Evaluation question 2

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

As well as producing a music video, we also produced a website and magazine cover and advert. These were two media texts that are essential in creating an effective brand, as the advert needs to attract people to the band and the video, so without advertising the song/video would never be seen to fully recognized.

"A good brand delivers the message/ genre/ ideology/ subculture clearly, and confirms your credibility as an artist" – I believe that through the combination of our website and magazine pages we achieved each of these different aspects.

Firstly we created the ‘unofficial owl city’ website, this website had to ‘sell’ the artist to their target audience and look professional and not out of place compared to other websites so we researched other websites first, we looked at:

· The layout of different websites / artistic or unique aspects

· Different sections that need to be included / information within those sections
· What colours / pictures / conventions are present within certain genres

We needed our website to look professional but at the same time fit with the message that owl city put across, which is a very happy, feel good message. This would ensure that it appealed to our target audience. The headings we used on our website provide a similar purpose to subtitles and the information each subtitle holds is good as it provides additional information on the artist which helps with the process of commodification as the video sells Adam’s or Owl city’s creative side, and the website provides information on him making him look cool or desirable.

The headings for our website had to be as realistic and professional as possible in order to make the whole website realistic and believable so we used headings that many other official band websites used, allowing our target audience members easy access to information on him. The use of a quite artistic yet interesting and happy background keeps in running with the rest of Owl city’s image and does not look out of place when put together with other media’s he employs such as obviously music, music video, magazine covers and social networking pages such as MySpace.
So overall the website works as a back-up tool for his music and videos, providing information and sometimes additional images behind the artist to reinforce their star image. I also feel that one of the most effective marketing tools on the website is the virtual iPod in the bottom corner as this would enable someone to hear or see the music video to ‘Hot air balloon’ go on his website, then listen to other songs by him, perhaps encouraging them to purchase some of his music.

Our second ancillary text was a magazine cover / advertisement using the popular music magazine NME (New musical express); we chose this media form as it is highly successful in marketing and advertising bands and videos to the public and is a hugely recognized image / brand.
Our research involved looking at music magazines such as NME and Q to establish such factor as:
· The text / information included on the page
· The balance of imagery and text
· Short slogans or phrases that get the point across

Our front page cover design for NME was to advertise an interview within the magazine and to basically advertise Owl City as a brand or a commodity to the readers of NME. We looked at previous magazine covers and designed our own which works effectively with our video as it attracts audience attention towards the magazine and especially Owl city which will then direct them onto the music video itself, so the magazine is almost a catalyst to start a chain reaction ending in the viewing of our music video.

The advert we created was intended to be spread over an entire page or possibly half a page and it is purely to market the band, the song 'Hot air balloon' and the video that accompanies it. Before we had the idea for what the advert would look like we looked through loads of magazines such as NME, Q, Kerrang in order to take inspiration from other adverts and see what kind of things were included in them.
I believe that this advert is really effective as it is simple, effective and informative. It does not take the viewer a long time to comprehend and it gets the point across. Another good thing about it is that it encompasses the idea of the video itself, its a photo of a still image, but this time the still image is on an iPod touch instead of printed off.

The ancillary texts that we created in addition to our music video have helped turned Owl city into a desirable of commercially popular product or commodity. The logo we produced was simple and effective in that it got the name of the band across in a simple and stylish manor while creating a point of interest and inviting people to research ‘Owl city’ where they would find the website and possibly the magazine pages that would provide them with loads of information and images to further the commodification of Owl city. The simple contrast between black and white is striking to the audience and catches the readers eye. The magazine is especially good at advancing the idea of commodification as it features many world class artists not just one (such as the website) so the fact Owl city are in there makes a big statement about how good they must be musically as magazines would focus purely on his music and videos rather than his life and background.

The fact that we produced two different media texts; our magazine cover and advertisement and our website shows we have utilized synergy as a strategy. I feel that it worked brilliantly and that both of our ancillary media products worked well in promoting and advertising our main media product, furthermore it did it in a very professional and successful manor while still retaining artistic and visual merit.