Typical Conventions of Album Adverts - By Meryl Cariaga

From researching album adverts, it is clear that they all share typical album advert conventions. Most of them contain very little information, such as, the name of the artist, name of the album, date of release, where the album will be available and an image associated with the artist/album. By only including a limited amount of information will engage the audience towards the advert, possibly due to the limited use of eye catching colours used, or the bold text attracting the eye, or even a striking image. Therefore, it is clear that by only showing the “essentials” within the advert, will engage the preferred audience.

In some cases, if the artist is well known and successful, the use of quantitative data will most certainly be used. For example, it may state “5 UK hit singles” in big bold lettering. With the use of quantitative data, will persuade the audience’s tastes and preferences. In addition to the use of this, relevant colours will be portrayed to convey the genre of the artist/album. For example in the Madonna Celebration advert, striking vibrant colours are used to convey a pop/Dance genre, whilst attracting the eye of the preferred audience, such as young teenage girls who like the colour pink. All the colours used will portray the mood of the album. Form taking our own example, the UNKLE, Psyence Fiction advert, it would be wrong to portray a brightly coloured advert, when it is not associated with the artist or the preferred audience and the particular genre, in this case trip hop.

Furthermore, album adverts will always use the logo of the artist. Fore example, the Basement Jaxx “Rooty” album advert, uses their own logo. In using the artists own logo, will attract its particular audience, and create familiarisation in the audience. This is because, in using the logo, audience will know who the artist it is, and know the genre the artist is.

Moreover, the image used will usually be the image of the artist, or an image associated with the album the poster is trying to advertise.

Above is a perfect example of this. Here only images of the relevant artist are shown; this again is to use artist familiarisation towards the audience. In addition, only the essential information is shown, in this case, name of the artist, name of the album, release date, and where it is available. Although quantitative data is not used, “Debut” Album” is used as the persuasive factor of this advertisement. This is because “Debut” states that the album is the beginning of the artist. It is what made the artist famous in a way that the album needs to be published.