DYM MYSPACE FEEDBACK

A good range of examples provided with confident analysis. Possibly, make your identification of the Myspace conventions more obvious.

Myspace and Website Analysis

Madonna Myspace
www.myspace.com/madonna

The background colour of this myspace page is black with a white pattern of stripes which make it kind of look like speakers representing the dance music she’s making at the moment. But what immediately catches your eye is the massive heading ‘Madonna celebration, the ultimate greatest hits album’ predominantly yellow and pink, which are bold, fun colours illustrating the feeling of celebration. As you scroll down there is lots of pictures from her album cover where she looks like Marilyn Monroe, giving it a look of an icon for her greatest hits. There are links to lots of videos mainly of her new song ‘celebration’, as well as this you can play many of her recent songs, there is the option to add her as a friend, a link to her blog and a promotion for the charity she supports called ‘Raising Malawi’.

There is also a feature where Madonna says ‘bring me to your city’, ‘demand it’ where you can request her to visit where you live. And then at the bottom there are loads of posts from her fans, mainly just saying ‘I love you Madonna’ – this shows her diverse range of fans.

Myspace and Website Analysis

VV Brown Website
http://vvbrown.com/

VV Brown’s website is quite simple, with a plain white background. There is a MS of her at the top, wearing a leopard print hoodie which makes her stand out, and is quite striking against the plain background. The leopard print also gives her a quirky feel, which represents her image and music quite well. Additionally her name written in dots is another striking feature which stands out straight away, and I think is her signature font. It has lots of links to her myspace, facebook, bebo, twitter, youtube page and last.fm.

Her music had been described as funk, soul and retro pop, and the style of the website captures this quite well – but this is mainly shown through pictures of her, and her personal styling. There is also a video of her performing live at V festival. At the bottom of the page we are shown her record label ‘island records’ this is definitely a conventional feature of an official website, but there is not a lot of information about island records. When thinking about her target audience it is quite hard to get a sense of it just from her website, but i would guess young people because obviously she is young and she has quite a cool funky image. I would also guess probably mainly girls.

Myspace and Website Analysis

Black Eyed Peas Official Website
http://www.blackeyedpeas.com/

The main image at the top is unconventionally, not of the band, it is of a computer generated green head. The same as their new album cover – The END, this indicates as to the BEPs electronic hip hop music from this album. Also their signiture font from their album cover is used quite a lot on the website. Down the right hand side there are lots of links; for example to the BEPs official store, iTunes downloads, Will.I.am’s solo song as well as Fergie's official store. Again this is unconventional to be promoting individual projects on the bands website. There were also many posts from the website members down the side – showing their huge amount of fans.

Down the middle there are more links, and boxes of info about the release of their albums deluxe addition, their appearance on Oprah as well as a link enabling you to vote for them at the recent VMA awards. Surprisingly I couldn’t see any links to Myspace, blogs, or twitter pages of the band, at least not on the home page – although there are links to Fergie and Will.i.am’s personal websites.

The Streets - Case Study

1) Summarise the changing image of the band/artist as it has developed over time. It might also be useful to summarise the music genre also.

From 200-2003, The Streets were a group and their genre was more UK garage/house/hip-hop. They set out to push garage in a new direction.
2004+ Mike Skinner is now solo, still called the Streets, and his music has become much more mainstream, as it has a more indie feel, however it does still maintain a garage beat.


2) Who are the fans? Do you have any sense of how the music companies have segmented the audiences? To what extent has the branding of a band been linked to target audience?

The core audience are young males, more working class, this is because of the strong garage feel, and also because front man Mike Skinner grew up in working class Birmingham (despite performing in a cockney, London accent).

The branding of the band is linked to the target audience because the album covers show very ordinary pictures of council estates, bus stops and cigarette lighter, very mundane everyday scenes that the target audience can relate to. Nevertheless as The Streets became more popular his album covers reflect a wealthier lifestyle ie- a posh car, but he is still dressed in scruffy jeans and a t-shirt, to indicate to his fans that fame hasn’t changed him.


3) What marketing strategies can you identify? What kinds of strategies can you list? (above/below-the line? unexpected promo stunts? etc). List any examples of the use of synergy with other industries to promote other media/products in connection with a band/artist.

• Website: skinnermike.com – it’s the official website and blog of The Streets
• Myspace.com/thestreets - he posts new music and up and coming gigs etc.
• Twitter – Mike Skinner gave away 3 free songs to fans
• Youtube – all his songs are up there.
• He faked his house being re-possessed as a publicity stunt for an album launch
• There was a crop circle made of his face, again to promote an album launch.


4) Add any relevant links to your blog, especially Myspace page/music vids/official websites etc. A couple of illustrations (e.g key web design graphics/album cover photography) would also be useful to add to your blogs

See above (Q3)