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Research is a crucial part of my EPQ and the structure that it will give to my advertising and marketing campaign.
I will be researching into how to make my products (artist, album and tour posters) and how I can do the advertising and marketing around these. My primary reserach will be more focussed on the making of my artist, album and posters. This is because I can find out what my target audience would like to see in a new artist. My secondary research will be more about marketing due to looking at what other artists have used in their marketing devices. I will do this by looking at what other artists in the same genre have done and used and how beneficial I think this is.
There are 4 main types of research that I will be using, these are primary, secondary, action and academic. The tasks that I will complete before the production stage of my project will all fall into one of these category's. I will begin by conducting primary research.
Primary Research
Primary research is used to describe the research I will conduct myself, instead of information that has been found by others. This can be methods such as surveys, interviews focus groups and making observations. I will be using a range of different methods of primary research to find out more about my chosen subject and the marketing that will be needed.
Survey
Surveys are used to gather information and understand data from specific questions about my topic of choice. Surveys are a great form of primary research as they can be personalised to only ask questions that the researcher (myself) actually needs. They are beneficial as they are quick to make and easy to send out to receive feedback and opinions. This data can be used to infer what my audience would want to see in my advertising and marketing.
When creating questions for a survey, I needed my questions to help me learn more about what my target audience would want to see in a new pop artist and differences from the pop genres biggest stars. My questions needed to also reflect on my contextual focus as I am still learning more about the best way to show the "rags to riches" story where my artist has had humble beginnings and how this is inferred or show to the viewer. I sent my survey to a range of people aged 17-27 and had my two parents (50+) fill it out as well so that I could gain a valid response from my target audience and another target audience that I aim to look further into. I have chose these target audiences as a unique selling point I have thought about the use of would be making music that older people can enjoy as well as younger people. These were my questions that I asked:
Who is the first current "pop star" you think of if asked?
Do you think that the genre and codes and conventions of pop music has changed in the past 40 odd years? (80's-now)
If answered yes please explain why.
Do you think that artists in the pop music genre follow trends to stay relevant?
Do you think that every "pop star's" brand is unique?
If answered no please explain why.
Do you think that each pop music artist has a different target market or do you think they all share the same market?
Do you think that social media affects pop artists success?
What do you think is the best way for artists to engage with fans?
How rare do you think self grown success in the music industry is?
The meaning of a "nepo baby" is referring to people whose parents have succeeded in similar or related careers (Wikipedia, 2023). Do you think many artists in the music industry are nepo baby's or have not had organic success?
The meaning of an industry plant is "used to describe musicians who become popular through nepotism, inheritance, wealth, or their connections in the music industry" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019) Do you think that going on a TV show (X Factor, American Idol, The Voice) and gaining success after being on the show is organic growth or being an "industry plant"?
Do you think you need to have connections to get into the main stream music industry?
What changes would you like to see in the stereotypical image of "pop stars"?
Finally, who is your favourite pop music artist?
I sent these questions around and here were my responses.
Who is the first current "pop star" you think of if asked?
I asked my friends and peers who the first pop star they though of was as this could help me understand what marketing these artists do to make them stand out in a group of others. The artist were all extremely similar. I had 4 overall answers of Taylor Swift and 4 for Sabrina Carpenter as well. This made them the most popular. I had 2 votes for Adele and 2 votes for Harry Styles and then number of single votes for pop stars such as Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Katy Perry, Britney Spears ect. Whilst there is the factor of the likeability and enjoyability of their music as if it is not good and people don't like it they wont listen to it, I am mainly looking into how these popular artists and their teams conduct their marketing to help their success. I will be continuing to research into different types and forms of advertising they use.
2. Do you think that the genre and codes and conventions of pop music has changed in the past 40 odd years? (80's-now)
I asked if codes and conventions of pop music have changed over the past decades as I feel that even in the past 5 years pop music has changed significantly and I wanted to see if others agreed. The feedback was that 94.4% had agreed that it had changed whilst only one person had said that they thought it hadn't changed. I have asked this so that I can look into the shift and difference between music now and music 40 years ago. I want one my my unique selling points to be that my artist's music is able to be enjoyed by two main target audiences - younger girls and teens as well as older adults.
This is because lots of pop music now is only enjoyed by the specific target audience and it does not branch out to other ages and different demographics. With this in mind I can look at trends from this different eras and how this has impacted artists/albums success.
3. If answered yes please explain why.
I then asked that the people who said yes to explain why they had said this. This feedback was extremely helpful to my research as it enabled me to understand everyone's opinions and reasoning for choosing this. Looking over all of my responses, the main answer is that technology has changed and that new music is catered to being modern and modern audiences due to trends. Something else that was repeated quite a lot was that pop music videos are often very sexualized nowadays in comparison to back in the 80's. These reply's were seen throughout my survey answers. I will be using this feedback to take forward when looking at my target audience and the target audience of other artists that we may share.
4. Do you think that artists in the pop music genre follow trends to stay relevant?
To my understanding, I would say that artists in todays music industry follow and keep up with trends to keep them relevant as well as using trends as a form of promotion for the artists brand image. I wanted to find out if my two target markets/audiences agreed with this. Based on the answers of the question, 88.9% agreed with my whilst only 11.1% said maybe. This means that no one disagreed with the statement but may not have a crystal clear answer or idea for this question. I will take this forward when looking at the social media aspect of my advertising as using trends is super important as it can influence the viewer to take in your content and be more interested to see who this person is, what they make and what they do.
5. Do you think that every "pop star's" brand is unique?
I asked about if different pop stars brands were unique as I often feel that they all make similar music (due to it being the overall genre of pop), wear the same type of clothes (due to following trends) and have very similar promotional advertising (the use of social media, print advertising and album promotion campaigns). These features are similarity's however their personal brand makes then different. This is what I will need to look further into as I need my artist to be unique or have traits that set them apart from others in the music industry.
The overall feedback was pretty mixed. Most answers said that each pop star might have unique branding. This could be the most common answer due to some people not having as much knowledge in the branding side of things as they may just hear the music on the radio. This could also be the answer due to some peoples brand and the way their marketing has been done being very similar to other artists.
6.If answered no please explain why.
This was another opportunity for me to have personalised opinions and gain understanding from my target audience. The comments that I received mainly shared points saying that pop stars typically had the style. Some answers were unnecessary and may have had my survey respondents confused. I asked this question simply to just understand the responses to the previous question.
7. Do you think that each pop music artist has a different target market or do you think they all share the same market?
Due to my own error I had put "Maybe" and "Yes" as an answer which did not make sense with this question as it was out of two things to choose from. I added the correct answers later on when I realised this mistake and the responses were that 33.3% said that pop artists have different target markets whilst 22.2% said they share the same target market. I was shocked with this feedback as I personally feel as though some of my most popular artists in todays pop music (Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Sabrina
Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo) share the same market (white, teenage, females) but the bottom line is that pop music is not only these artists. There are artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna that are not as popular with todays teenagers instead they are still popular with adults aged 40+. There are artists such as Dua lipa which are very popular in radio broadcast due to her songs being easy listening as well as popular with younger people and also older people. I will be looking further into her album future nostalgia as it is popular with different target markets for sampling older songs.
8. Do you think that social media affects pop artists success?
The feedback on this question is extremely clear that my main target audience feel that social media plays a massive part in an artists success. From my current understanding I think that TikTok is a HUGE impact on success in the industry. Having been on TikTok (and what was musical.ly) for 6 years, the first example of advertising conducted on social media which impacted its success would be the girl group Flo. Flo had a advert for their song cardboard box on TikTok which became a trend and then helped them grow followers and support before releasing their debut EP and then featuring in a range of different festivals all over the country (Longitude, Wireless, TRNSMT).
This is only one example of how social media can effect success of the artist. I will be creating a Instagram account for Valentina and will be following social media trends to help her success.
9. What do you think is the best way for artists to engage with fans?
This is clear once again that my target audience and survey responders think that social media is the best way to engage with fans. This is overall clearly a massive factor into the success of my artist and will need to be done well. The next best way for artists to engage with fans was touring. I could make this the focus of my poster/print advertising.
10. How rare do you think self grown success in the music industry is?
This chart was a scale between extremely rare and not rare at all. There were quite a a variety of responses with most people saying it was fairly rare and some people being in the middle of the scale. When joining the music industry a lot of artists work up to something which then helps them gain fans and grow their success for example, 5 Seconds of Summer and Justin Bieber both started off posting videos of them singing and performing on YouTube until they were seen by someone in the industry and were offered a record deal and for 5SOS to be the support act for One Direction on tour. In my opinion I would say this is organic growth and quite rare to see in todays music industry. Learning about different peoples stories and how they got into the industry can help me create a background story for my artist Valentina Winslow.
11. The meaning of a "nepo baby" is referring to people whose parents have succeeded in similar or related careers (Wikipedia, 2023). Do you think many artists in the music industry are nepo baby's or have not had organic success?
I asked this question to learn more about peoples opinions of nepo babys and how their success has worked out. This was another question where I accidently put yes or no when I should have put either answer but when I changed it the option of many artists being nepo babys was still the most popular.
I have looked into this as I want Valentinas brand to be about how far she has come to gain success in the music industry by using organic growth.
12.The meaning of an industry plant is "used to describe musicians who become popular through nepotism, inheritance, wealth, or their connections in the music industry" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019) Do you think that going on a TV show (X Factor, American Idol, The Voice) and gaining success after being on the show is organic growth or being an "industry plant"?
Following up from asking about nepo babies in the music industry, I then asked about if my target audience thought that going on television shows such as X Factor and The voice would make you an "industry plant". This was extremely interesting to look at the results as it was a 50/50 split between people thinking this was organic growth and some thinking this makes artists industry plants. I was unsure of my opinion on this and this was why I put this question in my survey.
This will effect my research as I may need to look into different statistics for how successful artists get from going on these programs.
13. Do you think you need to have connections to get into the main stream music industry?
This was another 50/50 answer question. I asked do you think you need to have connections to get into main stream media and all responses were either yes or maybe. I could infer that this means overall majority believe yes, you will need connections. This is another question that I don't have a specific answer/opinion to.
This question can relate to being a nepo baby, being a industry plant or having organic growth.
14. What changes would you like to see in the stereotypical image of "pop stars"?
Adding to finding out how my audience would view my different unique selling points, I asked what changes in the stereotype of pop stars the audience would want to see. There was a good range of feedback and I am glad to see that the ideas for different USP's I had outlined from what I wanted to see had been suggested by many others. These were "messages within their music to help the world", "more grounded", "more real and not picture perfect" and "self made unique stand out". I was very glad to see that these points had been suggested as this was exactly what I wanted my artist to portray.
15. Finally, who is your favourite pop music artist?
Finally, I thought that asking my target audience who their favourite pop artists were could help me understand what they specifically like about them, how these names may affect my previous feedback, what style these artists have, what their story and background has been and also if I would be able to use any of their songs to put on my album.
I had a range of different pop artists which are some of the most famous and some artists that have fairly recently come into the public eye more (for example, Tate Mcrae). This was definitely a useful question as it means I can take these people further and see how I can add any ideas of inspirations that have been influenced by these artists.
This information will help me progress in my advertising and marketting campaign as I can use this data to look into trends and other artists marketing ect.
Existing product analysis - Album covers
The products I will be making will be the artist herself, Valentina Winslow and her debut album as well as a tour. I will be doing the advertising and marketing for these products by using social media, an advertisement and print. The first think I want to look into is album covers to gain ideas and look at what other pop stars have used and what this means to their final product. I will be choosing pop albums to look at based on my knowledge of them, what stands out to me and any that were talked about highly in my survey feedback.
Fine Line - Harry Styles
(Spotify.com, 2024)
(X (formerly Twitter), 2024)
Fine Line by Harry Styles is a 2019 pop album. It was Harrys second album after One Directions split.
The cover was shot by photographer Tim Walker and designed by Bradley Pinkerton. Tim Walker is a fashion photograper and has worked closely with Vogue and Vanity Fair. In his biography, Tim says that after using increadible props and sets, he has tried to create portraits and pictures from very simple white rooms ect. (Walker, 2015)
The cover has been created with a fish eye lens. This could be a nod to to 60's or 70's where fish eye lens's were popular in album covers, most well known for being used by Jimi Hendrix and The Turtles. I think that the use of the fish eye lens makes the album cover more interesting and intreguing. (Syne, n.d.)
On the back of the album there is no image which is often seen in albums, there is just the track list. I do like how the tracklist for fine line looks hoowever I will see if there are anyother examples of the tracklist with an image .
The next feature of this album cover I will be looking into in the colour scheme.
Fine Line uses different shades of pink and blue. In the "Fine Line" era, this was were Harry became more experimental through colours and breaking gender stereotypes in fashion such as going on the cover of American Vogue in a dress, and wearing tights and dresses frequently in photoshoots. I think that if reflected in the album cover by using the stereotypical blues and pinks for boys and girls.
With this idea, Vice says that Harry was "playing with the codes of masculinity and the idea of the modern heartthrob" (Greenwood, 2019) .In One Direction, the boys image were always that they were "lads" and media outlets always wanted to know who they were dating and who they had been seen with ect. Since leaving One Direction, Harry had been more challenge on his femininity and sexuality. Fine Line could mean how there is a "fine line" between what is masculine and what is feminine and this is what Harrys contextual focus would be for his album.
Going forward I will look into how I can represent Valentina Winslows background story of coming from a working class family in a rural area to getting big in the music industry in my album and if there are any ways I can show this through the use of colour schemes.
Short n' Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter
(Spotify.com, 2024)
(Genius, 2024)
Short N' Sweet is a 2024 pop album by Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter was one of the most popular responses in my survey.
When researching about who shot the images for Short N' Sweet I did not find as much as I found for Fine Line. I found a actor and cinematographer names Sean Price William, who she has worked with in her music videos and tour photography.
The cover for Short N' Sweet uses very warm colours and bright lighting. The album was annouced and singles started dropping just before simmer which I think plays a big part in the visuals.
Short N' Sweet does not have the tracklist on the back of the album. Instread it has just an image, in music formats such as a vinyl record I would expect to see the trackliost on an inside gatefold as it is not on the outside. I like the use of an image instead of just plain black like on Fine Line however I like how there is a tracklist on Fine Line.
As I had mentioned, Short N' Sweet uses bright colours and tones in its cover art with shades of reds and pinks seen the most. I like how Sabrina is the focus of the cover, whilst Harry was on Fine Line there was more to look at and try to understand. The album cover is very simple but equally I think it is interesting due to the colours and tones of lighting is used.
I think that the use of the blue background goes well with the golden warm tones. One again while researching the cover art I have not found much about what the coventions are and what the background meaning is. When I search for this I only find information about what each song on the track list means.
1989 - Taylor Swift
(Wikipedia Contributors, 2024)
(ST8MNT BRAND AGENCY, n.d.)
1989 is a 2014 pop album by Taylor Swift. Taylor was another popular result in my survey. To decide what Taylor album to look into I searched for what was the most successful Taylor Swift album which was 1989.
1989 was shot by a collaboration called Lowfield. The duo consist of Sarah Barlow and Stephen Schofield. Lowfield worked which Taylor lots in 2014 or in the "1989 era" of her career.
The photoshoot and images used for album consisted of 65 polaroid pictures which were took in her apartment (Silva, 2024) . The back off 1989 features the track list. I love the track list being with the back cover art as I think it is clear that it is an album and is beneficial for the listener to see what the tracks are, what the order of play is and when listening on vinyl listeners can choose what side of the album they want to listen to.
(Sarah Barlow & Stephen Schofield, 2024)
Lowfeild use polaroid and print images commonly in their work. Here is a link to their website where they show there past work with Taylor and other artists and what they typically shoot like and what their work usually consists of.
The colours used in 1989 are very neutral with elements of blue and purple. I love how the front and back of the album are polaroids as I think it gives character to the album as well as being a fun way to lay out the album. I also think this is something I have not seen before in an album.
The neutral colours could suggest that the album is calm due to beige generally being associated with feelings of calm and tranquillity.
I want to do a serach into different colour meanings and how I can use them.
Overall, I love having the track list paired with the back cover image for the album rather than there just being an image and no track list or a track list with no image so this is definitely something I will experiment with in my action research as well as creating posters. Following up from my existing product analysis I will conduct a brief survey as to see what my target audience would want to see in an album cover.
I created this moodboard featuring the different albums suggested by my survey focus group so that I could visually look at them and see if they were all different or if they all had something in common.
Overall looking at the small amount of albums my focus group gave me, three out of five feature the artist or for Drakes album "Nothing Was The Same" it was a younger version of himself. The other two use drawings/graphics as well as a simple picture. I personally like the albums with the artist on as I think they stand out more and add more clarification to the audience who the poerformer is.
When asked if all album covers need a story or background behind it, 80% of people said no it didn't. I persoanally like any additional meanings or "easter eggs" that feature or are illuded to on the album cover as I think that it seems there has been more thought put into it. I will be lookinto what I could have on my album cover and what this may mean overall.
When asked what my focus group liked to see in an album cover the most frequent responses were that they wanted to see interesting cover art and graphics. This is a main fundimental aspect of my EPQ as my technical focus is on my editing skills specifically the use of Photoshop and After Effects.
This final question was an oppotunity for my small focus group to give specific details on what they would like to see in a pop album cover. The main answer was the use of colours. I want to research into what colours mean what and see what is benefical to use in my album.
By looking into different pop artists album covers and aesthetic and how this makes audiences feel. This will benefit my marketing campaign for my artist as I will be able to apply these finding to my work overall.
Marketing Theory's
Marketing Mix
https://www.professionalacademy.com/professional-qualifications/cim-marketing-qualifications/marketing-theories/
Target Audience and demographics
Target audience is a major focus of my artists and how I do their marketing. Target audience is where I can ensure that my marketing devises reaches these audiences and has effects on them. This overall will help my sales and success of my artist and their album.
In my proposal I outlined that there is a general stereotype of pop listeners being white, females generally aged 13-30. Whilst I will be targeting this audience as I know there is success for artists with this audience, I also outlined that I want a unique selling point of my artist to be that the music can be enjoyed by an older generation and a younger generation. Here are images of fans from artists that were mentioned frequently in my survery.
Taylor Swift fans (Alta Online, 2023)
Sabrina Carpenter fans (Debray, 2024)
Harry Styles fans (KERA News, 2022)
As Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Harry Styles are extremely well known all over the world this is a good idea of what these fan bases are. I will be using this demographic as I think that if this is only a representation of 3 pop artists then there will be room for Valentina to begin trending and grow her success.
Another aspect of target audience is to do with one of my unique selling points. I wanted to be able to have my artist make music that different age groups could enjoy. I had this idea as I think it will add to my contextual focus being based on challenging connotations of "nepo babies" and "industry plants" in the music industry and having a mixed target audience can add to Valentina's success as well as more of a family image - showing that she has come from a working class family. Taking examples from music that is slightly older but is loved by both myself and my mum would be artists such as Madonna, George Michael, Fleetwood Mac and Dido . I will be looking at including music created by these artists as they will help me meet unique selling point and create music for both audiences. The reasons these singers can also help me broaden my audience demographic as the artists original target audiences will have been younger and due to these fans growing up - they are now of the older generation.
When conducting my marketing, I can use my target audience to think about what these age groups will see. For the younger generation marketing devises such as social media (for my campaign I will be using Instagram) would work best for exposure and promotion as Instagram's age demographic concludes that 18-24 and 25-35 are their age groups that uses Instagram the most (both ages are 31.25% of users) (Oberlo, 2024) .
For my older generation the use of print advertisement such as posters would be more beneficial as they could see these posters and have the name Valentina Winslow subconsciously get in their heads so that when someone mentions her or she is played on the radio for the first time the older generation will already somewhat know her.
The use of my target audience will also impact that songs that I choose. As I want my album to be enjoyed by all I will be using a variety of songs from farely recently and also from older years.
Pop genre conventions
In pop music there are a range of conventions that are often seen (and heard).
Pop music is the one of the oldest music genres and has been altered over the years. Pop music simply means popular music and dates back to the 1950's in America and the UK. (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019). Current popular musicians that are in the pop music genre would be Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Harry Styles as these were the names that came up most in my survey as well as their prominant mainstream success. I will be researching into what conventions are seen in pop music as this can help me choose what songs to use in my tracklist as they will all be pop genre songs.
There are a range of different features, codes and conventions that are commonly seen in pop music and work together to create songs. The first convention I will look into would be the use of ballads. Ballads are used in songs or poems and are genrally used to tell a story. They are most typically seen in pop music. Ballads can also tell a funny story, a dramatic story and most commonly in pop music - a romantic story. (Vocabulary.com, 2019) Here are a range of pop songs that predominnatly consist of being a ballad and why this is the case.
(Mars, 2013) (neonmusic.co.uk, n.d.)
Bruno Mars - When I was Your Man
When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars is a great example of a romantic ballad in a pop song. The song discusses how life has changed since presumably Bruno went through a break up and hes dicusses everything he wqould have done differently if he got in the same relationship again. This song is a ballad as it goes through the story, for example saying "Same bed, but it feels just a little bit bigger now", infering to the audience that whovever he is talking about (later understood as an ex partner) is not in his life anymore. This adds to the story as he then explains that he would have bought her flowers, held her hand and given her all of his hours. This ads to the ballard as it is think ing about the past which is commonly seen in stories.
Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
Thinking Out Loud is another example of a romantic love song ballad. This ballad explains the love the singer has for his partner. He discusses how he will love his partner until their are old and they only have their memories. This is another great example of a ballad in pop music as the listener is able to undertsand the singers relatioonship and feelings towards his partner well.
(Sheeran, 2014)
(Beyoncé, 2009) (Wikipedia, 2021) (Frederick, 2014)
Beyonce - If I Were A Boy
If I Were A Boy is a R'n'B pop ballad which still has an element of romance in it but is more Beyonces way of explaining her feelings. She explains how boy get away with more in relationships and how the girls are expected to just let them say and do this. The song comes with the narrative of "if roles were reversed" which helps to the features of a ballad as she is criticising boys and then saying what she would do and altering it to say why they get away with it. The song is very vulnerable and starts very intimate and over all builds up to the end.
Overall, the main connotation from these different ballad pop songs is that they all have a key romance element. Without conducting research, I had assumed that most pop songs had a strong romance element so this also backs this thinking up.
Another key aspect of how I will be choosing my track list is understanding structure, rhythm and melody within songs. The song has to be "catchy" and enjoyable for people to listen to it. In different genres the use of certain instruments, riffs and sequences which help them follow the genre. For example, pop genre may use synthesisers, and guitar riffs, country songs may use instruments such as the banjo or the harmonica , rock songs may use a heavy electric guitar and bass riff and strong drum sequences. For my cross genre pop album, I will be bearing these things in mind and will be conducting lyric analysis on pop songs that have elements of different genres.
Colour Analysis - Colour Scheme for album and posters
Colour theory is extremally important in media products as the audience and viewer can subliminally understand things through the use of colour. After completing my focus group, my target audience repetitively expressed the importance of colour in album covers. I will be looking at each colour of the rainbow and understanding more about the connotations of it and if there are any links to my unique selling points of my artist and album.
Red
The colour red is most commonly assiossiated with anger, danger and romance. As a primary colour, red was one of the most historical colours, with the colour red being used in art dating back to a cave in 13BC and Pompeii in 40BC (Wikipedia, 2020) .
The common use of of these connotations have remained the same over time as red is commonly used to symbolise the same things.
As red on a rainbow is one of the most visible colours it stands out the most - helping the use of red for danger as it is a good warning.
Orange
Orange is overall a very positive colour. It has connotations to happiness, joy, enthusiasm, flamboyance and fun.
Naturally when searching for images to put in this collage, the images are all happy and positive and fun.
Orange is in-between Red and Yellow and can also add to connotations of fire and heat.
If I want to use a happy colour in my album cover, orange would be agood one to go with.
Yellow
Yellow is probably the happiest colour. Yellow is known for being connected with themes and connotations of happiness, optimism, positivity, inspiration, uncertainty and power. It is also another primary colour.
Yellow would be a good colour to feature in my album and marketing campaign as it is bright and has happy connotations with it. As Valentina's main unique selling point is that she is a product of self grown success, her first debut album will be a happy and exciting moment - this is where the use of yellow can be used.
Green
Green is typically a darker colour with many different versions and tones of the colours.
Green typically resembles nature and natural thing but it can also have connotations connected to harmony and peace, greed and wealth, safety and refreshing.
Overall I think that green can be a refference to wellness and health.
Blue
Blue is the last primary colour. There are also many different shades of this colour, with there being lighter blues and darker blues. Blue is naturally a cold and dark colour.
Blue has a number of different connotations with is, mainly blue is used to show either tranquility or calmness or sad and depressed feelings. It also has connotations with being honest, reliable and loyal as well as more negatives such as passive and cold. (Myers, 2022)
I like the connotations of blue being used for inferring calm, tranquility and being honest,loyal and reliable and I think that these could work well in my album cover as another unique selling point I had thought about creating was for a cross pop genre album, for example using pop, rock pop, country pop as well as fast and slow songs so they use of blue could link to how Valentina is loyal to her dream of making music and there is a sense of calmness and truth in that.
Purple
Purple (indigo and violet) is a mix of blue and red and can be made darker or lighter with some more bluey tones or some more lilac tones.
Purple is used to infer feelings of being compassionate, brave, unique and creative. I love these connotations and think that this can really help the brand and identity of Valentina as she has fought to get into the music industry and be a pop artist but not follow the same codes and conventions as all pop artists.
The more negative connotations for purple are being, arragont, unstable, emotional and immatue. These are connotations that I do not want to be seen in my album cover. I found these positive and negative meanings of purple interesting as they are pretty opposite one another but for the same colour.
Purple is a colour I may want to use in my album cover due to the connotations of brave, unique, creative and compassionate however I will need to be wise when using these colours as I don't want it to come off the wrong way.
Overall for my colour analysis I think I will find a way to incorporate shades of blue, purple, yellow and orange in my album cover. My tour posters and print marketing will use the same colours and theming's that I used in my album as this will be related to the brand that I have created as well as how I market these products.
Valentina Winslow Brand
How musicians look and what we as consumers think about them and associate with them is what contributes to their brand awareness. Brand awareness is how consumers understand and how familiar consumers are with a brand. Looking at music we could look at certain time periods and see what trends there were or what different musicians had as their brand image and identity. I will be looking at the Spice Girls as their target audience is very similar to my target audience.
(Butler, 2024)
Spice Girls
The Spice Girls are a historic part of the 90s and were monumental for girl groups all over the world. Their brand consisted of "girl power" and and helping girls up and down the country become more at one with their confidence and self identity. This was helped by the fact that they each had their own individual personality and identity which made them different. With "Sporty, Baby, Scary, Ginger and Posh" spice, everyone had someone they could look up to or seen within themselves.
I think that this helped pave the way for feminism and woman's rights a shed more of a positive light for women in the 90's.
Linking the spice girls brand awareness to my artist Valentina Winslow, I love how positive the Spice Girls are and how they made girls feel (strong, unique, special, confident powerful). I would like to be able to add to this for my target audience as it will be predominantly female.
I could represent this by having my artist be openly very vulnerable about her background of being from a working class family and how she has overcome these challenges. For girls who have the same dream as Valentina, growing up and becoming a pop star - this would be a very good background and would inspire them to follow their dreams.
I want my brand awareness to be clear - when people see Valentina Winslow I want them to understand who she is and how she has risen to fame. Whilst this will take time, this can be made easier through the use of marketing. On a wider scale I would do this by having many sit down interviews where she discusses her rise to success and her background but for my EPQ I will reflect on this in Instagram posts. I will explain who she is in a main post and go over growing up with music, her aims, her family, how she got found, what she had to do to get signed and then what happened since getting signed, this will be a simple introduction to her story.
Secondary Research
Secondary research is when using other sources to find out pre existing information. Sources can range from YouTube, BBC, ITV, news articles, different articles, magazine stories ect. For my secondary research I will be looking into different marketing devises used by pop stars, the way their marketing is done and the effect it has of their audience.
Statistics on self grown success in the music industry
My contextual focus for my project is challenging standards that many people in the industry are "nepo babies" or industry plants, meaning that they either have strong connections to someone who will hep their success or has done something to be picked up by the media and help them do what they would like. In my opinion, I feel like nowadays it is rather rare to find someone who has simply grown their success organically. With platforms such as Tiktok making a huge impact into rising artists, lots of people get a viral song but then cannot maintain this success. Artists who have had a song trend and go viral and then maintain their fame would be Tate Mccrae however she was once featured on Dance Moms and So You Think You Can Dance, this will have helped her fame. I will be looking into any statistics I can find on success in these areas within the music industry.
The results for the specific information I want to find is very limited however Google Generative AI says that "According to Digital Music News, over 90.7% of artists are considered undiscovered" I found this extremely interesting as this means that there are so many artists out there looking for success and roughly only 9.3% of artists have been discovered and are successful. In the grand scheme of things this is not a lot at all.
There are many articles about who are the most successful nepo babies, why are nepo babies so successful ect but I am unable to find anything on specific percentages of "nepo babies" and "industry plants" in the industry against self made growth. When I finish my other tasks which are prioritised I will come back to these statistics and see if I can find anything else.
Existing Product Analysis - Pop Star Marketing Devices and Social Media
For my second product analysis I will be looking at the three artists most spoke about in my survey - Sabrina Carpenter, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. In my primary research I have conducted product analysis on these three artists album covers so I shall be looking at their social media and marketing for these albums and similar albums.
Harry Styles
When Harry Styles teased the release of his second album Fine Line, he posted images from his first single's music video Lights Up on Instagram to say that the song was out. This made fans aware that Harry Would be releasing new music soon.
A number of weeks later Harry simply shared the album and announced the date of release. This album announcement was posted with no other caption than "FINE LINE . THE ALBUM . DEC 13". A track list was not included in this post, only the main front cover.
(Alamy Limited, 2024)
After the announcement, Harry updated and changed all of his Instagram and Twitter (Now X) so that they all matched the album as a form of promotion. This is most commonly seen when promoting a album and usually means changing their profile picture, any links in their bios, on twitter they also have banners/headers. This usually is not changed for a while. This usually see's through to the album release and the following months until the artist decides to change it or in Harry's case, change it for the next album. This is a useful way to promote the album as anyone who is visiting his profile or even sees it in their suggested posts (Instagram) or their timeline (Twitter) will see that he is releasing an album and may grow their interest and make them want to learn more about Harry and his music. This can overall help boost sales, grow brand awareness and help the album trend.
When the album was release Harry posted a black and white image of him asleep with the caption "FINE LINE. THE ALBUM. OUT NOW. Link in Bio".
Using a post to inform followers and consumers to remind them that the album has been released is a quick way to get instant exposure and get listening figures up quickly as people will see this post and go and listen to the album.
Having a link in bio is helpful as it enables viewers to quickly find the album. This can help with the accessibility and usability of finding the music instead of having to search around for it.
This is the marketing structure Harry and his team have used on his Instagram and social media accounts. I will now be looking into Sabrina Carpenters Instagram and posts surrounding the release of her album Short N' Sweet to compare and see if they are similar.
Sabrina Carpenter
For her album Short N' Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter started by releasing the single "Espresso". Espresso was advertised on social media by posting a single cover saying that she wanted to put a song out before her performance at Coachella.
Espresso was repeatedly teased on Instagram and tiktok by Sabrina posting images and videos from the music video before it release. Her is the teaser trailer and social media posts.
(Carpenter, 2024)
Using posts such as teaser trailers and photos from filming can once again help intreige audiences and viewers and make them anticipate the release of a song or album.
Making fans wait and anticipate the album can boost streams, sales and help add to streaming statsitics ect.
Sabrina released another single called "Please Please Please" and followed the same structure of posting a teaser trailer where she walks into frame, kisses the camera and then the instrumental for the song plays.
A week or so later, she posts a short teaser trailer for the song and music video. This is relevant as using advertisments posted through social media is what I will be using as a marketing devise and this has been done throuought Sabrinas album release campaign.
(Carpenter, 2024)
Sabrina posted her album announcement on Instagram with the album cover and the back of the album with the caption "Short N' Sweet MY NEW ALBUM IS COMING OUT AUGUST 23rd!!! this project is quite special to me and i hope it'll be something special to you too.". As the back cover does not have a track list on - again there is no tracklist on it.
The post recieved 4 million likes and 34 thousand comments on instagram alone. I would say that for people aged 14-26, instagram is a main source of information so seeing a annoucement like this would be seen and responded to very well.
Sabrina's profiles on different platforms were updated to match the album. Sabrina is also more active on social media so does frequent posts. Because of this she has the important posts pinned and has highlights of her story posts.
Finally, when posting her announcement that the album is out, Sabrina put more of a heartfelt message explaining a bit about the album, her experience making it and the people she has worked with whilst creating the album.
I think that posting these final announcements can influence more people to listen to the album, buy the album, buy any merchandise, follow the artists social media accounts and overall increase the likeliness of success by engaging with fans.
I have found Sabrina's marketing interesting as it has felt more personal and actually more intriguing then having very simple and basic marketing and advertising. I think it feels more personalised and goes into significantly more detail than Harry Styles' social media marketing.
Taylor Swift
In terms of Taylor Swifts social media marketing for her most recent album "The Tortured Poets Department" there was not too many teasers. Any teasers or Easter eggs towards her able were done in her tour such as changing lyrics, wearing different things or doing different things.
Taylor announced the album on her Instagram with more cryptic phrases and writing.
The album announcement got 15 million likes which is the most amount of likes out of the 3 artisists I am looking at. I would say this is due to the duration of Taylors time in the music industry and how this has grown her overall brand awareness to consumers over the years.
Taylors social media followed the usual structure of changing the profile pictures, twitter headers and bios to the new album colour schemes.
I like the use of the colour schemes being used continuously in Taylors posts as I think his can help her viewers be more interested into what the album is and why the colours, fonts and styles are repeatedly being used. This one again helps boost Tayors sales and streams.
All images are from artists Instagrams
@harrystyles
@taylorswift
@sabrinacarpenter
Existing product Analysis - Album advertisement
Advertisements for albums are commonly seen as another marketing devise. I want to make as advertisement as they can reach further audiences which may not have been initially reached, this being by being posted on social media (instagram) but also being made for television and YouTube as in other artists campaigns this is where they would also be used. I will be looking at three different examples of album release adverts/album release promotional videos.
Pop Smoke
(POP SMOKE, 2021)
I was not familiar with Pop Smoke's album Faith however when searching for promotional adverts for albums this one was more like the vision that I initially had.
I liked how this showed viewers, what Pop Smokes life was like before and he explains how he has to grow to success and that you can't let anyone get in between that. I really like the idea of showing more of my artist home life and upbringing and having her do a voice over, over the top of this as I feel it would add to my contextual focus of my artist challenging nepotism and "industry plants" as it shows what her life is like and where she has come from ect.
Taylor Swift
(Speak, 2010)
For Taylor swifts album "Speak Now" she released this advert to advertise its sale at Target. The advert is comedic but also has a bit of reality. Taylor talks about growing up and the boy she liked and how she would go home to write songs about him and how that lead to her career.
I really like this format as it shows a past side and background to Taylor and is more personal. I like how she discusses her rise to popularity and how her life has changed whilst still keeping it light hearted for the audience.
This album advertisement will be a big influence to my overall advert.
Beyonce
(Beyoncé's Album "4" Target Commercial, 2011)
This is another target made album advertisement. It is for Beyonce's album 4 and shows her stop making music to go on a short break to observe others and gain inspiration for her new album. She then states that "what i saw inspired me to step back into the light".
The advert follows a slight documentary structure with Beyonce speaking over the top of B roll footage. I really liked this as I think it made it more cinematic and intriguing as a viewer.
I will definitely be taking inspiration from this.
Artist promotional magazine covers
I will be creating a album cover for Rolling Stone magazine. Rolling Stone is a leading music magazine which has been a leading magazine since the 60's. It was founded by Jann Wenner and had music critic Ralph Gleason. (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019) Rolling Stone started off being more catered to older people and having a target audience who enjoyed rock music. As time went on they changed their coverage to being more catered to younger audiences who were interested in many different music genres, film genres and also touched on more political and social events. I will be looking into different pop artists on the cover of Rolling Stone and also the theory's that support magazine covers.
(Oct, 2023)
(Amazon.co.uk, 2024)
(Amazon.co.uk, 2024)
As you can see from each of these magazine covers they all have different designs and layouts and I will be investigating each of these theory's. The first theory that comes with the design of magazines is Colour theory. Colour theory is how the colours are used, how they work with the product and how they make the viewer feel. For instance, for my album cover I have decided that I will be using shades of blue and purple as they colours have connotations of being clam, loyal, brave, creative and unique and these add to my contextual focus of Valentina being different from others in my mainstream media as she has no direct contacts to anyone in the industry and has worked tierously to get where she is. Colour harmony is then how the audience can understand this. For my album cover I want to have more of a bright, lifted look rather than a dark, cool look like my album cover.
Colour theory accounts for 3 main ideas, these are the use of the colour wheel, colour harmony and colour and temperature. (azuramagazine.com, 2023)
The colour wheel consists of the three primary colours and then how each colour mixes with another to get a tertiary colour. I have looked into the colours of the rainbow in my primary research to understand what I will be using in my album cover to infer to the audience Valentina's story and her determination for getting into the music industry.
Colour harmony is the way you can format colours and the overall look that ot gives. This is working out if colours are balenced, match well, work together well and the way they are sitting together. This overall effects how colours work together and how the effect the viewer. These are the different ways to use colours and how they work in harmony with one another to help the overall product.
The final aspect of colour theory is contrast and temperature. Contrast is the difference between the light and dark areas in images as well as the tone of the interview. Temperature is the difference between the warmth or coolness in an image. These two aspects of photography's are incredibly important as they effect the overall balance of an image and the way it looks. This image shows how temperature should be used in each scenario of images , for example, with sunsets, with fire, with rain ect.
(Partington, 2022)
(Bruna, 2021)
(Deguzman, 2022)
The use of these colour theory's is extremely important to my magazine cover as they will need to be used and used in balance to each other.
Looking at the 3 Rolling Stone covers, they each use three main colours. For the first one (Olivia Rodrigo), the use of black from her dress, red from her lipstick and the RS logo and white from the background is most prominent. The second one (Billie Eilish), the use of beige from the background, green from her trousers and yellow from her top is most prominent. For the third one (Harry Styles) the main colours are pink from the logo and his shorts, beige/cream from the background and his jacket and white from the text.
Next I will be looking at design theory for magazines.
(Perhiniak, 2020)
Here is the general design layout of a magazine. The layout is based around the image, the headline and other text such as a pull quote and intro.
Something else to consider is the white space, this is where there is a gap that has no image or text to fill the space. Magazines are generally pretty sleek and aren't cluttered with too much writing.
The layout has been done this way so that readers remain "engaged to stay on spread" (Perhiniak, 2020).
(Vidican, 2021)
Here we can see Vogue is the magazine master head, this is typically where the title of the magazine goes, so for me focusing on a music magazine this will the the rolling stone logo. It then needs a date of issue and the lead article as well as supporting cover lines. I may also need a barcode. I will use this for my magazine cover.
Track list Creation - Lyric Analysis and matching USP
As my EPQ is centred around conducting a marketing campaign for a new artist and the release of their album, I am not able to create my own music for this artist so I will be creating a track list of pop songs that match my contextual focus, my unique selling points and have them catered towards my target audience.
I have an idea of a range of pop songs that would match a few of my unique selling points for my artist. My main unique selling points are that I want my artist to be very open about coming from a working class background, having a life long life dream of making music and being a product of organic growth and success instead of being a nepo baby or industry plant. The more music related unique selling points would be making music that has a predominant target audience of teenagers and young adults but also have aspects that older people can like - eg making music for all to enjoy and finally making a cross pop genre album (eg using rock pop, country pop and electropop ect in one overall pop album) as this is rarely done.
When thinking about songs I could look into the first few that come to mind would be Hometown Glory - Adele as this song talks about where Adele grew up and how it hasn't changed since she has became successful. I will be conducting a lyric analysis on this.
Looking into artists such as Madonna, Madonna has been in the industry for over 40 years so has made music for what is now the older generation but millennials and Gen Z also enjoy her older music today. I could look into Madonna's songs such as Ray of Light which is still in the pop genre but has more of a electropop sound to it as well as the song mentioning"finding a universe" and feeling like your "home". This could link to how Valentina has wanted to get into the music industry and how now she is she feels like shes home. This is a way to include my cross genre pop selling point as well as music for a variety of age demographics.
After looking into these two songs I have now moved onto my unique selling point of it being a cross genre pop album. I wanted to look into using country pop songs as well as rock pop and electropop. I have started by looking at The Climb - Miley Cyrus. The Climb is a country pop song that discusses "about overcoming life's obstacles inspired by their personal struggles in the music industry" (Wikipedia, 2020) .
I have also conducted a lyric analysis on Mean - Taylor Swift. Mean is another country pop song and it discusses critism, bullying and wanting to make it big in the future. I though this was a good song to look into as the chorus says "someday I'll be living in a big old city and all your ever gonna be is mean" and I could relate this to the journey Valentina has come on and thing that she has faced to get where she is today.
After looking at the country pop songs, I have then moved onto electro pop and rock pop.
My electropop song was Rewind - Charli xcx, it is about looking back at how things used to be and the stand out verse from this song is "Used to burn CD's full of songs I didn't know, Used to sit in my bedroom putting polish on my toes, Recently I've been thinkin' bout a way simpler time, Sometimes I really think it would be cool to rewind". I though this was relevant to Valentina to again emphasis that she has built her way up in the industry and has come from a working class background and the lyrics show she is looking back on this time and does not forget this.
The other song I looked at was Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo. This is a pop punk/pop rock song that discusses been a teenager. Lyrics that stood out to me in this song were "Cause, who am I, if not exploited?" and I think this can relate to how younger artists which are more on the industry plant side of success are often exploited in the industry due to their popularity (for example, following One Direction success on X Factor they went on to release 5 albums in 5 years and did 4 tours which is pretty unseen in the music industry. This was beneficial for their managers and label as it meant they were bringing in a considerably large amount of money. This then lead to members of the band expressing how much pressure One Direction was and even had Liam Payne say "One Direction would have killed me"). This line would work well in Valentina's album as she has had to work hard for this success and that may mean having to do a lot of work to get there. Linking this to her marketing, I can show this on Valentina's Instagram by having her do lots of posts and lots of promotion to seem as though she is doing a lot o work to chase her dreams of becoming a singer and breaking the mold of being an industry plant or a nepo baby.
Unchained music said that "A standard album typically contains 8 to 15 songs, although this can vary by genre and artist preference. Albums are usually 30-60 minutes in length and serve as a comprehensive showcase of an artist's work " (Unchainedmusic.io, 2024). I will be adding in general pop songs which match with the conventions of pop music that do not have a lot of meaning but does match my contextual focus and my unique selling point of being enjoyable for different age demographics.
Overall the track list will be:
Hometown Glory (Originally Adele, released in 2008 - Pop/Alternative Pop/ Indie Pop)
Ray of Light (Originally Madonna, released in 1998 - Pop)
The Way (featuring Mac Miller) (Originally Ariana Grande and Mac Miller, released in 2013 - Pop/R'n'B influences)
The Climb (Originally Miley Cyrus, released in 2009 - Pop/ country pop)
Popular Song (Featuring Mika) (Originally Ariana Grande and Mika, released in 2012 - Pop/Dance pop/ musical inspiration)
Rewind (Originally Charli XCX, released in 2024 - Pop/ Electropop/ Dancepop)
As (featuring George Micheal) (Originally Mary J. Blige and George Micheal, released in 1998 - Pop/R'n' B)
Landslide (Originally Fleetwood Mac, released in 1975 - Folk Rock) (not a pop song however is slow)
Brutal (Originally Olivia Rodrigo, released in 2021 - Pop/Pop punk/Pop Rock)
Here with Me (Originally Dido, released in 1999 - Pop/Electropop/Dance pop)
Mean (Originally Taylor Swift, released in 2010 - Pop/Country pop)
The title album is going to be "i think i'm dreaming" as I want it to be clear that my artist has worked hard to get where she is and being a successful pop star is a dream and she has made it in the industry. I have not used capitals as I think that this visually looks softer and provides more of a shy feeling. This could be beneficial as it shows that my artist is grateful for how the success has grown and how much of a change to life this has been. At the moment I have no album cover so have just used a mock up font design I made in my action research using Photoshop.
Poster Inspiration
As I will be creating a tour poster and a album poster I will be looking into 3 different examples of each to see what works well, what I like and what I think I may add to my posters or change them.
As I have looked at Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift as they were the most popular in my survey I will be continuing to look at their print marketing.
All images are from artists Instagram accounts
@harrystyles
@taylorswift
@sabrinacarpenter
A key feature that is seen in every tour poster would be the artists name and the title of the tour. Only Sabrina's tour title is the name of her album where as the other two tours have specific names. I like the use of the album name as the tour title as I believe that it is clear to anyone who would like to go to a live show or go on the tour that she will be predominantly singing songs from that album. When creating my tour poster I will most likely be using the albums name as the album will be my artists debut album.
Another feature that is seen on the tour posters would be where these dates would be for. For example, Harry's are for North America, Sabrina's and for Europe and Taylors are international. I think that this is clear advertising as follows can see these posters on social media and establish quickly if they would be able to go due to location. For instance, I wouldn't see Harry's announcement and look further into dates as I do not live in North America however I might for Sabrina's tour or Taylors tour. This is beneficial when marketing as there can be clear targets to different areas and demographics.
Another feature would be the use of images. Sabrina's advert uses a single picture of herself, Harry's advert uses a single picture of a boot but Taylors does not have any images. On her past tour announcements there has been but this one is strictly dates and locations. I like Sabrina's as I think it is emphasises to the viewer that this is her moment to shine and it is a very exciting moment for a artist who has had a major increase in support recently. I will be using an image of my artist in my tour poster as I think that this would match Valentina's brand.
Next I will be looking at album promotions.
(sam, 2021)
(zhora marjorie, 2024)
(X (formerly Twitter), 2024)
From what I have researched into print advertising using posters and billboards for albums they are usually kept very simple and use the cover of the album predominantly. These examples are from tube stations and a train station. I could only find an example for fine line but I could not find any images of advertisements for Short N' Sweet and 1989.
These examples are of Fine Line, Brat by Charli XCX and the live edition of Louis Tomlinson's album Faith in the Future. All of the posters use the album cover and also say "new album". I think the most visually pleasing would be the one for Fine Line. I would say this is due to the font, the placement of the font and the critics stars at the bottom. I think it is organised and clear as well as intriguing as you want to see who the stars are from.
The poster for Louis' live album is also interesting as I like the use of the blurred black and white effect. If I did my poster similar to this there would be a good opportunity for me to have more testing with using effects and making alterations on Photoshop, instead of simply adding in an image, different font and altering the placement.
The poster for Brat is extreamly simple but it is exactly the same as the album cover. For my album and poster I want to do more than just the album cover.
Use of Props
Props in my album cover are essential to adding any other connotations or links to my contextual focus and unique selling points. A reminder of what these are for my project :
Contextual focus: To have understand the difference between "nepo babies" ,"industry plants" and artists with organic growth and success in the music industry.
Unique Selling Points: Having my artist come from a working class family who live in a more rural area, making a cross pop genre album and having the music be enjoyable to older people as well as younger people rather than having one specific target audience.
I have thought of a range of way I can use mise en scen and props to allude to these points. I have created a mood board to show what I may use or reference and why I have used them.
(Lavender, 2020) (the Guardian, 2017) (Npr.org, 2019) (Very.co.uk, 2021) (Walker, 2024) (Wikipedia, 2019)
When taking my album cover photos I will use shades of blue and purple as I have previously looked into the meaning of these colours and the symbolism shown.
On this mood board I have given reasons for why I have taken inspiration from these images and what they may link between my context, USP and the aesthetic of it.
YouTube Tutorials
As my main technical focus is to improve my editing skills using Photoshop specifically, I have used YouTube to find out more about what I can do with my editing and how I make and use certain effects and techniques. As I am very open to ideas I have began by typing certain phrases into YouTube such as "font editing beginner in Photoshop" and "How to make music tour posters in photoshop". These are the findings, I will share my opinions of these provisional ideas and decide weather I think using these techniques would be beneficial to my marketing campaign and my branding for Valentina Winslow.
Due to my lack of experience using Photoshop, following any tutorial and simply using photoshop is quite difficult. In my last project I focused on improving my use of effects in after effects and by the end of it I felt a lot more confident with using after effects for video editing, I aim for this to work the same for my use of Photoshop.
(P A N T E R, 2023)
I want to have interesting font for my posters as I think that in my exisiting product analysis, the marketing directors get too use to simply using whatever was used in the album. Whilst I will be following this aspect slightly, I also want to have a bold and interesting headline or title or name. When looking for different text effects of photoshop I searched around for any that I thought looked interesting. And i thought that this one would work for that. I liked how the letters were bold but also grainy. I felt as though if I used this I could relate it to how Valentina's life recently "has been a blur" as a lot has changed. I think that this would add to my overall contextual focus and my objectives.
Next I have researched into how to use Photoshop for creating "band flyers" or tour posters as this will come in hand when I am creating my physical tour posters. The style of this image is not what I typically will be creating as this is more of a poster for a gig instead of a poster for a tour. I will take inspiration from this and see what else I can use.
Visually I love how this flyer looks however I think this would work better for a rock band or for a gig at a small rock venue, rather than a arena tour for a pop album.
(Envato Tuts+, 2023)
(Tim Harris Video AI, 2023)
Understanding how to use the generative fill option would help my work progress into further use of photoshop as this is a newer tool which could help my work be to a better quality.
I may find the use of using generative fill useful as this can expand any images I take and help them match any formats of posters or Instagram posts.
This looks easy enough to use and intrigues me to find out how this works and if there are any beneficial images.
Academic research and Marketing Theory's
Academic research is more detailed than any other form of research. This is because it can range from articles to case studies to books and backed up theories. They are academic as they are usually written by someone who has a degree in that subject. I will be using google scholar and google books to find degree level essays, studies and articles on music marketing and marketing theories.
Google Scholar
By searching music marketing into google scholar, this was one of the results that came up. It is from 2009 which does mean that it is a fair bit outdated but I can use this to my advantage and infer what marketing was like in the past and how that differs from today.
I found this article extremely useful as it says specifically it is about music marketing but it opens by covering very basic definitions of marketing features and then moves more into how they are applied in music. Another aspect of this book that I like is that whilst it is clear about what it will be discussing and talks about these points in detail, it also keeps it simple and easy to understand.
It outlines clearly an "effective marketing plan". It says that the components of a successful marketing plan for a musician or artists would be: an effective artist and album description, target audience and demographics, press, online and video, distribution and retail, radio, tour, advertising and promotional merchandise. This is helpful as I will be using a range of these different marketing techniques for my music campaign including artist and album description, target audience, tour, advertising and press. This article goes into detail regarding examples off these, how they work well and who has used this well. Going forward I will refer back to this article as a slight checklist for my work and research.
I found this book on google books. I looked into the different chapters and what they included and searched for any information that I was missing. One of these chapters was about social media marketing. My main findings were that the use of using social media for marketing has steadily been increasing and is expected to continue increasing over the next number of years. This is beneficial to my marketing campaign as this means that any form of promotion for my album or overall marketing of my artist t will need to be done in a way which follows trends and codes and conventions of social media marketing. This could be by using song teasers begore release, posting the album cover without any titles or track lists before the album comes out or being very vocal about being grateful for support.
Something else that I learnt about social media marketing that will effect my campaign is that the use of social media makes it easier for growing international markets and demographics. This is once again due to using and following trends. Growing my market will help overall as this can influence new potential consumers to listen to Valentina's music and learn more about her and her story.
There are many useful chapters and paragraphs surrounding maintaining use of brand awareness through social media.
One issue that I have faced over the course of my academic research is that whilst using google scholar to find recourses that are relevant to my contextual focus, I will find something and then when I go onto it I am unavailible to view it for free. There is always other things for me to look at but sometimes thay are not as specific then I would hope.
Action Research
There are plenty of practical skills that I want to use going forward. My technical focus is predominantly my editing using specifically After Effects and Premier pro. I have a range of marketing devices that I want to use for my campaign so I firstly want to create the album itself, an advert for the albums release, a social media account and print marketing such as a poster for the album and a magazine with Valentina on the cover.
In my advert for the album I would like to use After Effects to add visual effects to shots and edit it on Premiere Pro, so far this year I have been growing my After Effects usage to help myself feel more confident using it in my work and also have some really creative shots. Creating the album cover and artwork and the print marketing will be where I can grow my usage of Photoshop. I have only used Photoshop a few times and I have found it quite confusing to use but I want to learn more about it and create detailed posters that are similar to what would be seen in common posters and magazines.
Camera test, Lighting test and mock up tour poster
My whole advertising and marketing campaign in centered around the release of a highly anticipated debut album for my artist "Valentina Winslow" as well as an upcoming tour. I have two main tasks where I will need to use photography and then photoshop, these are when making my album cover and any additional cover art and also my posters, I would also like to make a magazine cover but this is not one of my priorities as the other tasks are essential.
I have done very limited photography in the past and have only really ever focused on video editing. I have touched on different camera settings such as exposure, shutter speed and white balance. I conducted a camera test as I need to establish if I will be using a standard cannon DSLR or my iPhone 11. In my past project I have not used my phone as I always used a camera but I want to ensure that images from the camera are the best quality and will give me the best final image and effect overall.
As I am making a mock up tour poster using Photoshop, I have taken the same images on the cannon and also on my phone so that I can compare the two before beginning my poster.
Canon DSLR
There are the two main poses I have experimented with for my poster - having one of what will be Valentina looking back at a crowd and the second one of her performing (this will be done by having her holding a microphone, letting the crowd finish off lyrics).
These pictures were taken on the Canon camera and I tested using the flash and adjusting the white balence. When I take these into Photoshop I will be changing the colours and lighting regardless however it is good in the raw image to have it more defined and similar to the changes that I will make.
I like the look of the images using the camera as I think they focus on the subject of the image well and doesn't try to make everything in the image itself look good, unlike the iphone camera. I like the one where she is facing the front and it has the flash on as in my opinion it seems more professional and more like a image you would actually see on a poster.
iPhone 11
It was only when I uploaded these images that I really noticed the difference between the two. The camera really focusses on the subject where as the iPhone does not. I think that the quality is not as high in comparison to the camera and using images taken o my iPhone for more technical aspects such as my poster, album cover and potential magazine will lack quality and the definition of these images.
I again tested different settings such as bringing down the lighting and focusing on my friend in the shot but overall I do not think using my phone would be beneficial in my EPQ.
Lighting test
(test , 2024)
As the use of colour filters/lights will be used highly in my project and are a necessity for my projects success. I have created a lighting test using 3 different cameras to again back up what camera is best to use and which one reacts well to the light filter and the overall effect this has on my viewer.
I also played around with moving images as I may want to use this in my advertising campaign.
In this camera and lighting test, I think that the Sony camcorder works well with the lights however the quality of it is not as good as the Canon camera.
Due to the quality of my images I had already taken on my phone I have completely ruled out using my phone as I do not think this would be suitable for my video. This has reinsurred me that the Cannon DSLR is the best choice.
This was my mock up design of my tour poster. I used the images used from my camera test. I really liked how I created a silhouette with these images. I did this by lowering the contrast, temperature and the lightness down. I think that this would be something to experiment with going forward.
I liked how I had put in the tour dates and locations. I felt as though I did need to do more work on this and change it as there was something missing. The text is very plain and there is no definition this makes it look very plain and 2D. I want to alter this as I want there to be more background and make it seem more as if the text is floating instead of just being put on the poster.
The poster itself is extremely simple and at the moment does not link in anyway to my artist and her brand image.
The reason this was very simple and not that interesting was that this was my first proper attempt at using Photoshop after conducting my primary and secondary research. I was using my mock up tour poster to get myself used to using photoshop and playing around with layers, colour settings, shadows and moving images.
To make my tour poster more relevant to Valentina Winslow, I will use colours that are seen in the album cover and aesthetic (blues and purples). This can help the brand awareness as this grows consumers knowledge into who she is and what her album is (like Charli xcx and her album brat - people are aware of it through the use of colour for the album and the marketing done for it). I want to experiment more with the text and use the video that I found on the blurred grainy text effect to symbolize how life at the moment is a bit of a blur.
There is a lot that I want to improve on and make better in this poster and I will take this forward into my production.
The next thing I will be working on will be my logo for my artist.
Logo design
(Wikimedia.org, 2022) (Nocookie.net, 2024) (hescreature, 2021) (Louis Tomlinson Merch, 2024) (Nohat.cc, 2022) (Wikimedia.org, 2012) (Wikimedia.org, 2012) (Logos-world.net, 2023)
For many different artists, they do not have a "logo" however they will have a specific way that their name is formatted and used on albums, merchandise, social media and any products that are related to them. This can often change due to different album release aesthetics here are a few examples.
When conducting my secondary research I looked found a text effect on YouTube that I thought add character, dimension and would also fit in well with my brand (of Valentina feeling as though everything is a bit of a blur and it is a dream".
I have tested this editing effect here and tried it in different colours, field blur depth level, any colours and then when using the filter gallery - testing different filters.
I like the first version as it is subtle and still is intriguing to the viewer as it is not just a simple font as it has more interesting visuals.
My favourite out of the 4 potential logos would be the top left as it is clear and easy to red by also has definition which makes it interesting. I like the level of blur on it as its not too difficult to read but is more detailed then simply having the text.
I will take this forward and have plans to use my logo on my tour poster, album poster and social media.
Now I have completed all of my research I will begin to do my practical work.
Final product research
After shooting I have begun to edit my album cover. I have made two versions of the front cover as in one version I used capital letters and one I did not. I hadn't used capital letters as I wanted it to reflect on how my artist was shy, humble and at a disbelief of how her life has changed and has led up to her releasing her debut album. As well as I personally liked how it looked visually and felt it would appeal to younger audiences more due to a lot of "Gen Z" people (aged 12-28) using no capitals on social media ect. I asked a small selection of people as one of my teachers did not like the use of no capital letters. These are the two versions of my front cover with and without capitals for the title and the results of my survey.
My first option of no capitals succeeded with capitals by gaining 12 votes for it.
The second option of no capitals only received 4 votes so it is clear that people prefer without capital letters
I also asked for any initial feedback or thoughts on my cover so far.
Overall people commented on the use of capitals the most. Some people said they preferred the capitals and some people said they preferred no capitals as it looked more "sleek".
During self reflection I want to also adjust the logo for Valentina's name as I think it doesn't work as well with the title font which I quite like. I will be experimenting with different fonts and styles on Photoshop. I think that the use of the logo I have created is almost too hard and needs to be softer to match
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