as for a documentary I would be able to find a topic that isn't discussed very often, feels personal to me and is interesting enough to captivate an audience. 

The budget for the documentary was reportedly £3.4 million and it raked in £22 million when released so this will have been factored into how production is done. What differs Amy to Miss Americana is that Miss Americana had a higher budget due to it being produced by Netflix and it literally following Taylor on her tour where as for Amy it relied heavily on pre existing footage from Amy's friends and family, interviews, TV appearances etc. 

Amy has helped me generate any ideas for creating a documentary. Something I would want which is similar to Amy is that I want to find a topic to follow which captivates the audience and pulls on the heartstrings of them. I could link this to my contextual focus to discussing a range of important things. 

Oasis: Supersonic

Supersonic tells the story of how the rock band Oasis formed, gained success and when and why they decided to split up. 

Supersonic is another A24 music documentary. It follows the Gallagher brother Noel and Liam and their band Oasis. Supersonic shows their childhood, the bans rise to fame, the peak of their career and their downfall. 

Oasis' target audience generally speaking is middle age males but they have had an increase in younger fans. Supersonic was released in 2016, 7 years after Oasis called it quits. The documentary was made for fans specifically but also to intrigue a new audience of people as well as  highlighting their remarkable story. 

I again like this documentary idea as it takes biopic structure and is factual, interesting, fun, sad and also amusing. I think that showing their hometown and family life really opens up to the audience and makes Liam and Noel actually seem more human as the audience are able to see their real story. I like how the documentary builds up the suspense overall and shows pre existing footage depicting the band and their lives.

I think  that choosing a documentary for supersonic instead of a short film was beneficial to the audience as it feels more real and authentic. I think that if they made a biopic about Oasis and casted actors to play the band members people may not be as interested as it has already been made into fiction. I this that the documentary was the right decision as for many audience members who followed Oasis in there peak will want to reflect on these times instead of see someone else try to remake these moments. 

Supersonic featured a range of interviews from the band members, family members and any one who was involved in Oasis's success. As well and these interviews they also used a lot of pre existing footage, filmed in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's. 

To conclude overall, as I want to have music influences in music in a documentary, I really like how biopics are able to captivate an audience and help then understand more about an artist and their life. However, if I was going to make a documentary based in and around music may want to do something more experimental and participatory by maybe getting involved in the creation of music and understanding what the codes and conventions are.

3. Film marketing

Short film marketing would be interesting to do as I love films and would mainly was to do something in marketing for My EPQ. When thinking about marketing for films there are so many great options to think about.

Here are two main examples:

Smile

Smile is a horror movie which involves people doing these very frightning wide smiles directly into the camera. To market for their second film in the franchise they have used a range of marketing tecqniques. On of these would be having people in televised places physically  smile like in the movie to create discussion. Here are a couple of examples:

The first image is of people smiling directly into the camera at a football game. This is clearly eerie but is incredible marketing as it is clear what they are advertising for but makes it almost feel as though the movie is real. The second image is adverts that have been on the television fairly recently for the release of Smile 2. This advert shows a man smiling and staring into the camera for what feels like a very long amount of time. I personally hate this advert as it creeps me out which is a great sign of good marketing on the smile teams behalf. 

Another sign that these are perfectly marketed is that they have creeped people out so much it has stayed in the back of their minds and the viewers have not forgotten these adverts.  Codes and conventions of these adverts will be related to the horror genre as this is what genre Smile is. By having these ominous smiles, down the barrel of the camera, they communicate with the audience that there is an element of danger and worry. I think this has been done incredibly well as I personally find these adverts scary. These advertisements use mise en scene to infer to audience that it is a horror film if they don't already know the smile franchise. This is by having little or no sound or music playing in the background, having the person do this creepy smile and it just being very eerie.

Kill Bill

When Kill Bill first came out in 2003 there was an incredible marketing campaign that was seen in many different locations. Here are some images.

Kill Bill Volume 1 was a 2003 action thriller staring Uma Thirman. I love kill Bill as it is full of suspense, backstory, great cinematography & fight scenes. 

The marketing for Kill Bill is extremely clever. There were many different posters, and forms of print advertising that is not only creative but also useful for letting the audience know what the film will be. One of these examples would be the billboard which shows "The Bride" with her samurai sword.  There has been paint sprayed in the exact direction of the sword angle. Making it look like blood. I think this is so creative and a perfect piece of marketing for the movie. The next piece would be the lift cover and how it looks when it opens and closes. I again think  that this is so smart and an excellent advertisement for Kill Bill. 

I think that the code and conventions of these print adverts clearly match the film and its genre of being an action/thriller. This can be inferred from the blood and the sword which are often seen in these genre of movies. These adverts once again rely on mise-en-scene. What the viewer is directly seeing in these advertisements could be their first interaction and viewing of the Kill Bill franchise. This means that advertisements need to be impressionable on the viewer and potentially influence them to watch Kill Bill. This is also how influential the use of codes and conventions can be when marketing for films. 

I belive that these advertisments do inform the audience the same things they would have if it was a physical advert (trailer). Whilst it will not inform the audience of the plot to Kill Bill, it will make them question what the film is about.