My final campaign

 Here is my final music video:

Here is our Digipak:

Here is our social media:

Instagram: The Michelles (@themichellesofficial) • Instagram photos and videos

Twitter: The Michelles (@michelles_riot) / Twitter

CCR task

One way in which my music video represents gender is by adhering to female stereotypes by presenting their looks as their most admirable features. For example, there are lots of close ups in the music video on the lead singer’s face and at one point on their leg when the lead singer is ripping her dress. Not only camera angles, but the use of pink in costumes, make up, and set design further adheres to the stereotype of pink being traditionally a ‘feminine,’ colour. 

The first set is designed especially to emphasise this colour. Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze,’ theory explains how our video adheres these stereotypes as it appeals to men, in other words ‘the male gaze.’ This explains the use of make up and close ups. Even though it does not obviously show how this has been influenced by men, it subtly sexualises the girls, thus appealing to the male gaze. However, as the video progresses, the girls change costumes to darker colours and colours that are not traditionally feminine, for example black and green. There are also more close ups on the instruments in contrast to previously where it may have been shots of their body. I still believe that they are still appealing to the male gaze, as they are all  are wearing make up to make themselves look attractive to men.

One way in which our digipak also adheres to gender stereotypes. Once again, there is lots of pink used in the front cover which symbolises femininity like the music video. For example, the name of the band is written in pink, both inside sleeves having a pink background and the lead singers wears a pink dress. With regards to our social media, gender stereotypes have been adhered to, to a certain extent. The social media does not primarily focus on selling the band based on looks or ‘sex appeal,’ however there are a handful of posts which may have the artists posing in a slightly provocative way. For example, our lead singer posing on a mattress with a dress that reveals her legs. 

Our band also released a fake make-up collection consisting of lipstick and nail polish, to go with the stereotype that women like make up, seeing as our target audience is female, and our band is all female. Our products also adhere to the stereotype of the lead singer having a higher status in comparison to the rest of the band. In our music video, the lead singer has the majority of the screen time and is often placed in the centre or front of the frame, therefore making her our main focus point and thus giving her more status. Furthermore, in our digipak, she is seen on the front, back and inside sleeves, showing how she is more relevant than the others. Finally, our social media has her in 23 posts, in contrast to our bassist, for example, who was only in 11. This also shows how she is the most relevant, and therefore has the higher status.

The brand we wanted to create with our products was one of encouraging the positivity in embracing your feminine side, whilst being confident to be who you are and not complying to societies standards of what a girl should be. Our target audience were teenage girls from ages 14-17, an age of which some may be starting to rebel against parents. We achieved this sense of branding through using the 4 band members on the front of the digipak to create strong role models for the teenage girls to look up to. 

We also actively used pink in all of our products to promote femininity and to link all our products together. We intertwined black with the pink as black is associated with strength and being fearless. Also, in each product you the band wear similar looking outfits. For example, the pink dresses used in the music video are also seen on the social media and digipak. As well as this, they are often seen dressed in black or other colours like red to also show the other side of their look, which goes with the message of not conforming to societies stereotypical view of how a girl should dress. 

Our Digipak’s album name is called ‘Riot,’ which is associated with rebelling and speaking out against whoever that may be. I believe that this will appeal to our target audience and create a sense of branding as, like previously mentioned, our products are aimed at teen girls who want to rebel against their parents and society. The use of graffiti on our digipak also can be associated with rebellious behaviour, and although it is not too defiant, for example having curse words or images of violence spray painted on the wall, it is just the right amount of disobedient behaviour to capture the eyes of the girls, whilst parents allowing them to consume the band’s music.

Our twitter follows this use of ‘gentle rebellion,’ by posting tweets with words such as ‘ass,’ and implying the ‘f word,’ in the tweet ‘who gives a duck,’ with one of our band members posing with a duck. These words are not too strong but are also not necessarily child friendly, and therefore further makes the band seem cool and defiant, but also are not seen as a negative role model from a parent's point of view. 

We used our products to engage with our audience through creating a personal relationship and a personal identity with our audience. This was predominantly done through social media, however it was also used in our music video and Digipak. Bloomer talks about the uses and gratification theory which consists of four ways that someone can engage an audience with a ‘star.’ These are ‘diversion, personal relationship, personal identity and surveillance.’ We created a personal relationship with our audience through social media in multiple ways. Firstly, we created a nickname for our ‘fans.’ This nickname was ‘Shelleys,’ because our band name is called the Michelles. By using this term of endearment, it makes the audience feel like a friend and thus creating a personal relationship which engages them with our campaign. 

We also used casual language and emojis such as the rock hand emoji to make our band seem friendly and conversational, using informal address to further create a personal relationship. For example, when we announced that the album was dropping ‘tomorrow,’ we phrased it like this: ‘How we know feeling our album is dropping TOMORROW!!! AHHH we are so pumped!!! We can’t wait to show you what we have been working on! (Two rock emojis).’ This shows how we used informal address to announce the releasing of our album, for example words like ‘pumped,’ and using the word ‘AHHH.’ We created a personal identity with our audience by showing the band hanging out. 

We did this by making them take a selfie and captioning it ‘Happy Thursday Shelleys.’ This creates a personal identity as many teenage girls like taking selfies with friends so they can remember certain moments forever, and also as it is heavily part of the culture nowadays. We did this once again with the bassist and drummer of our group taking a selfie together saying, ‘thank you to everyone who has listened so far, you guys are amazing!’ On our digipak, we engaged our audience by creating a personal relationship with them. We did this by putting our band on the front cover, and by making them stare directly into the camera, it makes the audience feel like the band is looking at them, and eye contact creates intimacy between people. 

Furthermore, for our music video, we created a personal identity with the audience which engages them by making the main themes of the music video relatable to teenage girls. These themes included not conforming to society, and wanting to change the blueprint, for example changing clothes in the music video, and trashing the ‘perfect Barbie set.’

I did some thorough research on the bands No doubt and Crimson Apple, as well as the solo artist Avril Lavigne. This is because all artists fall under the same genre of music we were looking at which was pop rock, and seeing as female rock bands are fairly underrepresented, my group thought it would be a good idea to also look at Avril Lavigne. Through this research I found that a lot of the artists shared similar conventions. 

Firstly, in the music videos I observed which were of Avril Lavigne and No Doubt I found that both included close up shots of the artist or lead singer (which in No Doubt’s case was Gwen Stefani.) We reflected this in our music video by also using frequent close ups of our lead singers face in all three of our sets. This is quite common in the ‘pop rock,’ genre, especially for female leads/ artists, because part of the appeal is how the singer is ‘conventionally attractive,’ and are sold partly on that fact that they are pretty. This follows Goodwin’s theory of all music videos of one genre will follow similar music video conventions like close ups, for example. Another thing we did in our music video that was inspired from our research was the themes in the music video. 

In No Doubt’s video ‘Just A Girl,’ Gwen sings about the expectations of ‘girls,’ for example ‘I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite.’ In her video there was a direct separation between her and the rest of the band who are male, which is represented by the divided bathrooms. At the end of the video this divide is destroyed, and everyone is seen together. This challenges the conventions of gender by showing that people should not be defined as gender and should be seen as equal. 

Our video also challenges conventions by destroying the ‘perfect pink world,’ that girls are expected to like. Similar lines that follow our narrative are lines like, ‘I’m not your perfect little girl in your perfect Barbie world.’

Social media 6

Today I did the photoshoot with Lottie in the recording studio to create pictures that look like Lottie is recording the vocals to the album. We also had someone stand in as the producer to make the shoot look more professional. I edited the pictures on the photos app, and cropped them. I then went onto Instagram and created a draft with a caption, one being a #throwbackthursday and another being 'the look of love,' between Lottie and the producer. 

A second thing I did today was edit the lipstick and black nail polish and put them onto a black background to match the theme of our Instagram page. Finally, I posted merch for the t-shirts, hoodies and tote bags.

Once I have received the final version of the album cover I will be able to post everything that I have drafted. 

Social media 5

Today I downloaded an app called 'Planoly' which helped me with another feedback point. This was the feedback about how I should divide one of my pictures up into multiple squares and post it on the Instagram. I first took a picture of Gi, Connie and Cat and divided it into six. I made sure I posted each image in the right order and it made a bigger picture. I took this app and also posted something in which the image looked like it continued by swiping right, I did this by dividing the image into two and putting them both in one post. 

Another thing I did today was get Bashy's images from the merchandise that he did, and I cut them out and put them on a black background to match the aesthetic of the rest of the social media. I cut out the four tote bag designs and will post them before the album drop. 

Tomorrow I will be taking pictures of Lottie in the recording studio to show her 'recording,' the vocals for the album. 

Social media 4

Today I altered my social media to fit the constructive criticism I was given by the rest of the group. I removed some posts which had a predominately white background and added more which had darker tones and were pink. On top of this, I used PicsArt to make a 'coming soon,' post for the album we are releasing. This consisted of me grabbing an image from the music video shoot day and putting text in a scribbly font saying 'coming soon...' I captioned it explaining how the band is dropping their debut album. 

I also edited a picture which previously had a white back ground and changed it to black to announce that The Michelles are going on tour. I changed this to match the feedback given by the group. Also, Bashy has been working on some merchandise for the band which I can also put on Instagram. 

Moving forward I am going to take some pictures of the band in the recording studio on either Wednesday or Thursday of them looking like they are recording their album.

Group Feedback on music campaign

On Friday my group looked at all of our media products which will eventually contribute to an upcoming artist’s music campaign. Whilst looking at the music video, social media and digipak, we gave feedback on each draft design. It is important to give feedback so we know how we can better our campaign and because seeing as each of us is in charge of a certain part of our campaign, this is a way we can achieve marks for the music video, even though I am doing the social media, for example.

The first thing we looked at was the album artwork. I gave the following feedback:

I think the genre is clear because of the crosses and graffiti used on the front cover, as well as the repetition of the cross on the inside, crossing out someone’s face. I think for the star image we need to see more of the faces, seeing as it is an all-female band, so part of the appeal is that they are female. Also, on the front, the title of the band needs to be a lot bigger than the title of the album cover because it is all part of selling the artist not the music.

The use of the band on the front and back shows that it is definitely a band, not a solo artist. Also using the colour palette of the black, white and pink reflects the genre of music, and the band’s aesthetic. However, I think that a few things can be improved. For example, instead of using pictures from different photoshoots, the album should have pictures from the same photoshoot to make all of the album cover sides look like they belong together. Also, similar to the point about covering faces, the title of the album should not be covering the band’s faces’ because it does not relate to the band’s star image.

The next thing we looked at was the social media. This is what me and Bashy collaborated on.

First, we were told our genre was clear to a certain extent, however it could be clearer. This is possibly due to the fact that there is a lot of white used in the Instagram where there should be more black and pink. Moving forward I will be posting more pictures that have these colours in it. I was told that our star image is clear, as we have pictures of the band together, however we may need some more pictures of the band with Lottie in the middle to show she is the lead of the band.

We were told that the picture in which we pretended that the pictures were disposables was really effective because it looked very cool and ‘edgy,’ as well as this, having a ‘behind the scenes,’ post looks like the band is very important.

To improve, we could take a big picture and divide it up into smaller squares, like what some people did last year. We can also add merchandise to our campaign for example t-shirts, jumpers, as well as tote bags. I took this idea and thought about how we could release make up, like a red lipstick or a black nail polish as these are staple products that a girl rock band may use.

Moving forward we are going to add more darker pictures, make merch which suits the genre, and try to take more pictures in which Lottie is seen clearly as the lead.

Finally, we talked about the music video which Adrianna was doing.

We liked the way that there were cuts between Lottie singing and then the instruments and back as it looked effective. This is good at conveying star image because it puts the majority of the focus on Lottie, however it still includes the band, showing that it is a band, not a solo artist but still has a predominant lead singer. It also relates to the rest of the campaign, as we have taken pictures from the shoot days so our social media will relate to the music video.

To improve I gave to pieces of constructive criticism. One was changing a cut of the drummer. Instead of putting a mid-shot of Gi and then a close up, Adrianna should cut to the drum kit in between to make it look smoother. A second piece of advice I gave her was making the middle section where she is in her wrecked outfit, a bit faster paced/ using more hand held shots.

Social Media 3

Today I spent time creating the rest of the drafts I can for my social media pages. The only ones I have left are those of which I want to post the album artwork with and the digipak is not ready yet. On top of this, I created some fake tour dates for the band announcing that they will be touring the UK in 2022. I put various popular UK destination starting from the south and working my way up north. 

I wanted to further make the tour dates seem authentic by looking up tour dates that famous artists have put out and copied the pattern of how many days in a row they play, when they have day breaks etc... I also looked up, for each destination, a gig venue that the band would hypothetically play at.

Since creating the account, we have also had friends follow the account who have commented on our posts to boost the activity on our account. I have either liked comments or pinned them, as well as commenting on other artists posts much like what real artists would do with friends and fellow musicians. 

Moving forward I only have a handful of posts left to do, including the album posts and a recording studio post, which I can hopefully do next week with the band in one of the music tech rooms.

Social media 2

The second task I did was creating the social media page. I titled it @themichellesofficial, and made it a professional account so I could put that the account is a musician/ band account, as well as adding a Bio explaining how 'we are an upcoming London,UK based girl band.' I also made it a professional account so I can view insights, and how much my page is being interacted with, as well as which posts are the most popular. I did look into promoting certain posts by making them pop up on peoples feeds, however it costed money to do this so I would not do it now, however if this were a proper social media campaign I would consider it greatly.

Today I had the first photoshoot for my social media. In it I took pictures of the band in different outfits and different back drops on my phone. Here are a few pictures I took:

 

I took pictures of them individually for their 'meet the band,' posts, and a group picture for their announcements of their concert, as well as others like being signed for a record label. I also let them take a selfie so we can upload it to the Instagram  as a 'causal,' post.

I knew which pictures I needed to take because I created drafts on Instagram from mine and Bashy's social media timeline. For each post I knew I had captioned and added the right picture to, I highlighted it on the timeline and used it like a checklist. This is so I know exactly what I still need to add the social media pages.

Social media 1

This week Bashy and I started to plan and create our social media pages: Twitter and Instagram. We took the research that all four of our group members had done on social media and decided it would be a good idea to create a timeline, in so we know the order in which we will post pictures/ videos, whether it be a post on a performance, selling tickets for a show, a selfie, notifying the audience when the album will drop etc... We decided to make around 40 ideas for our Instagram and twitter with around 20 posts each side of the album drop. We did this in a google docs so we could both edit it and filled in all 40 gaps. 

We took inspiration from our social media research by copying patterns in how the posts are structured. We thought it would be best to put an introduction to the band first, as this is an upcoming band and is therefore not well known. Secondly we noticed that in our research, there were announcements of the album/ single a few weeks before it is released to build up hype for when it is finally dropped. 

We also saw they thanked their fans for attending various concerts they were in, including virtual concerts. Finally, we noticed they included behind the scene videos from the music videos for their songs which we will also include among 'casual,' posts of them taking a selfie or messing around etc...

It is important that we create this timeline because moving forward we can start to draft the majority of the Instagram posts. It is best to draft because we do not have all of the pictures we need, which we will gather from the photoshoot we have on Wednesday from 1:00-1:30. 

Social media conclusion

In conclusion, both artists promote their new single coming out in multiple posts a few days previous to the release and have pre-saveable links to their single before it was released. There is artwork for each artist's songs as well.  

As well as this, they both show pictures of from when they were performing at concerts and advertise them whether it be a virtual concert, or a live one.

Even though there is a promotion of touring and single releases. They also have pictures of the artists behind the scenes. For example the selfie of Shelby and the pictures of Avril Lavigne from summer.

However, only Crimson Apple reposted a TikTok and only Avril Lavigne tweets about being signed to a record label. Also, the language used with each artist is quite different. Whilst Crimson Apple's is quite tame, Avril Lavigne uses quite a lot of swearing to maintain her star image of being rebellious.

social media timeline 2

 

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Social Media Timeline 1

 

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What is Social Media

Social media is used as a main way of marketing an artist in the music industry. For example, it is highly effective in reaching a direct target audience through audiences being able to follow the artist on their social media page to be updated about tours, albums and general updates from their life. 

This links with how the artist can be more personal with fans as they are talking about what they do in the day which means fans can have even more of a connection with them. This helps construct the artists truer and fuller star image, leading to more profits. As well as establishing a stronger connection, the audience can interact with their posts, making them feel ‘seen,’ by the artist, for example liking and commenting on their posts, with the chance of them responding. 

Finally, It is spreadable internationally while being extremely cheap.

Some platforms that artists may use include YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

feedback on my Digipak

I was given the feedback from my album artwork that the genre is very clear.

The panels looked like they all belonged together through the use of teddy bears in each, for example. However, on the CD panel with the headless teddy bear, it stands out the most due to qualities like the green rings. This makes it look a bit too different so instead of green rings make the rings pink to fit the colour scheme of the rest of the album cover.

Also, the album cover does reflect the music video perhaps a little too much. I should either have the teddy bear theme or the pink theme, not both otherwise it looks too similar. A possible suggestion by one of my group members is to keep the inside left teddy bear and get rid of all the other teddy pictures which would still work if I wanted to keep the pink theme.

The band was clear however Lottie should be on front cover to convey being lead singer rather than back cover. Also, I should put her in the centre of the front cover with the other band members around her.

All the key info was there however I should move the barcode from the left to the right because the barcode on an album cover is always on the right.

Some of the elements my group like was the graffiti element and handwritten title. However maybe more of the white graffiti doodles should be used in the inside with Lottie to make it look more related to the front cover. Also, maybe I should not have the doodles on the front cover because with the teddy bears it looks too busy. However, if I wanted to keep the graffiti, I should just make the background plain black to contrast with the pictures of the band and the white graffiti and put the picture of the teddies on the back.

Here are some of my groups digipaks:

Bashy's:

Adrianna's

Album artwork first design

 Here is my design for our band's digipak.