Stu H - Magazine Adverts

Stornoway
The advert is situated on the top of the page and uses the all the width of the page.
The job of an advert is to grab your attention, then finally trying to make you act on it, e.g. buying the album. This advert is simple and has subtle ways of appealing to you by using enigma, e.g. different images which you wouldn’t normally see on an advert.
Some of the font is in bold or in capitals to emphasise the importance, for example, ‘The Debut Album’ is in bold and also using the word ‘The’ makes it seem important and the only debut album you need to know about. ‘OUT NOW’ makes it seem important and that you need to buy it soon. These are all conventions of adverts, another convention is also including song titles in case you don’t know the band, and you can find this on this advert. Also, advertising how good the band are by using recognised and well branded reviews, e.g. ‘The Times, NME and The Observer’, using trustworthy endorsements shows people that the album must be good. The advert also has what seem to be random black pictures; these create a sense of enigma as they seem to have nothing to do with the band or the songs. There is just a white background with no other pictures which creates enigma to, ‘who are this band?’ making you want to know them and find out what they are about. On the bottom of the advert it features one tour date in bold capitals, ‘LONDON SHEPHARDS BUSH EMPIRE’ + Full UK dates’, the advert does this as it believes most of its target audience is London based, it also gives people the impression that they are a new up and coming band promoting their biggest date.

Pulled Apart By Horses

This advert can be found in NME and is situated in the top left corner of the page.
The adverts background picture, light green, white and black is very abstract; this represents the style of music as very natural, down beat and with meaningful lyrics. The name of the band, ‘Pulled Apart By Horses’ is shown twice on the advert and is being forced to you therefore causing you to remember it. The colour of the font is very contrasting to the background which makes it stand out more, the font of the endorsements and single name is quite small, I think this is because it means you have to look closely to advert to read it and is a very good technique of getting the consumer to pay attention to the advert. Like the other advert, there are conventions such as; endorsements from trustworthy sources e.g. The Observer and NME, also it includes the name of popular single; ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’ again, so it you don’t know the name of the band you could know the single and therefore like the band. The name of band is in a pink circle and their tour dates on the bottom of the advert are also in pink, meaning you relate them together. The contrasting colours, using the pink and the light green background make the band seem interesting and different like the abstract image does, this can relate to the type of music they play making the band unique and different. This advert is very different and grabs your attention by using abstract images and endorsements.



Eels
I found this advert in Mojo and it uses a full page.
The advert is for the Eels and their album ‘Tomorrow Morning’. The name of the band and the album are on the top of the advert, the band name in purple, album name in pink. Having their name and album at the top of the page show you the bands style, making them seem a big and important band. Firstly, having this information at the top introduces you to what the advert is about, it also acts as an attention grabber, as the font is big and simple and also uses a different colour. The colours used are the house style with different shades of pink/purple used for all text, the main picture in pink and the background, gradient, with pink at the top going into white, this again attracts your attention as most of the pages are white, and if not white are a darker colour such as black or grey. Using a traditionally female colour shows that the band are challenging traditional stereotypes and have a different and unique style of music. The advert, like most of the adverts I have seen do not use a picture of the band, and instead have an image of a tree in blossom, trees are seen as very big and strong, with fundamental roots and a foundation of life. The advert has conventions such as; including the names of popular singles, and tour dates if you want to see the band live. The positioning of this information is at the bottom of the page and is there so once the advert has grabbed you attention, using the band and album name, a pink background and an abstract tree you naturally want to know more and therefore read the information at the bottom of the page. This advert doesn’t use endorsements which in some ways can be more positive than using them, this is because you get the impression that they don’t need to use them because they are already a big band and don’t need to be endorsed and ‘big-ed up’, and instead they let their music do the talking. However this advert does do something I haven’t seen, it endorses one of its own, new songs. They do this to relate to exclusivity which people want, giving them the attitude that they have the chance to listen to a new song and have the chance to hear it before it becomes a hit, making giving them more enticements to listen.