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

The three products work very well together due to the fact that they compliment the main theme seen in the video and meet many of the conventions of the genre. We decided to carry on the theme of hockey within the album and advertisement to make the ancillary texts even more recognisable with the same costumes, characters and setting used in all three. Although all three products follow the same style, we feel that they will still be very interesting and relevant to our audience.

This is first of all obvious with the clear link between the video and the front cover of the album. Where we used a close up picture of Abi with the pink top and blue headband (also used in our music video) and a long shot of the girls who also featured a lot in the video. This direct link shows the audience that they can immediately recognise and link with the group of people in the video or album cover. Keeping the costumes the same was also a key part of the project and further shows that our three texts are very effective with the use of synergy. However problems were faced during filming – we lost the blue headband. Although it was not a vital part of the video it meant we could not use a different headband unless we changed the whole costume, so we did. To combat this problem and still make sure there was not problems with continuity we made it seem like our actress had just changed instead. This effect actually worked very well and adds a nice effect to the video. 

Moreover the inside cover, advertisement and one scene in the video all follow the same effect to further show that our combination of products is effective. The effect is many different pictures of our actress in different poses on the hockey pitch in her recognisable yellow and purple hockey kit. By using adobe photoshop it meant that we could cut out each individual picture of Abi and put them all in the same background, creating the effect that they were all on different parts of pitch in different poses. As you can see the inside cover and advertisement are very similar to again make our artist recognisable. 

When comparing how other well known artists of the same genre use synergy on their products we found out that they took the same approach as us. We rarely found any that used a different theme or style/font when comparing album covers with posters.

This is so that their target audience can recognise the link between the advertisement and album cover to make sure they will buy it. Here are some well known artists who use synergy with their products. 

As you can see the comparison between the Black Eyed Peas album – The END is almost identical. The exact same image and font our used and the only real difference is the size of the writing. This just shows that number 1 hit groups such as The Black Eyed Peas use synergy to advertise their products.

However when comparing artist’s music videos to the album cover or font they could be very different. Nevertheless there is good reason for this, it is because the music videos we watched were just one song of the album and therefore it would be unlikely to base a whole album on just one song. However some artists do follow this approach and it can create a very effective front cover. For example Beyonce’s hit single Single Ladies follows a very similar black and white style to her album cover for I Am.

We feel that the combination of our products is very effective because of the clear link between each product and the continuation of style seen in all three products. This has been done to have a direct effect on our audience and to make sure our artist is recognisible in all texts – this has certainly been done and hopefully done well with many conventions developed and challenged from the wide range of artists we have looked at.