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Name: Freya Kerr Candidate number: Critical Evaluation In this essay I will outline the hard work that went towards producing our music campaign for our artist, ‘Matilda’, with the song name, ‘Boys Like You’, and show that we have attempted to meet and challenge social representations through the use of products such as a music video, a digipak and a social media platform. One of the most prominent themes in our music video is gender as we tackle the representation of the social group, young women in media. Throughout the music campaign, I was keen to promote an empowered female artist. Whilst it may seem that the articulations of her femininity and allusions to her sexuality respond to what Laura Mulvey called ‘the male gaze’, our artist actually destabilises this notion. She does this by reclaiming her femininity and asserting agency over her own body and image. For example, we decided to dress our lead singer (Matilda) in a light grey/silver suit in order to make her appear more powerful and dominant. We chose a similar costume for our producer (Malaika). However, hers was a dark grey suit and she wore very little make-up. Both of these androgynous looks serve to destabilise gender stereotypes. We created our lead singer’s (Matilda) social media platform in order to convey her relatability and present her as down- to-earth. We avoid over-sexualising her so as not to pander to ‘the male gaze’. Consequently, we do not post any explicit photos of her, but instead release
backstage footage of her on the set of her new music video ‘Boys like You’, as well as images celebrating body positivity and raising awareness for pressing social issues such as men’s mental health. Moreover, in our digipak, we incorporated both blue and pink in order to subvert the traditional association of blue with the masculine and pink with the feminine. The smooth crossfade of the colours across her body and the shadow it creates suggests a blending of gender. Throughout our digipak, we were conscious not to position her as an object of male desire, nor to leave her body vulnerable to dissection by ‘the male gaze’. Therefore, we used close-up photos of her face as opposed to full body shots in order to assert her as what Laura Mulvey terms ‘the bearer of the look’, as opposed to the ‘spectacle’. This strong and independent female persona reflects the aspirations of the psychographic to gain autonomy over their own bodies. Sex is another theme that is also evident in our music video, which is particularly relatable to young women. In our music video, we have a lyric which reads ‘I’d never sleep with a boy like you’. This lyric reflects the tendency of social media to overly sexualise relationships which, in turn, puts pressure on young girls to become sexually active. Moreover, in our digipak, we chose song names with sexual connotations to place on the back cover. For example, ‘Bad Boys’ alludes to the stereotype that young girls are attracted to boys considered to be troublemakers and bad influences. However, we wanted to show that, in reality, the attraction stems from a desire to rebel against societal norms. We have another song called ‘Eat Me’, which combines sexual and food imagery and suggests the stereotype of the insatiable sexual appetite of young people. It, therefore, further emphasises the pressure that young people are under to be sexually involved in their relationships.
In my media campaign i wanted to create an integrated design with a clear theme that would be coherent across all media products as our research concluded that consistent branding is essential for keeping the audience focused and engaged with an artist. As a group we decided to target a young (15-20), predominately white Caucasian and female demographic. This psychographic would enjoy keeping up with the star, following her gossip, aspire to be like her and may even try to imitate her style by wearing/buying similar clothes to our artist. For example, in our music video she wears a particular tracksuit that would appeal to our young demographic as it is fashionable making them want to purchase the same tracksuit as her. Similarly, in some of her social media posts and throughout the digipak she wears a mesh, short sleeved top which is red and orange which catches the young demographics eye as it seems to be an outfit the artist loves, making her audience go out of their way to purchase the item. This would create a sense of branding for our artists as her fans have been inspired to wear something that she wears which makes her seem more relatable, if they are able to get the same clothes she is able to get. Furthermore, we were conscious about not sexualising our artists throughout the Digipak, music video and social media page as we wanted our artists to come across as an empowered individual rather than a sexual object. For example, throughout the digipak we made her position herself close up to the camera, creating fun, quirky and engaging ways that allowed her to convey her personality to a diverse audience. This is also evident on a particular post on her social media as she uses silly facial expressions captured by a fisheye lens. Using a fisheye lens widens the angle of the shot and produces a 180-degree panoramic image. This makes the picture stand out as the lens disorientated the photo causing a mystical effect for the audience. In
addition to this, there are moments in the music video where either Matilda (the artist) or Malaika (the producer) come close up to the camera presenting the audience with weird, quirky facial expressions. To ensure that our artist would have a global reach, we avoided over-sexualisation so as to not alienate less tolerant cultures and younger audiences. Richard Dyer, the media theorist, said that an artist is a construction rather than a person, which describes the artist themselves as product. Therefore, we wanted to make sure that our artist’s personality was consistent with our branding and came across in all products. However, although largely designed to appeal to teenage girls, we felt it was important to not completely disregard the male gender. For example, the social media content is able engage the male gender however, do it through spreading awareness for men’s mental health month which entices the male audience as the artist is drawing her attention to the male gender and not disregarding them. Therefore, this makes our artists personality accessible to both a female and male gender. Our artist has a makeup brand, including a range of different makeup products. We decided to promote the makeup brand on our artists social media and also have her wearing her own makeup products in her music video in which we present her in lots of different makeup looks. We made the makeup brand personal to our artist so it gave access to her primary target audience to better connect with the artists and feel that the products had been hand-selected for them, by her. We did this by having the name of our artist printed on all of the products in a font that looks handwritten in order to create the illusion that she signed them herself, giving a more personal touch to the brand. This enables the product to have a household name which would help the artists gain
recognition across multiple industries and so it solidifies her brand. This created a sense of branding as by naming the make-up brand after our artist, we kept her at the centre of our brand image. Jay Blumer and Elihu Katz conferred us with the idea of the gratification theory, which describes how the main reasons which our audience consume media is entertainment/division, personal identity, personal relationships or surveillance of the world. A large proportion of the young demographic take interest in the entertainment aspect which, in our music campaign, is done through the music and music video. However, they do still engage with the artist’s personal identity/relationship which can be shown through their social media as well as the music video. In our music video, we have our artist and producer come close up to the camera making direct eye contact which creates an intimate relationship between the artists and the audience. Therefore, this makes the audience feel that the artist has chosen to connect with them on a more intimate level. Research has found that young female demographics prefer artists that they feel connected with and so this would help increase sales. Furthermore, throughout our artists’ social media, we use Instagram captions to engage our audience and to again connect with them on a deeper level so they feel personally involved with the artist and their life. For example, on one of our posts we ask our audience personal questions such as, ‘how are you?’, so they are able to respond and feel in touch with our artists. In addition to this, we asked the audience their opinion on our artist’s newly released make-up brand so that they would feel involved in the project that she worked so hard on to launch. Moreover, the make-up brand we advertised over her social media engages her primary target audience of a young teenage demographic as they are the ones who are beginning to mature and experiment with new make-up products. All our artist’s products are red,
her favourite colour and have her name printed on them. This automatically makes the product become more personal to the artist. This further engages the audience as she has created a product that is personal to her which her fans prefer. In addition, the caption underneath the advertisement for her makeup brand also engages the audience as she states ‘I hope you guys begin to join me on my journey to changing what make-up means to us’. This encourages the audience to feel included in the process of promoting her make-up and addresses them personally. Similarly, in this particular post she signs it off- quoting her name, “Matilda”, so the audience knows the caption comes directly from her and not someone who may be in control of her social media account. Therefore, this post is immediately set at a more personal level then any of her other posts. As well as our music video and social media, we cannot forget to mention our digipak that holds information surrounding our artist’s album. For example, on the front page it contains the name of the artist, ‘Matilda’ and the name of her album,‘Boys Like You’. The back of the digipak contains the song names alongside social media logos so audience members know where to find her and copyright information. This is all information that is needed for a digipak so a member of the public can analyse it and work out whose album it is, what album it is and any additional information needed. In addition, on the inside cover of our digipak, we have a personal message from the artist which says thank you to the audience and also shows appreciation for the producer Malaika. This creates a sense of personalisation for the fans and makes them feel more appreciated, keeping them invested in the artist. In essence, we have attempted to captivate our audience through personalising all of our products, and promoting the idea that the audience and the artist have a close relationship.
Our music video is categorised under the pop genre where we have followed some conventions and strayed from others. We started this by researching pop-music videos such as ‘Be the one’ by Dua Lipa, we noticed that the lyrics do not relate to the music video and the frame is set within the aesthetic of a high fashion photo shoot. We therefore, admired this idea and took inspiration from it, putting it into our own. For example, our song lyrics are heavily based on a sexual relationship with a boy, ‘bought me to your house one day…… I’d never sleep with a boy like you…’. However, our music video shows an empowering woman who does not objectify herself and appeal to the ‘malegaze’ which would meet the audience’s expectations when listening to a song with these sorts of lyrics. The theorist Andrew Goodwin believed that there are typical conventions of a music video (regardless of genre), such as the lyrics matching the visuals. Here we challenge his theory as we have decided to not match the lyrics to the visuals making our pop music video have elements of the unconventional. On the other hand, we do incorporate some key conventions into our music video. For example, close ups of the singer and notions of looking (direct address). This, therefore, allows the audience to create a more intimate relationship with the artist through her music video and follows Andrew Godwin’s theory of ‘conventions of a music video as a form’. Furthermore, we had to research the conventions of a digipak, so we knew everything we had to include. For example, the back cover on a digipak holds the most information. We found that we needed to include; the name of the artist and album cover, so the audience know what album it is and whose it is; the song names, so the audience know what songs are on the album; copyright information, so it is clear that the work is subject to copyright laws and Twitter and Instagram logos so the audience know where they can find the artist on socials. When creating our digipak, we knew how important it was to our artists as it was the section of our music campaign where people go out
of their way to purchase the song which, therefore, increases the sales and creates excitement around the artist. Knowing this, we spent time in researching all the right information we needed to make it perfect, including the style and vibe the digipak gives off. Finally, we researched into Dua Lipa’s Instagram who is already a successful artist on social media. This means our social media is conventional as we were inspired by her style and quirkiness which we wanted our artists to emulate. For example, on multiple posts, Dua Lipa’s captions tend to be her asking question to her fans such as, ‘what’s the motiveeeee’, which instantly engages the audience and creates a response from them. We were inspired by this technique and tried it out ourselves on our artist’s social media. In addition, through research on Dua Lipa’s social media we also found that she posted trendy photos and would pose in stylised ways, nothing too explicit. We liked this idea especially because our artist is supposed to be inspiring other females to be independent and powerful so it wouldn’t make sense to take inspiration from an artist like Niki Minaj who posts lots of explicit content. Dua Lipa’s public persona was similar to the one we wanted our artist to have and so it made sense to follow the same conventions of social media that she does as she is very successful in engaging with her audience. Overall, we found the research we did extremely helpful in bringing our music campaign together. Categorically, in this essay I have analysed and evaluated the social representations that we have generated throughout the course of our music campaign. Using three products, a music video, a social media platform and a digipak, we have supported and challenged social representations and captivated our demographic using several media theories as well as our own research into the music
campaign. This project overall taught me not only how to produce media products but has also helped me learn to direct a promotional campaign.
