Task Two

Task Two - how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

website

so how would one market, promote, increase and make a profit for the neon-eagles?

first of all when identifying the brand image of the neon-eagles it is a DJ duo with a heavy focus on the synthwave conventions of night life, 80s and technology with the eagle imagery at its core. this is reflected in the star image we created with technology and 80s theme being content throughout the digi-pak, music video and website whilst the digi-pak and music video have a larger amount of eagle imagery than the website. it is clear that the brand and the star image of the duo are almost the same which is good for the synthwave gerne that the artists are in because some of the biggest synthwave artist's star image and brand have blurred to the extent that little is known about their life outside the music they create.

the websites purpose is not to sell the artist or the brand but instead to sell the products of the artist, this is seen with the minimal links to synthwave and thus the brand directly, and the use of an online store to by neon-eagle products. however despite not being focused on selling the star image of the artist it still is able to sell and brand them as a synthwave duo through the use of synthwave imagery and a picture gallery of the artists.

the two biggest parts of the website which are aims to sell the artists products are the online store and event timetable. the online store sells the artists products more directly displaying merchandise making it obvious to the consumer that this is one way they can consume the artists brand. the event timetable is able to convey to the audience that if they wish to consume the artists music products live and first hand, they can use the timetable to do so by buying tickets. both of these methods make it clear that the intended consumer is a member of the synthwave audience as their is synthwave media being sold in either art form on clothing or in an audio form, with very little of the artist them self being sold as the product.

compared to the digi-pak the website is less effective at promoting the band image to the audience since its intended role which derives from the limited website design common in all synthwave websites, makes it hard to sell the artists brand to the audience, however the website acts as a means to sell the artists products. this is because of the synthwave convention of promoting the media over the website, which is what the neon eagle website does.

the digi-pak

the promotion of music is rarely all about the music. the music industry uses visual images as a key part of its marketing strategy. this is historically true for the marketing of the pop music video as Keith Negus argues that the pop music video is used as a promotional tool. however since our music video is not pop and is synthwave which puts a high value on both the product and the art while down playing the artist, our synthwave products are just that, products and simultaneously act as the marketing and the product.

the digi-pak due to the fact that it is all artwork contains a large amount of branding in it. this branding is found primarily on the front and back panels, with the front panel clearly showing the synthwave aspect technology, the large eagle image and the font. these combined clearly tell a consumer that the digi-pak is marketing an electronic synthwave artist from the use of the cyber-grid showing technological branding, the consumer can also identify the artist due to the eagle imagery which contrasts with the rest of the art work.

the back of the digi-pak continues to brand the artists for the synthwave genre for the audience and the grid continues from the front.

the digi-pak is effective at selling the idea that the artist is from the synthwave genre because the digi-pak, due to it being comprised of artwork is able to brand itself and show the artist as synthwave becuase it shows synthwave conventions which is the message ultimately communicated and sold to the intended audience/consumers of synthwave.

how important is the star image?

marketing for the artists

who would publish the artists

neon eagles would be forced to take a duel approach to distributing their products. the first part of their duel approach would be managing themselves. this would entail neon-eagles selling their own merchandise, running their own website, social media and events. this is all made possible due to the internet. since the advent of the internet artists no longer have to rely on record labels to handle the selling of products and the artists because artists can now use third party websites to sell their products such as neon eagle branded t-shirts from websites such as shirt monkey (https://www.shirtmonkey.co.uk/build-a-brand/) that allow for people without the backing of any institution to make merchandise and sell them without the equipment to do so and crucially make a profit.

on the other side of the duel approach is the signing of a record deal with small synthwave/80s retro focused record labels such as Aphasia Records that have signed synthwave artsits such as perturbator. neon eagles could potentially sign a limited record deal with a record label like Aphasia letting them handle the distribution of the music via steaming methods and a limited physical CD and digi-pak release.

by doing this duel approach of going alone and with a small record deal for the music distribution rights, the neon eagles would be able to potentially make a small profit within the small synthwave genre because with this method they are minimizing costs which is important as this is their first ablum which means the funding and intrest from big record labels for their first release will be tiny meaning they have to take a smart and low cost approach to distribution of their products and themselves.

the star image is used to brand the product. branding is then used by the music industry to create a range of products for audiences across range f genres and music styles (rap, orchestral, rock etc) used to create what anderson calls the long tail theory. the long tail theory is the concept that as our society and culture progress the need for large artists creating products that sell to millions of people is decreasing as more and more smaller artists due to the internet and cheaper production equipment can create more niche products for niche audiences.

CD digi-pak covers are crucial artwork which markets the image of the artist, before the music is purchased. music artist websites are a common part of any marketing strategy, particularly in the online age.

the visual star image according to dyer, communicates important messages to the audience. audiences often associate the look of an artst to a style of music and genre. some audiences idolise bands and singers, and see them as sex symbols, fashion icons and celebrities.

websites contain information which publicises and promotes the artist image and range of information to an audience - or its fan base. often this is organized into what boyd has termed co-option. one must think carefully how a website functions for the star image as a website which is not consistent with the star image as because of long tail theory, if the website fails to promote its audience to the niche audience then it will fail to have any audience at all.

some media marketing of the synthwave star image have become iconic and famous. iconic images have helped retain the popularity of existing legendary artists in synthwave despite little known about the artist outside the music industry.

all music website are about promotion and information provided to the audience. they fall into three main categories:

1 promotion of a single album release

2 promotion of a tour or live appearance

3 merchandising - posters of an artist or band, sales of t-shirts etc.

CD digi-paks are carefully constructed according to convention to communicate certain messages about the artist. images may consist of album cover, artwork, photographs of the band or artist, graphics and texts. this again links to long tail theory as the digi-pak needs to be able to brand the artist so that a potential buyer and current audience members can identify the digi-pak product from the surrounding material, this is done through conventions which brand the product for niche demographics and audiences.

Philip Kotler defines marketing as "human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes", this means that for marketing the neon eagles, one must market them as something the audience feels like they need and want, and thus buy a neon eagle product, in layman's terms we need the audience to buy it because they think want it.

most marketing plans and campaigns consist four basic variables

Price: this is how much the product will cost for a consumer, if its to low than profits are reduced and if its to high then consumers wont buy it - the price of the album on release digitally from google play, iTunes and spotify would £7.99 which means that the product isn't expensive enough to deter the potential audience whilst leaving roughly £5 profit after the digital distributor has taken their cut. physical copy's which will be sold online for £19.99 as a digi-pak for limited release to profit from audience members willing to pay more. last but not least live concert tickets will be sold at £15 because the neon-eagles are not established meaning people going to see them live will be few in number, especially since the synthwave genre is niche and small. it is important to note that the neon-eagles are not established and that the synthwave genre is very niche, prices for neon-eagles products must be cheaper than their competitors because in such as niche genre there is little money going around for the artists to earn which means that the prices of products must be lower than competitors to achieve a sale in relatively small market whilst following the synthwave rule for artists that is to provide a good quality product with effort, in short the price for he neon eagles products have to be low even if the products are of good quality which other music genres such as rock may charge more money for.

Place: firstly since electronic music is most popular in western nations with 63% of the audience being ethically white, it is justified not to market the neon-eagles outside of the western/first world, this means that the potential market for the neon eagles is north America ad Europe. secondly since synthwave is focused on 80s american culture there should be a limited north american release comprising of digital products, furthermore since the neon eagles are based in the uk, great Britain should have a wider release comprising of more physical products such as merchandise and digi-paks. Europe should receive a digital only release like America, but due to the american focus of synthwave, european sales should be expected to be low due to cultural differences.

Product: the products being branded, in this case is the star image of the artist duo because their star image is shown consistently through synthwave conventions and imagery across the music video, website and digi-pak. firstly in the music video the star image is shown with one of the duo as they wear an eagle mask which is present in all the other media products, secondly the duo are shown to be the artists in the synthwave organic/synthwave style as they are shown to lip sync but not play instruments as the audio is electronic. the digi-pak and the website use the artists imagery such as the eagle and duo logo to show that the product belongs to them and identifies their star image as synthwave due to use of synthwave artistic conventions. all the products work to brand the artists as synthwave artists because the sythwave audience according to the NRS social grading system would consist of anyone between B (middle class) and D (working class) because these groups contain the highest amounts of young white people who are by far the large demographic group who listens to electronic music as a whole let alone synthwave.

Promotion: neon-eagles would promote itself by doing three separate things. firstly the neon-eagles would have a social media presence on websites such as Facebook and twitter. this is because due to the way social media algorithms tend to work as they promote products/pages/artists to people who talk about and like similar artists, this means that a synthwave fan who actively talks and likes synthwave artists will end up seeing neon-eagles recommended to the m by the social media website. further more a part time employee can manage the social media accounts and actively promote the made by talking to people about upcoming events involving the artist. secondly the artists can be promoted via interviews with music journalists on websites and magazines that talk about synthwave. if neon eagles where to get interviews with websites such as Retro News that solely cover synthwave then the audience who would use these websites would discover neon eagles and hopefully like the artists enough to buy a product or check out the music video that may be used in the article about the artists. last but definitely not least it would not be a bad idea to get some of neon-eagles music/imagery into a synthwave video game. this worked very will in the case of artists such as carpenter brut and Dust whos songs whre featured in the video game hotline Miami for the soundtrack which lunched carpenter bruts career and boosted measurably Dusts career. its is very possible that the neon-eagles can have a similar scenario in another video game that revolves around synthwave and it would cost very little if the video game developers where offered the rights to use the song for free in their game instead of making their own soundtrack.

all in all the neon eagles in order to be successful need to produce high quality, low cost products that sell the artists image via synthwave to a white european and small american audience while trying to collaborate with other synthwave products and people.