Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

We successfully combined all 3 of our media products - album, website and music video - and their ancillary texts in a synergistic way in order to appeal to our TA and also gratify their needs and expectations for the brand.

What is the role of an album cover/music video/website?

The role of a music video is to promote a single and represent a particular genre showing how the artist fits into this category through, for example, costume and characteristics. The album is there to, usually, promote a tour/concert and collect revenue from the consumers. Whereas, website provides a central hub for the audience to find out all the information they need including links to every media product and it also creates a community for the primary TA (fans of the genre) where they can subscribe to news, comment on,share and view videos and images of the artist.

We needed to create a website, music video and album which incorporated connectivity, repetition and consistency in order to promote an artist duo, MiraJax, where its foundations are all working in harmony. 

STAR IDENTITY:

Marketing Theory states that:

"When the audience is not interested in the person, product or service being promoted, they will not seek out any information about them."

Therefore firstly, we wanted to make sure we had a solid artist identity for MiraJax which would attract the likes of our target audience. In order to get inspiration for ways we could achieve this, we read up on Richard Dyer's 'star theory' which I have outlined in detail in the Prezi below:

           
         
In order to get some inspiration for our own artist's star identity, we researched Rihanna who we thought had a similar persona as we wanted to achieve with Mira. I have created a slideshow presentation of a case study on Rihanna's star identity below:

       
     
So we constructed MiraJax through their characteristics as personable members of society that the audience can relate to but also be inspired by. Here are a few of the key factors we established in their star identity:

Down-to-earth, relatable and "not entirely fictional" - 

This is a screen-grab taken from our news page on our website

• We want our audience to feel comfortable with MiraJax as they share things in common with them. We did this by presenting them as Londoners as well as youths.
• It is important that the audience sees them as real life people, not as simply an imaginable pair constructed by the music industry. We created a meet and greet, which is advertised on our website, for fans to meet their idols in the flesh. The meet-up is in London in order to appeal to the fans from London also, and to stick to the Londoner persona. 
• We also achieved this by creating a BTS video on our narrative shoot day for audiences to watch and feel like they know MiraJax more after, essentially encouraging a relationship with them. 

Inspirational individuals who represent moral and empowering ideas - 

• The lyrics to their track Best Be Believing and the stories shown in their music video both promote happiness, colourful personalities, freedom and reaching your goals.



A tweet from MirJax's official twitter page

• This is relatable to the younger end of our primary TA of 16-24 year olds who are probably living at home or may experience restrictions in relationships which our video particularly focuses on. 

SYNERGY:

I did some research on Disclosure, as they are a duo and I found out how they market their combination of media products in a synergised way. Below have summed up my research in a powerpoint:

      

Below I have created a diagram including some examples of how we have made our album cover, music video and website synergised across various platforms.

As you can see, we have successfully achieved an overall marketing campaign for our 3 main products which is connected by its individual incorporated features.

THE WEBSITE:

Andrew Dubber suggests that a website is a place where people gather and connect with an artist and people aim to socialise, listen to music, talk about music and connect with other people about that music and more. 

Tim O'Reilly suggests that a Web 2.0 website may allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue. 

Marketing theory also suggests that the website is, more often than not, at the centre of the marketing campaign, connecting all the products together via a central hub. 

Our website provides an effective central hub which holds all the information our audience need and connects them to all our ancillary texts as well as allowing them to engage with the stars. As well as this, it is visually synergised with our other ancillary texts allowing them all to work in harmony in a stream-lined marketing process.

I have demonstrated this in a presentation below:

In conclusion, the combination of our main product and ancillary texts work in synergy and each individually create a successful brand/basis for our artists to grow from.