Branding and Brand Image

By Sarah Smith

What is Branding? Definition: The marketing practice of creating a

name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products - 

http://www.entrepreneur.com

Branding is the method of creating an image or message that can be related to an individual

product. The use of branding can turn a product into something unique and special, that has a

certain appeal for its target audience, therefore making it stand out.

Branding within the Music Industry

Once Branding is successful with an audience, the brand owners can create other adverts that have nothing to do with the Brand, although people are

still able to recognize that there is a relation to that certain product. 

Within the music industry branding is key to being successful, and holds huge importance within

such a competitive market. The practise of good branding can allow audiences to recognise the artist clearly. As well as this the branding helps

the industry to find the most suitable audience to sell their artist to.

Example of Successful Branding within the Music Industry

The artist Rihanna is hugely successfully due to a clear brand image. For her new album ‘Loud’, Rihanna has re-created her brand image to suit the feel of the album. Her bright red hair, makes her easily recognizable, and as well as this Rihanna has chosen to stick to a clear girly theme, with bright colours and lots of flowers included in outfits, performances, music videos andphotoshoots.

Taylor and the Rubies Brand Image

The brand image we wanted to create for ‘Taylor and the Rubies’ was that of her being fun, cheeky and lively. We did this by the following.

The choice of an upbeat song ‘Oh No!’

The outfits, colours, images and fonts used throughout our Video and Ancillary Tasks.

The mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography

and lighting of our music video.

Taylor and the Rubies Music Video First of all throughout our Music Video we

attempted to create the image of ‘fun, cheeky and lively’ through the mise-en-scene

included. We decided that contrasting colourful and neutral outfits would make Taylor feel like a fun, quick-change artist. Ensuring the video felt fun and exciting

throughout, yet also still able to give the realistic ‘indie’ feel, found in most indie-pop

videos. As well as this we chose to make our artist the one and only continuous character throughout our video, making her easy to identify with the audience through her every action and word, giving them lots of chances to become familiar with the brand image.

Another way we tried to create this image clearly was by the sheer amount of locations we chose to include within the video showing a clear link through visuals and lyrics

When focusing on cinematography we tried to make the locations very obvious through our choice of long, and mid shots. As well as this we attempted to create our own camera tracking, in the performance scene, keeping in time with the upbeat song and ‘lively’ aspect of the image.

Whilst taking into consideration the lighting of our music video, we collected as many lights of our own whilst filming on the various locations in our to create the best high-key lighting we could, in order for the video to feel bright and energetic, again fitting with our brand image.

As a group we decided that it would be most effective for Taylor to use Direct Mode of Address throughout the video, in order for her fun and confident facial expressions to be put accross clearly. Again the use of this added to the brand image of ‘fun, cheeky and lively’.

Last of all at our editing stage, we wanted to create very fast paced shots throughout the video in order to match the beat of the song, therefore we included lots of shot, snappy segments of Taylor.

To create the ‘fun’ aspect of our brand image through editing, we decided to produce split screens, showing the different sides to our artist, and to create the ‘cheeky’ aspect of our brand image through editing we chose to include clips that had gone wrong towards the end.

The use of the clips towards the end of the video, create a fun feel and allow the audience to gain much more insight into the artist as a person, rather than a performer. All of this also allows the audience to gain a much more closer relationship to the artist and better understanding of her brand image.

Taylor and the Rubies Ancilary Task For our Ancillary Task, we attempted to

continue the same mise-en-scene following our music video in order to create a clear consistency of brand image.

For the Digipack part of our Ancillary Task, we chose to include images that we believed continued a very clear brand image of ‘fun, cheeky and lively’. For example, the facial expressions Taylor is showing throughout the images, and the comical hand gestures included complement how she acts in the video.

As well as this, we chose to photograph Taylor wearing two of the same outfits used within the music video, as this would create a very clear link of the three products, and make her as an artist very recognisable.

Throughout all of the images, we used very high key lighting in order to create a bright and positive feel to the overall products.

Another aspect of the product we chose to create a clear brand image with was the fonts included. We decided to include bold, swirly writing in order to create an impact as well as a ‘lively’ and informal feel to the album covers.

Aswell as this we decided to create a neutral background keeping in order with the neutral nets used in the video performance scenes with Taylor being the main image.We decided to include the green tape (with the artists and song name on), on both the front and back covers, as this was seen at the beginning and ending of the music video, again creating a very recognisable image through the products. Another prop we also decided to include within the back cover was some of the netting that was shown within the performance part of our music video, again showing clear continuity.

Within our Poster Advertisement we again chose to use an image of Taylor appearing happy and smiling, (adding the ‘fun’ and ‘cheeky’ aspects of our brand), and again wearing a colourful outfit shown both within the music video and album covers. We also decided to use the same fonts we included within the album covers, showing clear continuity, as well as this frames and netting seen within the music video. An image of the actual album we believed would make it much easier for an audience to relate the products and keep a clear picture in their mind of what we were promoting, clearly linking the digipak panels to the advertisement.

SummaryOverall I believe as a group we managed to create a

successful Brand Image for ‘Taylor and the Rubies’. I believe that we incorporated many features throughout our Music Video and Ancillary Task in order for the Brand Image to

clearly link. Features such as costumes, colours, lighting and overall cinematography. Analysing all of our Audience

Feedback from both tasks I can see that on the whole it is very positive and I am very pleased with our end products.

Ancillary Task Audience Feedbackhttp://kirstentaylorsamsarah.blogspot.com/2011/01/feedback-on-ancillary-task.html

Final Video Audience Feedbackhttp://kirstentaylorsamsarah.blogspot.com/2011/01/audience-feedback-final-video.html