Throughout our music campaign we acknowledged two main social groups, gender, and status/hierarchy. We subverted the stereotypes of female gender and did not conform to the theory of the male gaze as we used a female lead guitarist who was not sexualised in any way in a male dominated pop rock band. Laura Mulvey, presented the idea of women in the media being viewed from the eyes of the heterosexual male. We created a countertype as we portrayed a positive stereotype and have emphasised the positive features about this individual by showing her talent, attitudes, and confidence which she emphasises throughout our music video by the use of facial expressions and gestures. Furthermore this is a positive aspect of our music campaign as we are kick-backing at the standard norms of society, as it is a very unlikely scenario that a pop rock band consists of three boys and one girl. Throughout the music video we have portrayed our female lead guitarist the same way we have portrayed the male members. She is dressed in trousers, t-shirt, and a jumper in the basement set and, in the performance set she is dressed in the same as the other band members, neither of these costumes sexualise or objectify her making it clear we are subverting stereotypes of gender norms.
Our purpose throughout the creation of our music campaign was to attract and appeal to our target audience and create a star image. Our target audience was girls aged 16-17. The Dyer Star theory is a theory constructed by Richard Dyer. Presenting the idea that celebrities are constructed by institutions in order to come across as 'real people' as a way of selling themselves to their audiences and sell their products. We did this by adhering to the values and attitudes portrayed by our target audience such as using bright colours which appeal to the viewers, dressing our band members in trendy/fashionable clothes as we have portrayed throughout our social media campaign and music video, and making our band male dominated.
On the front cover of our digipak we do not show the band members, instead we display artwork which correlates to the title of our song 'Where Is My Head?', as our artwork is a drawing of a head with the brain placed outside. The details on this artwork show our band members placed around the head, further emphasising the idea 'Where Is My Head?'. This emphasises the idea that the band are more focused on the music aspect of this campaign and see this as the main attraction, instead of the band members themselves. This is also shown throughout the music video as the video is more of a performance-based video focusing on the band making their music and giving it to their audience.
Elements illustrated in our music video make our lead singer the main selling point and focal point, creating a star image. We have displayed this by placing our lead singer in the centre of the frame and having all the actions take place around him in both the basement set and the performance set. The ideology which flows through our digipak and music video focuses on the art and creation of the music, highlighting this as our key aspect of this music campaign. This targets a specific audience as we are not focusing on the band members appearances.
Our social media campaign further plays a part in creating a sense of branding. The use of social media allows audiences to feel a sense of gratification as they feel as if they are in constant contact with the artists. By uploading multiple behind the scenes images and videos throughout our social media campaign we are helping sell the band and attracting our target audience. An example of this was when we were uploading our countdown to the music video release, we filmed each band member announcing the countdown and saying a few words to their audience, allowing them to feel as if the artists are speaking directly to them. This is a very successful way to generate a wider audience, a star image, and a brand.
Throughout our social media campaign we engaged and interacted with our target audience. This can further be examined by the uses and gratifications theory. Blumler states personal relationships is a way people engage with media texts. Social media can be seen as a main source of immediacy, intimacy and interaction between audiences and artists. Our social media campaigns for twitter and instagram include content which interacts and engages with our audience. Once our 'album' was released we uploaded a Q&A on our story showing the track list and artwork and we asked our audience what their favourite track was, showing how their audiences' opinions are valid to them. We also created the idea that our audience were in constant contact with our band and could speak to them directly.
Music videos also have the ability to provide a sense of personal connectionsbetween the performers and the audiences. We created this effect through our main music video set, the basement set. This set provides our audience with an insight into their personal lives, while portraying their basement where they rehearse, produce music, and hang out. Giving an insight into their personal lives which now our audience feel part of. Intriguing our audience and providing a sense of solidarity, individuals are able to make personal connections between themselves and the artists as they can capture their similarities and differences through their set.
Digipaks can further emphasise personal relationships by portraying the band members on the cover, we completed this by placing our band members on the back cover in polaroid images directly looking towards the viewer creating a sense of intimacy and making our audience feel personally connected to the artists. By using polaroid images we are breaking a barrier with our audience, almost creating the feel as if our audience have these images in real form. Their facial expressions being very informal, the drawings surrounding the digipak, and the style of writing which creates a handwritten effect emphasise their characteristics and the type of band which they are further attracting and appealing to our target audience.
Other ways we interacted and engaged with our audience was by our modes of address. Throughout our music campaign we used direct address in an informal manner, as our target audience are young this comes across as more appealing to read and interact with. Most of our social media posts are directed towards our audience as shown in the previous tweets and instagram posts, as we captioned a post 'YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY' followed by emojis, this creates a personal connection and makes the viewer see this caption as directed to them individually and personally
As a new band it was important that we followed and adhered to conventions in order to establish our audience. When starting this project we completed research for pop rock genre and looked at symbolic conventions and key genre conventions which are present for this genre. We examined a range of products. We looked at the bands Blink-182, Green Day, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Fall Out Boy and from this research we established key conventions. These being clothing, locations / set ups, colour schemes / lighting, and editing, sound, and camera. Throughout all of these bands we established clear similarities and differences and we also looked at what made these music campaigns successful, and we took this into consideration.
As this was a new band, we had to follow these conventions and portray our band in a certain way in order to receive recognition and attention. As we subverted conventions by using a lead female guitarist, we are providing something different in an over saturated market and making ourselves stand out. We portrayed her in a more masculine manner as we feel this was appropriate and a more modern and socially accepted image in this generation. As we are subverting to this key convention we therefore had to stick to other key conventions as if we were to subvert and challenge too many conventions this would create back-lash as it would not be what the audience wanted.
Throughout our music video we adhered to multiple conventions for the pop rock genre. When researching the band Green Day, we looked into the music video 'Longview', the main set up in this music video was a basement, linking to our initial idea which portrayed we were following the correct conventions. The music video for Blink-182, M+Ms main idea was to portray an insight into the bands life and behind the scenes, we followed this convention in our music video by incorporating VCR elements and 'non-lip' sync elements. Throughout all the bands we researched we saw similarities in terms of lighting and colour schemes throughout their music campaign. The lighting and colour schemes portrayed were very dark and moody which were able to set the tone and atmosphere. We followed this convention and created the same effect throughout our music campaign.
Throughout our social media campaign we followed a dark but vibrant colour scheme allowing us to adhere to key conventions, our main colour scheme was dark blues and blacks with elements of colour which attracts our audience and makes our posts exciting. We further adhered to conventions through our social media campaigns by the informal language we used, use of emojis, and hashtags. We made it clear that the band targets a younger audience and the artists themselves are a younger generation. We made our digipak and album artwork inviting for the viewer. By not showing the band members on the front cover portray the idea of an exciting, enthusiastic, and talent-based band. We followed the dark but vibrant colour scheme which shows a visible correlation to our social media campaign. Enabling us to attract our target audience and adhere to genre conventions by the colours and actions which take place on the album cover. From previous research I was provided with evidence of how important it is to follow a colour scheme which adheres to key conventions, this is a key concept when establishing the genre in which aiming to show. Overall our music campaign makes it clear to our audience that this is a pop rock band, by following to key conventions of this genre. This allows us to generate a wider target audience and receive more acknowledgement and attention to our music campaign.
