We attempted to use our main product and ancillary texts with the aim of developing a strong and unique brand identity to reach our target audience through the use of technological convergence to bring various platforms together. This was mainly achieved by creating a sense of synergy between all three products.
Examples of effective product combination:
Working Together
Branding/ Logo Saturation
As the main product, the music video enabled us to both introduce the physical appearance of NTLS as artists; which the audience could recognise as the urban, young black female and white male. As well as this we created them a representative identity through their name. The NTLS logo provided us with a simplified, short form representation of the artist, making it easier to promote the artist on the other products such as the header of the website, and the title on the album.Mind Map created by Joshua “Latymerm with ExamTime
Band Identity
The first thing which we created in terms of band identity were the two band members: Nathan, a white male, and Lulu, a black female. Both band members are both in their late teens. The ethnicity and age of the band members was key in successfully targeting our core audience. This proved to be particularly difficult as the majority of the intended audience are old than our artists, therefore, we had to present them as older than their actual ages in order to allow the audience to still identify with them.
In order to ensure that it was clear that the NTLS branding represented the two group members, we designed set costumes and styles for them to wear in visual NTLS promotional products so that the audience could pick up on the artist image. AlunaGeorge were our inspiration for this decision. The diagram below shows our outfit decisions and justifications:
Iconography
We used the visual identity of the artists faces as a large part of our branding by combining the two to create a mono-graphic representation of the entire NTLS Brand.
The dots iconography is also presented within our music video through the tribal style face paints:
When creating our own artists identities we were inspired by comedian Bryony Kimmings, who created an ideal pop star for her target audience of young children based upon the direct feedback of an 11 year old girl she interviewed. Kimmings learned from the study that the pop stars depicted today are nothing like what the actual young audience wanted and set out to create a child-appropriate, yet still totally appealing artist, and the result was extremely unique and successful. Her social experiment directly contested Dyer's star theory and proved that conformity is not necessary in order to successfully create a 'Star'.
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| Catherine Bennett- Kimmings' age appropriate, realstic role model for the young female target audience |
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| NTLS- Our age, race and style appropriate role models for the Late teenage/early 20s British audience |
We attempted to adopt Kimmings' ideas by constantly asking target audience members to review our products during all three stages of production, and asked for improvements before updating them accordingly.
Using our initial survey results we were able to both find the gap in the music industry market, as well as specifying the traits that our artist must have in order to effectively and directly reach the intended audiences:
The website is the nexus of the NTLS products as it acts as the source for the emergence of all other NTLS content from the main products such as video and album, to much smaller elements such as tour information and links to the twitter feeds of the individual artists. A networked symbiotic hub an spoke relationship is created to maximise marketing efforts, both above and below the line.
It is most likely that those visiting the website will have reached it as a result of searching for NTLS on the Internet after watching the music video, therefore the website allows them to develop their consumption of NTLS as an artist and build a sense of fandom as they identify with the artists- eventually persuading them to purchase the album or other NTLS products such as gig tickets.
However, the audience may also ave visited the site as a result of already purchasing the album and seeing the website on the back cover, in this case, the website provides other NTLS related content for them to consume, whilst developing their involvement in ways such as purchasing merchandise from the official NTLS store.
Buzzing for live lounge, reply to this with songs u would wanna hear us cover and we'll tweet u back if we choose yours!
— NTLS (@NTLSmusic) January 14, 2015
Synergy and Social MediaThrough the use of identifiable synergy between the main product, the music video, and the ancillary products - the website and album cover, I was able to clearly highlight to the audience the artist image, style and trademarkAlthough the physical image of the artist played a big part in this, it was also the result of producing a house style and logo on every NTLS product to produce a Brand for the artists. We could then promote this across multiple media platforms - the centre of these being the artist website.
The following presentation analyses how the website was used as the hub for product synergy both for audience pleasure ans revenue purposes (NB: PLEASE CLICK THE i SYMBOL IN THE SLIDESHOW WINDOW TO VIEW A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EACH PICTURE):
Music Video
The music video is primarily the debut online representation of NTLS as a band, both enabling viewers to see their physical appearances, and identify themselves within the artists' style, as well as introducing the genre and tone of the band's music. The narrative and editing style of the video also reflects the artistic, alternative tone of NTLS, attracting others interested into the visual aspect and introducing this unique style of music to them.
We were influenced in this decision by FKA Twigs' use of electric blue and purple colouring as a signifier of her brand. Even in the page for her album in the music application iTunes this colour scheme is applied to highlight her identity and make it easier for fans to recognise. We use the face merge logo and the nettle leaf logo to achieve this within our campaign, as well as the black and white monochrome colour scheme and forest background which are consistent across all of our products.
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Whereas FKA Twigs uses colour to create a brand identity, we consistently used the Caudex font on our website in order to create a recognisable style. We further applied these conventions within the NTLS social media pages: the Instagram profile being a good example:  The presentation of the artists, colouring and style are all the same as in the music video and on the website- making the artist identity easily recognisable for the audience. The Gif below shows Lulu in the music video- and confirms how similar the styling on instagram is:  |
Digipak
The primary purpose of the album cover is to provide a brief overview of NTLS, who they are and what what they sound like, in four sides of cover visuals. The front cover is obviously the most important side of the album- the side that is shown on the shop shelf, therefore, the majority of our time and effort wet into to designing a visually appealing and professional looking cover.
The front cover not only displays the same imagery as the website, but it is also branded with the iconic NTLS logo- immediately revealing the artist identity to the audience.
Altogether, the three products and their synergy enabled me to reach our targeted audience by providing three different media products. Audience reach (accessing and attracting them) was achieved through the initial representation of the artist on the album cover and in the video, and by creating a visual representation of NTLS based upon audience expectations,we were able to appeal to them- with the website collectively combing all aspects of the band identity in detail.
Audience reach - specific channels of communication
By ensuring that many methods of audience communication were created through the products we could ensure maximum audience reach and appeal, and in turn, a maximisation of profitability. These methods were:
- The fact that the music video is hosted on video site www.youtube.com, the third most visited website on the Internet, provides the ability to reach a worldwide audience, and also the chance of the video going viral (if it is liked by viewers, it could soon build an online reputation), and as a result highly publicise NTLS worldwide.
- Although physical albums are no longer to most popular form of music consumption, the NTLS album is also available as a digital download on the most popular online music stores- iTunes and Amazon MP3. This ensures that those who are no longer interested in CD's are still targeted, and by providing multiple product forms, higher profits can be achieved.
- Furthermore, we based our own store on those of simlar artists. This ensures outreach as viewers will know exactly what t expect of the store and how to navigate it. Most of the clothing is based on the current styles of the younger secondary audience, guaranteeing interest:
Dyer's Star Theory
Although our artists are independent, British artists, the purpose of the NTLS brand is to make money from the music, therefore we arguably still conformed to Dyer's star theory when creating our artists:
- We spent time building an audience profile beforehand, finding out what specific elements of an artistic appeal to our particular audience. we then developed this further by creating two artists who although would appeal to the audience due to their image and style, would not quite have the cliched perfect image of typical pop stars- opposing Dyer in order to create a more independent, believably British identity.
- By styling our artists in a modern, young and unique, fashionable way (as presented in Question 1) we successfully initiated a connection between them and popular culture. By creating the brand image of the dots, fans of NTLS may copy the face dots as a way of identifying with the artists and also as a fashion statement.
- Furthermore, both the group twitter and instagram accounts provide a platform for NTLS information and news to be revealed, however, by creating individual artist accounts, directly linked on their corresponding about pages on the website, the audience can feel that they learn about Lulu and Nathan outside of the band, engaging and interacting with their tweets expressing their personal views on current affairs, further building an audience for themselves and creating further marketing opportunities.
This cultural aspect is especially important when considering the fact that our USP is the fact that NTLS has a black female lead and a white male- a rarity in pop culture, but a very accurate representation of British society, therefore individual accounts would ensure that all cultures are reached. Individual who normally do not feel they can relate to the predominantly white British pop stars can now view the NTLS members as real people- and can lead them to feel a connection between them and the artist, making them become loyal to their music.
Record Label: Red Pigeon Records
By creating his fictional record label, we were able to replicate the actions of similar indie record labels in promoting and coordinating NTLS as an artist. The Red Pigeon Logo we created (shown below) was inserted onto every NTLS product apart from the music video in order to constantly show their involvement:
Radio appearance
We used this below the line marketing scheme to attract the audience to consume the NTLS brand further, and more importantly raise public awareness of NTLS. We specifically selected BBC Radio 1 as the platform for NTLS as it quite often hosts interviews and shows with up and coming artists. An example is the interview hosted on Soundcloud below:
As a mainstream network, Radio 1 offers a potentially low budget opportunity for NTLS to play to a mainstream audience as well as widening their appeal to a massive and powerful audience through events such as Live Lounge. Here smaller artists cover well-known songs by popular acts live on air with potential for extending their reach. If NTLS were to play on live lounge, they would gain interest not only from fans of existing artists but also via social networks such as Twitter, as the station publicises live events to all of their followers. A direct link to the Radio 1 feed was attached to the NTLS website.
We used this below the line marketing scheme to attract the audience to consume the NTLS brand further, and more importantly raise public awareness of NTLS. We specifically selected BBC Radio 1 as the platform for NTLS as it quite often hosts interviews and shows with up and coming artists. An example is the interview hosted on Soundcloud below:
As a mainstream network, Radio 1 offers a potentially low budget opportunity for NTLS to play to a mainstream audience as well as widening their appeal to a massive and powerful audience through events such as Live Lounge. Here smaller artists cover well-known songs by popular acts live on air with potential for extending their reach. If NTLS were to play on live lounge, they would gain interest not only from fans of existing artists but also via social networks such as Twitter, as the station publicises live events to all of their followers. A direct link to the Radio 1 feed was attached to the NTLS website.
Altogether, the three products and their synergy enabled me to reach our targeted audience by providing three different media products. Audience reach (accessing and attracting them) was initially achieved through the initial representation of the artist on the album cover and in the video. By creating a visual representation of NTLS based upon audience expectations, we were able to appeal to this audience with the website collectively combing all aspects of the band identity in detail.
Our creation and involvement of a Record label maximised profits by providing further audience opportunities, an interactive website for fans, widened the appeal construction of the artist, image/ identity, publicity, advertising.
Our creation and involvement of a Record label maximised profits by providing further audience opportunities, an interactive website for fans, widened the appeal construction of the artist, image/ identity, publicity, advertising.
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