Evaluation -Question 2

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

For my media coursework I was asked to produce a promotional package for the release of an album, this included my main media text which was a music video for a song of my choice, the only requirement was that it couldn’t already have an existing video. This promotional package also included a cover for the songs release on CD and a magazine advert advertising the CD.

As an encoder of media texts, planning of your products is extremely important, focusing on who is your target audience and which reading the decoder takes from the text. I planned my music video and my ancillary texts separately, so how I created my video drove the design of my ancillaries. I found this useful as after producing my music video I could concentrate on how I was going to intertextualy link both the video and the ancillaries. Even though I found this useful if I was to start my project again from the beginning I would try to have a basic plan of all three texts and then adapt them over time if needed. Having the music video determine the ancillaries gave my a clearer idea of what sort of image I needed on my CD cover, especially after bringing in my previous research on common forms and conventions of Owl City’s previous CD covers. My video was produced as concept based, using a childlike paradigm, because of this I thought it best to carry this concept based idea through to my ancillary texts to intertextualy link them with my main task and to provide a brand image.

Within my music video the use of semiotics and key signs of the childlike paradigm are apparent throughout, I wanted to permeate these key signs into my ancillary texts to continue this ideology. To do this I have used an image of a toy racetrack in both my ancillary texts, this creates a childlike impression and provides the decoder with a clue of what the music video may contain. The use of the racetrack was used as it is predominantly featured within my video and the use of continuing this image onto my ancillary texts provided cohesion between my ancillaries and the music video. Providing a relationship between the three media texts provides Intertextuality within my media product and therefore creates a clear understanding for the decoder. The CD cover and the magazine advert are linked through the use of similar images on both texts. These images contain semiotic properties related to the music video providing the decoder with a connection between the two ancillary texts and the main media product. The magazine advert also contains a copy of the album’s front cover which firmly anchors the link between the two texts.
The purpose of the two ancillary tasks is to support and promote the main media text. The CD cover and the magazine advert with the video provide the audience with a brand image and should intertextualy link so the decoder can see the relationship between the 3 texts. The adverts’ purpose is to increase brand and consumer awareness of the specific artist; it should be aimed at the main target audience of the artist but should also be placed where others outside of this niche audience may also see the advertisement to gain potential consumers. This is why I feel to receive successful impact I would place an advert of my CD on TV and online, as my target audience is quite young the majority of these people will watch TV as my audience would see the advert between programmes. As a lot of the media industry has taken a shift from TV media to the internet I think this would be another useful place to advertise my media product, especially as my target audience is the prime age of internet users, I would advertise my CD cover on a music magazine website, which would probably be NME magazine and also a social networking site, such as facebook as this is a typical webpage visited almost daily by the majority of my target audience. For my paper based advert I would place it in several women’s based magazines, rather than a specific music magazine this is because, pretty much every single successful, music magazine in the UK is predominantly aimed at men, with an average age of 35 which is the complete opposite of my target audience so I feel this would be a lot of money spent with very little impact. This is why advertising my advert in women’s lifestyle magazines would be better such as cosmopolitan the most popular women’s magazine in the UK with their target audience being 15 – 27 so providing me with a great opportunity to reach a lot of my target audience. I would place my advert on the back cover of the magazine, even though this is the most expensive advert placement I feel it would be well worth the money as the reason it is the most expensive is because it gets the most attention. If I placed my advert in these places I feel it would successfully enhance awareness and sales of my CD. The purpose of the CD cover is to provide the audience with an expectation of what to expect from the video as it should reflect the content of the music video. The decoder will already begin to take a meaning from the text without even watching the video, and if the CD cover is effective will cause the audience to want to watch the video.

I feel the combination of my three media texts works well as there is an obvious cohesion between all three media texts, intertextualy linking together to provide an overall brand image for the decoder. I feel there is a good relationship between the three texts as the images I have used on my CD cover and magazine advert are that of the toy racetrack which features throughout my video and also provides the decoder with the general expectation of the use of toys in the video. To improve the connection between all three texts I feel planning all three together before starting would have provided a more obvious link even if It was just a rough plan that could be amended over time, however I felt it was easier to produce the ancillaries after producing the music video as It gave me a clear sense of what needed to be featured on both of the texts. The results from my audience feedback show that they also found a clear link between all three texts and that it was a creative choice of CD cover and magazine advert that gave a more unique impression.

If I was to start this project again I would have set myself harder goals, with my own strict deadlines to make sure that my project was finished early so if there were any last minute changes I would have plenty of time to adjust whatever I needed. I would also spend more time planning as it would have made the project go a lot smoother and I may not have needed to start again like I did with this project, as I under estimated my initial ideas of using The Fray’s song and realised it was to complex. I feel research and planning of a product are absolutely key to any successful media text, but overall I am happy with all three of my media products and how they work together and from my audience feedback my target audience were also impressed so I feel I have succeeded with this media project.