Tuesday 7 February 2012

Album release advert analysis: The Blackout

The album that is advertised in this is also Rock. Therefore, the advert for the album release (typically) consists of the codes and conventions of the rock genre.
Firstly, the main point of focus in this advert is the album title, followed by the band name then the tour dates. Considering that the album title and description takes up a smaller than average proportion of the page suggests that it is as equally important as the tour dates but the audience's attention is still instantly drawn to the general purpose of the advert. The fact that the tour dates take up a fair proportion of the page suggests that the artist makes money from audience consumption through live concerts, particularly from selling merchandise and physical copies of their albums (rather than selling a digital download which may be illegally shared). This is a modern feature of advertising within the rock genre music industry as the audience prefer to listen to the band's music live.
As with the Fall Out Boy album advertisement, the image that is used for the advert is the same as the album artwork, this is to ensure that the audience know what to look for when buying the album as they are more than likely to recognise the image on the advert. More importantly, the image used in the advertisement reflects the connotations of the album title.
The red arced line above 'Hope' suggests that it is a shooting star. This relies upon the active audience to realise that shooting stars are associated with wishes and hope. The red colour stands out from the dark background which draws the audience's attention to this connotation and consequently ensures that the audience will appeal to the imagery.
Certain other aspects of the advert follow the red colour code in order to make certain bits of information stand out while simultaneously following a consistent style. 'New album April 4th', '"something very special"' and 'March/April' are also the same red colour as the shooting star. This separates the most important information from each three section of the advertisement; the album information, reviews/ recommendations and the tour date section. The colour tells the audience that this information is important and acts as a subtitle indicator.
The band name follows the consistent style of the band and is featured in all 'The Blackout' merchandise. The style is recognised by the consumer, a recognition which the industry rely on to sell 'The Blackout' products to a niche audience. The same type of font as it is for the band name is used for all other text featured in this advertisement (excluding the font type for 'KERRANG!').
Similarly, in the Fall Out Boy advertisement KERRANG! a rating which the magazine has given for the album is included in the advert. This helps to sell the album to a specific audience by matching the conventions of a rock music magazine and the rock music genre. The font and style of the KERRANG! logo remains the same as it is for the magazine, this is another feature which the audience is expected to instantly notice when reading the advertisement.
The layout of the advertisement is typical of that of Rock genre advertising. For example most adverts for rock music feature the artist's name at the top, the album title as the central figure and the tour dates at the bottom. This is to first introduce the audience the artist, then the specific product which is being advertised and then information about live concerts thus making this type of layout effective in selling as much merchandise as possible.
The advert also includes links to websites which advertise products or artists. In this example 'cookingvinyl.com' (the website of the independent music label which The Blackout are signed to)  and 'theblackout.net' (which is The Blackout's official website) are included (along with recognisable icons). This allows the record company to advertise other artists signed to the label, as this is the first link the audience is drawn to it persuades them to visit the site to consume other rock music artists. On this website there is a link to The Blackout's individual page which allows the audience to find out more about the artist and to follow them on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Youtube. It also includes Yoube video links (specifically 'higher and higher' which is also mentioned in this advertisement) to the artist's tracks and offers a album purchasing service.
This advert also gives the audience information on the different way they can consume the product under the album title. This outlines clearly the options of which the product can be purchased, a convention which the audience recognise and can relate to.

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