For our advert to look as authentic and as realistic as possible we must make sure we include some or all of the following factors; title of the album, image of the album, reviews, straplines, production company, website, theme, links to purchases places, star ratings, artist image, record company, CD logo and a colour scheme, bonus material, cross media platforms. These are the mandatory features of all magazine adverts.
Indie magazine adverts have a few common conventions, they normally have the appearance of being designed with a DIY approach and tend to be quite simple but still very creative. A lot, if not all adverts from the indie genre show that they are critically acclaimed in order to get recognition. I also think that they rely heavily on picture content as a photo of the artist with a vintage tint would really show that it is from this genre. Some have QR codes which allow audiences to get free content such as a download or bonus track. There is often a link to websites or twitter accounts so they can be easily connected with the artist.
There are two types of magazine advert concepts, they are either artist or album focused. As our artist isn't yet mainstream and is still very independently run and this is his first album as such so will be featured in the mainstream market our advert will be artist focused. If this album was very successful and he was to bring out another one our advert would be album based as the audience already knows what the artist does and doesn't need to be introduced to them for the first time again. Our advert combined with the other ancillary texts, the digipack, must link together well and be effective in relating to each other.
When choosing the right image, font and content for our magazine advert, it is important I include and take into account the content above.
