Digipack and Magazine advert

WHAT IS A DIGIPACK?

A Digipack is a type of CD packaging made of card stock or heavy paper or cardboard material. It is made in a gatefold style, with one part opening to the left and one to the right. It opens up to reveal a plastic tray which holds one or more CDs. The CD is held in place by plastic teeth.

The Digipack is a trade-marked item, but the name has become a generic term for all packaging of this type.

There are several conventions which are usually followed in a Digipack:

A Digipack has either four or six panels.

The front of the Digipack usually has an image of the band or the artist. It will portray in some way the genre of the album. This will emphasise the artist’s brand and advertise the product, selling as many of the album as possible. It is a useful advertising tool.

There is often a logo or symbol of the band or artist.

There is usually a song list on the back to show the tracks on the album.

There can be a written version of the lyrics of one or more of the songs.

The name of the artist will be in bold lettering in a prominent place on the Digipack.

Pros of Digipacks

Digipacks look nice and they give a good opportunity to include several designs to promote the artist and the album as they have a large surface area.

They are environmentally friendly as they are made out of recyclable card rather than plastic which the traditional jewel cases are made out of.

Cons of Digipacks

They are expensive to produce and so are not accessible for an up and coming band.

The teeth which hold the CD in place are quite brittle and can break easily. When this happens there is nothing to hold the CD in place. 

They can look quite scruffy around the edges quite quickly.

This shows a template for Digipacks.
By looking at the conventions used in Digipacks, I have found a lot of ideas which I can use in my design for my Digipack.

Magazine Adverts

There are numerous opportunities for advertising of music videos in the media of magazines. There are many magazines specifically aimed at the music market, such as Kerrang, where an advert would reach a target audience already heavily into rock and heavy metal music. It is a cost effective way to reach a very large target audience.

A magazine advert would continue the themes of the artist and their music.

It would normally heavily feature the artist themselves in order to bring the artist to the forefront of the audience’s attention, and promote them as heavily as possible in order to sell as many of the albums as possible. The aim of the magazine article would be to make the artist instantly recognisable.

In this advert, the face of Ellie Goulding would be instantly recognisable, and the name of the artist and the album is in bright gold letters, linking to the title Lights, as the letters are literally shining out. There is also the connection with all the bright lights in her hair.

Magazine articles often contain a quote from someone who has previewed the album in order to show its quality and encourage people to buy it.

Cultrural effects

The cultural effects theory is one of four models which sociologists use to explain the effects of media on an audience. The other three models are hypodermic syringe model, Two step flow model and the uses and gratifications theory.

The cultural effects theory states that the effect of media on its audience is not immediate but builds up over a long period of time. It’s a long and subtle process. It can be known as the drip, drip, drip, effect and is associated with neo Marxism. Marxists use it to support capital values and norms.

The more an idea is fed into society through the media the more people will accept it and believe it to be true. For example the media portrays asylum seekers as scroungers and many people believe this is true.

The CEM recognises that an audience is made up of people from varying social backgrounds, who interpret things differently. People do not just passively absorb a media message. However, media can contain strong ideological messages which if people are subjected to identify with.

The media is heavily influenced by dominant and powerful groups in society who use the media to put cross their points of view.  

This will help me in creating a music video as it will allow me to see if I want to convey a message within my music video that the audience will slowly pick up as they watch it. As I make my music video, I will try to include a variety of stimuli that will draw my target audience in and bit by bit put across the message that I want to convey. In my video I will want to show how relationships develop and hurdles that occur within that relationship.