Advert

Peter Tosh - Equal Rights

This is a poster for Peter Tosh's Album "Equal Rights". This poster is very simple, with the Artists name, album name, record label, and a simple picture on a plain background. This design assures that they key information can be easily taken in by the audience in a short amount of time, something that is crucial for an advert. Also the bold black and red fonts that contrast the plain light background assure that the eye is immediatly drawn to them. Whilst the black connotes power and status, and the red has rastafarian (large influence on Reggae) connotations, being one of the colours in the Etheopian flag. The large centralised image of the artist gives the instant recognition and promotion of the album to the audeince.It creates a King-like image for the artist, idolising them, something that many of the target audeince will also do.

Bob Marley and The Wailers - One Love

This advert is of Bob Marley and the Wailers promoting the single "One Love". The initial eye catching element of this advert is the image of the artist, which is very central and covering a large proportion of the advert, connoting his fame and enticing the audience to read further. Also, the use of the guitar, and concert atmosphere created by the dark background and energetic pose of the artist signifies elements of live music, a social event that appeals greatly to the young outgoing target audience of Bedouin Soundclash. The song title is in a large, bold, white font which is made easily visbable against the black background, as promoting the song is the key aim of the advert. Also the positioning of the artists name at the top of the page gives it extra emphasis as this is naturally one of the first places looked at.

Advert 1

Good points

On this design I like the idea of both, the night and day sky's mixed together, giving a visual reference to the title "When The Night Feels My Song", increasing the visual impact the advert has. Also another good point is the bright colour scheme, with the green, yellow and blues, which all give joyfull connotations relating to the "happy walking" idea of the video. These colours will stand out in a magazine and make the advert eye catching, something very important in the role of adverts.

One more point I like about this is the positioning of the text, it is all in the same place, highly contrasted by the bright green background. This means that all of the important information such as band, title, and release date will be observed at once, assuring no important information is missed.

Points to improve

I think that perhaps this advert doesn't have enough aspects that the youthful target audeince of Bedouin Soundclash will be able to instantly relate to. Although it is a very picturesque design, at first glance it may appeal to a different audience as I feel that walking on beautiful hills isn't an everyday activity for the audience of bedouin Soundclash. To imporve this I could include some game, music, and general everyday objects that relate to the target audience of Bedouin Soundclash, as I have done on my second design.

Advert 2

Good points

As I mentioned above, this image, at first glance I feel has a greater visual appeal to Bedouin Soundclash's target audience. This is due to the dark room, with a games controller, ash tray, and CD on the window seal as these are all items that are likely to play an everyday role in the 16-24 year old target audience's lives.

Another good point is the use of red, green, and yellow on the text as these are the colours that are largly associated with reggae. This will also give the targe audience instant recognition that the genre being promoted is largly reggae.

Also, the language in the advert such as "Exclusive" and "Smash Hit" give the digipak prestige and makes the audience feel as if they are getting something special for thier money.

Points to improve on

Although it is hard to draw the required font, I think that this advert needs to have a slightly bolder title to assure that the page stands out in the magazine. Also the font used for the text in the lower half should be more striking and interesting, perhaps graffiti sprayed on the bedroom wall.

Advert 3

Good points

This advert includes an orange graffiti font as the title which is very bold and striking against the plain white background. This plain white background gives emphasis to the graffiti style font as it gives the effect of a blank canvas. This signifies the art of graffiti, which is very popular amoung the young, predominatly urban target audeince of bedouin soundclash.

The short, minimalistic use of text such as "OUT NOW" mean that the advert is quick and easy to read, increasing the chance of the reader remembering they key aspects, and therefore increasing the chance that they will go and buy the digipak.

Points to be improved

However, I do feel that this advert lacks some colour diversity, perhaps not in the plain white background, but in the orange used for all of the text. To really give it a graffiti look I think that more bold colours should be used, similar to the look of a real graffiti wall.

Another problem that I came across on this advert is that it doesnt match any of my digipak designs. This is important as the advert is promoting the digipak and therefore must be largly similar, to give recognition to the audience.

Actual advert

For my actual advert I took inspiration from my flat plans but did not follow them to any great extent. This is becuase after finishing my flat plans I saw the opportuninity for the image used, and thought that it would be more effective. However, I still used my flat plans as a guide on text, colour and composition.

I chose this image as I feel that it sums up the concept of our music video well and therefore will have good promotion values for the album which has the video on it. It shows the character from the video (member of the band) looking out into the open, which symbolises the journey that he takes in our video.

I have changed the colour of the image to give it the blue/green colour as it is unusual and will stand out, whilst also giving the image an overall soft look, reflecting the happy walking theme to the video.

The text that I have used for "Bedouin Soundclash" is the same as the text on my digipak as this will help the audience recognise the digipak after viewing the advert. Again, the text has a graffiti look to it which will stand out to the youthful audience, who are likely to see graffiti as art. All of the text is in white, positioned in the large space, against the bright green sky to assure that it has maximum visual impact.

Also I have tried to keep the text minimalistic as I want the important information to be easily obsorbed by the audience. I have used entising language such as "New", "Smash Hit" and "Exclusive", which stands out and help the advert promote a prestigous image for the album.

I think that in the future, if I were to carry out this task again I would include a review from a well established music corporation such as NME or other popular magazine, in which many of the young music loving target audience of Bedouin Soundclash are likely to follow. This is because music organisations such as NME have a large influence on peoples attitudes towards music, and a good review will give the album a good image, increasing the chance of the target audience buying it.

Feedback

Similar to my digipak, I sent out a Questionairre to a related focus group to recieve feedback for my advert.

Again, below I have listed some of the usefull feedback that I recieved.

Good points included:

-"White front is clearly visable and all key information is clear."

-"Simple, easy to read"

-"Ambiguity of figure is entising"

-"Lots of good selling language such as: Exclusive, Smash Hit"

-"Font matches that use on digipak"

Points I could Improve on:

-"Use a review"

-"Use more similar photo to digipak"