Evaluation Question 1Section 2

My promotional package uses, develops and challenges forms of conventions of real media products. Through various researching processes, I found the codes and conventions of a promotional package for an artists album. To attract my target audience and for them to like my package, I used some of these typical conventions in my ancillary products.

Much like AM, there is a main, well known logo for their album. It is the iconography for this album. The purpose of this logo is so that the audience can easily recognise the logo anywhere they go if they see it. For people who don't know the artist, but know the logo can still recognise it. This is a good strategy for marketing and distribution because it gets the audience to memorise a simple logo/symbol, even if they don’t mean to and they remember what it's for and where they’ve seen it. And if it sticks in their brain, they might have the urge to then buy the album to see what it's all about.

Unlike the AM album, this advert is very colourful and eye-catching. The Arctic Monkeys advert and the album too, went for a simplistic approach. Their colours were simple, their text was simple and as a whole, their promotional package was simple. But it works. Nowadays, minimalism works better than an intricate, attractive composition. I chose to go against that, which although my target audience prefers, I felt that for my promotional package, it didn't work the same. My video is too colourful and I needed ancillary products that supported that.

By having a release date, that attracts the specific fans of the artist more, because they are willing to wait and get excited for a countdown if you like. Many fan groups on social media networks like and get a buzz from having countdowns for new albums or anything. For Arctic Monkeys, they have a much wider fan group than Flux Pavilion, because they're so well known. This strategy wouldn't work as well for my album because the artist isn't as popular and widely known to the world.

Similar to the advert I researched and analysed, I used a simple but bold text for my advert. I used the words 'new album' to generate excitement and urgency to the album. Arctic Monkeys used the same tactic for their album advert. I chose to advertise that the album was 'out now'. AM chose to advertise a date for release. I thought that if I said it was out now that would attract the audience more because they are able to purchase it straight away.

Similar to the Arctic Monkeys album advert, I have the artist's name clearly written as well as the logo of the band/album. This is to make it clear whose album the advert is for. I felt this was a good idea after consideration because without the actual name it would confuse the audience, especially people who have never heard of them before. I therefore felt that I had to include the artist's name.

When it came to the disc design I wanted something simple, but effective at the same

time. I researched a few different disc designs and looked at the codes and conventions of

them to see what mine needed to have on it. I found that they would either have one image or pattern on it or just a plain colour, and then

they could either have the track list on it or not. I felt that my audience would benefit

from having the track list on the disc because after all the music is the main

focus of the whole album. Therefore the track list was an easy way of outlining that by putting it not only on the case, but the

content (disc) as well. I also chose to have the main logo and the artists name on the disc. Because they are part of the iconography of

the artist, I felt that they should be a big portion of the digipak. The sky picture is the

right way on the disc, but upside down on the digipak. I wanted to do this to disorientate the middle panel and make the disc stand out from

the case.

The research for my digipak was very useful because it gave me good ideas of what I could do for my imagery. This particular digipak that I researched used a long sunset image across the inside panels. I really liked this idea and was thinking of ways I could incorporate it within my ancillary product. This digipak of Albert Hammond Jr. used this image on the inside panels, I wanted to have this imagery on the outside. Because it is the main unique selling point of my promotional package, I thought that it would be a fascinating idea to have the sunset wrap around the whole thing when it’s folded.

It keeps the digipak quite enclosed and doesn’t show off any hints of what is inside. It looks like just a simple design but then you can open it

up and have an insight to what is in the video and the style of the whole thing. I think with the one I researched they wanted their audience to open it and be amazed by the huge sky, not expecting it. I wanted my

audience to be drawn to the idea of the sky and want to hold it and see what it is and what is inside. Another convention I found was that they

had all the information on the outside of the digipak, so when you pick it up you can read all about it, then the inside is very

minimalistic. I think they did this for their own purpose for their audience but I wanted to have a simplistic

approach to mine too. I think this research was very valuable to me because I saw what conventions there

are in digipaks and what I needed to aim for.