Evaluation Question 2 - Promotional campaign

Our star, Connor James, fits the conventions of a normal pop/rock artist. We researched many artists of similar genre, age and gender to find out what people found most appealing about the artists. A few artists similar to Connor include Olly Murs, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Cody Simpson. We got inspiration from these artists, the way they acted, dressed and played up to the camera during their music videos; all of these factors helped us to create the perfect pop star.

We wanted Connor to be portrayed as a charismatic, charming, fun and energetic character, these were the key elements we wanted to put on our star’s image because from researching the similar artists we found that these were the most talked about and enjoyed qualities displayed.

My digipak, website and music video all used a running theme that represented the main, Ironman character. The Ironman character represents a lot  of the qualities that we wanted Connor to be viewed as, when people see the character dressed in the superhero outfit they get a nostalgic feeling as most people remember a time that they wanted to be a superhero. Also the outfit is very colourful and the character is very playful throughout, this shows the fun and energetic traits. The website and digipak incorporate Ironman throughout the products which play as a reminder to the traits Ironman displays in the music video.

The genre of the music is pop/rock, this type of music appeals mainly to a young audience between 12-20, this is because the tempo of music from this genre fits well with a young and energetic lifestyle, most 12-20 year olds enjoy upbeat and simple music with lyrics that they can sing along to and apply to themselves.

The traits attributed to Connor James are very appealing to people in our target audience because they are traits that young girls look for in boys. Girls want to date him and the boys want to be like him. He is good looking and portrays a great personality that people are usually fond of.

Each product works well at selling the artist, for starters the music videos shows the audience what Connor is like in a stripped back performance, this is a large selling point because we wanted to sell him on his good looks and the way he performed to the camera. The website gives fans an opportunity to find out when he would be performing near them, shows a gallery of all his photo shoots and a variety of personal pictures, as well as being able to buy merchandise based on Connor. The digipak outside image shows a picture of Ironman with everything else blurred out, this encompasses the colourful and playful theme and shows more about Connor’s personality, the inside cover tries to sell Connor’s looks as there are two images of Connor on a plain black background.

The music videos relates to the target audience because it represents the child in all of us. We witness a person dress up in a superhero costume and spend the day in London attracting attention and enjoying himself. Most children at some point want to be a superhero, or dress like one, this means that when the watch the video they relate to the feeling of wanting to be a child again but know they would never do it themselves as it goes against social norms, making it even more enjoyable to watch.

The website is very easy to use and find, the simple, bright, block writing makes everything clear and visible. Each page has helpful information without too much going on making it hard to follow or distracting. We could make it more accessible by putting links on social media and promoting it more to fans online.

The video, digipak and website all have one strong main link and that is the colour scheme, each one follows a colour scheme of yellow and red, these are vibrant and obvious colours which are very appealing to a young audience. The digipak and website successfully promote the video as they show images of the Ironman character which are intriguing to unaware audiences.

We are promoting Connor James through the global, oligopoly Sony. Sony is an huge conglomerate that produces music for many artists including those similar to Connor. It is well-known for the high-quality products it produces and is a great company for an artist like Connor.

We are mainly using social media and adverts to promote Connor as an artist. We found that most people from our target audience spend a lot of time on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat etc and therefore we believe that the best way to create a cohesive marketing campaign is to use social media. It is also a great way for fans to feels as though they can connect with their favourite artists in a direct and immediate way. They can share their opinions and feelings about the artist which makes it easier for us to understand what the fans want and therefore mould our marketing campaign in a way that will attract more people. We are also using other types of media such as magazines and TV interviews to make Connor James a house-hold name.