Q1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
Our products are based on the representation of a teenage boy with crush anxiety, having trouble talking to the girl he likes since he is shy and nervous. This is a highly relatable issue for many teenagers who feel unable to interact with the people they like due to the pressure and stress of the situation. There is also a fear of rejection that in the day of social media can be displayed to a larger audience. Our product can be interpreted differently by each person but my interpretation of it is that while he is nervous talking to the girl, he feels confident singing about it. He is able to do this in front of the strangers around him and even his friends. Furthermore, he starts the song alone and tries to build confidence, however, by the end he finds himself not only singing in front of his friends but also having their support in the matter. They stand by his side and sing along with him, giving him the push he needs as he drops his mic, not needing it anymore. Besides that, our product also shows how teenagers can get wrapped up in their own worlds with Main Character Syndrome which is shown by how there are people around at all times but the artist is always in the center of the screen. This shows how he is so focused on his problems that he sees himself as the main character and the only thing in focus.
Q2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
From the start we were determined to make all our products cohesive to form a sense of ‘branding’. This is why we chose our pink, purple, yellow and orange color palette for the sunset aesthetic. We wanted to include the same relaxing and soothing aura in everything to solicit similar emotions and referred to the different products, linking them. Hence, we referred to the car shot and the backgrounds from the music video in the digipak as well. We captioned all the posts on the social media page with lyrics from the song and used the same font in all the products to create a brand that is easily recognisable and related to the artist, album and song. We also included all the props in everything. Therefore, the digipak has a picture with the mic and the skateboard, both of which are used in the music video and pictures from all the days of the shoot are up on the social media page. This is to incorporate the different outfits, backgrounds, shots and props. Moreover, we tried to do cross branding by promoting the social media page on the digipak with the username put on it. We also promoted the music video on the social media page by putting snippet videos and creating excitement for it by putting in enigma codes like ‘Coming Soon.’ Overall, everything looks cohesive with the grainy, purplish tinge and the sunset aesthetic in the music video, digipak and social media page and is easily marketable.
Q3. How do your products engage with the audience?
Our products are mainly targeting a younger demographic due to the central issue of crush anxiety which is a problem mostly relatable to teenagers. This product helps them gain the confidence to overcome the problem the way he does. We also included aspects such as the skateboard, the outfit styles and shots of him trying to cartwheel which mostly attract the younger demographic. Besides that, we wanted to target people who would be interested in this aesthetic and would want soothing and calming products. These are similar to some other products such as ‘Exhale’ by Sabrina Carpenter which had the shot lying in the grass or ‘Ex’s Best Friend’ by Machine Gun Kelly which had a similar car shot and they used the same sunset aesthetic. We wanted to attract similar audiences who like that aesthetic. We hoped people would enjoy the music the way the artist does in the video and would relate to what he was going through as he gained confidence. We tried to create an environment where people would dance along with him and be attracted to buying his album. Furthermore, we hoped that people would be able to associate the artist with the sunset aesthetic, these color tones, a certain style of dressing and relatable behavior so that they would recognise him and his brand in future projects too. Audiences said that our product kept them engaged and was soothing and satisfying to watch. This is what we hope to achieve for other audiences too.
Q4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
We began with the idea of the sunset aesthetic and color palette but to turn them into products that could properly market the artist we had to do some research. We looked into products using similar aesthetics to see how they incorporated them such as the music video of Machine Gun Kelly’s ‘Ex’s Best Friend’ which gave us ideas such as the car shot and Hassan Raheem’s ‘Aisay Kaisay’ which helped us see that we can have our artist vibe to the music to create the environment we wanted. We also saw some more music videos which gave us ideas of technical shots like the multiplicity shot, the whip pan in Stray Kids’ ‘God’s Menu,’ the overlays in Young Blud’s ‘Funeral’ and the action match in Zedd Griff’s ‘Inside Out’. We then searched up how to execute them which is how I learnt masking and how to include the glitch effect. Furthermore, we researched digipaks of other artists and their social media pages so that we could understand the different ways a brand could be made and how we could achieve something similar. Overall, we followed most conventions of the genre with the props, color tones and technical aspects. We wanted to attract established audiences of the aesthetic which is why we tried to follow most conventions. We hoped that something with an established market would sell better but we also put an original touch on it by including ideas of our own and integrating many different versions of it.
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