Evaluation Question 2

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY

TEXTS?

Question 2

Brief note

It is important to understand the website is a ‘stand alone’/separate ancillary text.

The advert promotes the album and the music video

However, the website promotes the band in general, so doesn’t focus on the particular album or song we chose or it would risk being constantly outdated when new material would be released by Passion Pit.

Themes

In general, I believe that one way that the combination of the advert and music video is made effective is through the use of a particular theme being carried over consistently.

In both of these, there is a theme of addiction, love, alcoholism and darkness

This makes each product seem like they ‘belong’ together rather than being separate media texts.

E.g there is alcohol visible in both these images screenshots taken from the music video and album advert

Idea of Dark vs Light

The video makes use of dark vs light. The narrative taking place in the day and the lip synching occurring at night.

In the album advert the colours are also contrasting, with light colours for the text and a juxtaposition style dark background, much like the dark vs light in the video.

I used the Levi Strauss ‘Binary opposition’ theory to fuel this theme and again it makes both products effectively carry over a house style which can be seen in many related media products today.

Direct references

The album advert has references to both the main and other ancillary text. It states that one of the hit songs is ‘constant conversations’ (our music video) so therefore it is giving a mention of our video/song.

It also has the website mentioned at the bottom of the advert, so it also effectively links both physical and digital texts together.

The website

The website is perhaps the least effective part of the combination. Not because it doesn't do its job at promoting the band, but because it is the weakest link in the collection of products.

I purposely intended for this to be the case as I didn’t want the website to solely focus on just the album, but instead act as a pivot for users to discover more things about the band.

The colour schemes too are a direct contrast from the colours used in all the other products.

Effectiveness

Again, some elements aren’t may not be considered as effective. For example, as a combination of products the website could be seen as a little too distant and separate from the other products. While the house style has slightly been carried over, the visible different colour tones make this seem more stand alone, not efficiently combining all three products.

Yes, some of the colours are the same but overall it has slightly brighter feel which is a quite different from the other two products.

Website

However, in my opinion by far the most efficient connecting piece of mise-en-scen is the inclusion of the Constant Conversations. It was a last minute decision, but before users access the homepage the music video comes up with the advert as the background image. This is the only place where all three products can be seen working together and it is here where the users can judge how well the ancillary texts complement the main product (and each other).

Feedback

Below this Slideshare, watch the video to see to what extent the target audience think that the main and ancillary texts are an effective combination.