Updating Digipak, Insert and Magazine Advert

After I  completed my first draft of my digipak and magazine advert I asked for feedback from my fellow students and friends outside of my media class. I developed a very quick questionnaire which addressed and inquired after the opinions of the audience on particular issues I found with my products, as well as generic questions on what was good/bad about them. I was pleased with the results as the feedback came back to be mainly positive with only minor adjustments/improvements needed.

In my magazine advert, I have adjusted the text size/balance to create a more conventional layout that doesn't look too cluttered and is without any unnecessary information. I deleted the contrasting text even though I quite liked the effect, as the extra text took away from the image of my front cover and meant I was not showing a true representative of my album cover on the advertisement. I also adjusted the size of the social networking logos at the base of the advertisement as some people commented they seemed slightly too small in relation to the rest of the advert. This also brings them further into the main focus and would hopefully grab the attention of the viewer and subsequently encourage them to follow up the artist using these sites.

In my digipak, I have made several small changes in relation to the feedback I received. On the inside, I added a ring of text around my CD holder to liven up that space and create more detail as a few comments reported it to be lacking in that area. The text is not necessarily for information, but more for aesthetic effect. Although this ring of text took me quite a while to achieve on Photoshop I am pleased with the result it gives.  I also changed the font of some text I added to the right panel into the font I have used almost throughout, as the plainer font was too plain according to some more feedback I received. On the outside I made hardly any changes except to adjust the sizing and layout of the small credit text on the back of my digipak, so that it was clearer and easy to read.

Closer look at Digipak and Magazine Advert

Magazine Advertisement Placement

I have been doing some research on the internet to determine how effective the placement of an ad is in a magazine. I have found that the content/graphics is of course the most effective way to reach a reader however advert placement does have an impact on cognitive metrics of recall and recognition. Placing and advertisement for my artist/song would be a very effective way of reaching my target audience- especially if the magazine is one purchased by my target audience. The "media experience survey" (2012) claims that both consumers and marketers most prefer to see advertising in a magazine.
Here are the statistics for the consuer : Magazine- consumers 45% TV programme- 23% Website-11% Outdoor-10%. This shows that a favourtie magazine would be an ideal place to publicise the artist/song. Magazines that are likely to reach my target audience could include; "Q", "Mojo"and more specialist magazines focusing on the indie pop genre.

The position of the magazine advert is also something I would have to decide upon. The media experience survey of 2012 also states that: "a magazine's power rests in the fact that the reader takes time to read and is focusing on the magazine. It is not your 'only moment' but also the moment for the advertiser. This is an opportunity for and advertiser to have an exclusive encounter with consumers."
 Positions I have found are back inside page 1 inside front cover inside back cover visible to anyone just flicking through not reading the actual content. I have also discovered that apparently pages on the right offer up the best recall alongside obviously front pages. However if an ad is early on in the magazine, this also proves to be a prominent and ideal place to have an advert as it also provides good recall.

"t is not only 'your moment' but also the moment for the advertiser. This is an opportunity for an advertiser to have an exclusive encounter with consumers.The Media Experience Survey, Europe [2012] "

Influences and Inspirations for digipak and magazine advertisement

Finished results!

Digipak

 Insert

 Magazine advertisement

Magazine Advertisement construction

I knew I wanted to use the circular graphic I had used on my front cover for my magazine advertisement because this would hopefully enable the viewer to instantly recognise the CD product itself from the magazine advertisement. Therefore I began by using the circle photograph I had edited earlier. However I also already had an idea in my head that I wanted the text on the advertisement to change colour dependent on the background. Initially I wanted the words themselves to be partly black when on the white of the background and partly white on the image itself. Unfortunately this proved to difficult for my technical skills so I opted for having two words "new album" in white where the line of the sentence crossed the image.I changed the words "the" and "from" into black either side of the image. I feel this still provided the right effect. I also positioned the name of the artist in the same place as on the digipak cover to again show the album cover and also to draw the eye to the name and show the importance.

I created my magazine advertisement in microsoft word. I drew the frame by using a rectangle shape tool and then adjusted the sizing so that it was the the right dimensions for an A4 page (29.7 X 21cm). I then placed my edited circle with text in the upper center.

After I had added the initial text for the top half of the advertisement, I wanted to add a review to "big up" the album and attract the viewers. I decided to use a five star image as I had seen these on several magazine advertisements previously. I found an image I liked on google images, and edited it so that it was grey in colour in photoshop to match my colour scheme and create a subtler look to the advertisement. I invented a simple quote from The Guardian. I chose the guardian because it is a respected newspaper that often reviews music.

I also added the words "includes the single aint nobody" to particularly identify and draw attention to the song I had used for my music video. This is a technique I have also seen in other magazine advertisements. 

I then added my record company logo, however it had a white box around it that was interfering with where I wished to place it, so I edited out the white in photoshop.

I then sourced the twitter, facebook and soundcloud logo from my digipak and placed them in the right hand corner of my advertisement so they wouldn't draw the attention away from my main advertisement text/graphics but still encourage viewers to investigate the artist further. I also changed the colour of the logos from white to a light grey so that they would stand out on the white background but not be too obvious or clash.

Here is my finished magazine advertisement: