Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of our main product (music video) and ancillary texts (website and album cover) is very effective as they all work together to provide a synergistic, promotional campaign for our duo.

Roles of Media Products


Music Video:

• Serves as the promotion for the new single 
• Clearly emphasises duo's genre and the way in which duo interact with each other

The photo on the left is a still from our video that promotes the new single 'Best Be Believing' and also shows how Mira and Jack interact with each other on set, which is reflective of how they interact in real life.

Website:

• Acts as the 'hub' for all other media products and platforms 
• Links to music video and social media accounts as well as promoting the new album 

On the left are some photos that show how the website acts as a hub for some of the other media products and platforms. As can be seen, the landing page immediately entices the viewer to click the iTunes button to buy the new album online. Also on the website is the promotion of the latest music video 'Best Be Believing' which is MiraJax's latest single.

Album:

• Can be seen as a visual promotion for the debut artist
• Draws attention to the duo's style and image 

On the left shows the front and back panels of our album cover, giving the audience insight into the style of our duo and in turn promotes their image as a debut artist.

For a debut artist, it is important to follow these roles of media products so that our whole branding of the duo works synergistically and there is lots of repetition across all the products and platforms, as to create a strong image and style for our duo that people will eventually recognise. I went on to look at the synergy across our media products more closely, to see how effective the combination of our main media product and ancillary texts is in this aspect. We have included lots of synergistic features in order to make our duo recognisable by our fans and to tie all the products together to create a strong duo brand and image. A diagram of our synergy can be seen below.

Below, I have made a case study for how Jorja Smith (also a debut artist) has created a strong branding for herself using music videos and album. She doesn't have a website yet.

I also looked at the duo 'Disclosure' to see how they were marketed and what the relationship was like between their media products.



I used some of Dyer's ideas about personality and ideologies when researching Disclosure, who is a theorist we looked at in order to gain some insight and inspiration for how we could create the best star identity for MiraJax. Richard Dyer's 'star' theory is outlined in the Prezi below and will then go on to apply his ideas to our duo.

   


Stars as Constructions

• We wanted to create a duo that people could look up to and relate to, despite the fact that they are a construction made to fit in with the emerging UK electropop industry
• It is a priority that we presented both Mira and Jack as very real and down to earth people as this the kind of thing they promote in their music

Industry and Audience

• Ultimately we do want our audience to be spending money on buying tour tickets, merchandise, etc so we had to create the perfect star persona and we did this buy going down the authentic artists route
• There is a gap in the market for upcoming UK electropop artists, as there are already many formulaic artists, and so we recognised the need for variation
• We packaged MiraJax as a fun and vibrant duo who love their fans and love making music - as can be seen on the right, the shop page on their website is a way of making money from their audience buying the merchandise, but behind the products is a video of Mira and Jack laughing together, promoting their star persona as authentic, laid back and fun which is what entices the audience to buy their products in the first place

Ideology and Culture

• MiraJax are a duo that want to promote happiness and individuality, something that other people can also achieve
• They talk about the issue of restraints which is an issue that most young adults (MiraJax's target audience) struggle with - under the category of restraints comes parental pressure; friendships; and any other freedom issues)
• MiraJax address these topics through their music ('Best Be Believing' is a good example) and also through their social media platforms, particularly Twitter, which allows the audience to comment on their posts, like and retweet, meaning there is good communication between the duo and fans - an example of this can be seen on the right

Character and Personality

• MiraJax's individual characteristics shine through in the way in which they present themselves both though social media and by interacting with their fans - real characteristics which have been further constructed and emphasised such as; loving, outgoing and funny 
• Their character traits have been moulded by the 21st generation like their fans - societal values and current events help them grow as people and their fans can look up to them and the ideologies they support
• Below, MiraJax's behind the scenes video can be seen which allows for their personality to be seen as well as a clip of them interacting with fans and signing autographs