Analysis of 3 Magazine Advertisements That Relate to Our Genre

I could not find an Arctic Monkeys one, alas. But I did find three others from the rock genre so they will be fine.

1. Kasabian - Empire

Kasabian are a young British rock band who would have had a similar target audience to the Arctic Monkeys and thus The Jewellers (16-28 rock music fans). This advert features the same artwork as the album so there is a clear link between the two, a person who saw this advert would instantly be able to spot the album in a store. Underneath the artwork are some select reviews from respected music publications like NME and Q in a small font. The biggest font on the album aside from the KASABIAN on the artwork is 'THE NEW ALBUM - 28TH AUGUST', this is important as it shows when the album will be coming out and indicates to fans that it is the new album. There are smaller details underneath such as record label etc. I think this is a really cool advert and album artwork, I really like the playing cards element which, seeing as it as a significant factor in our video and is another opportunity for diamond imagery, I may use in my own one. Another factor to note is the colour scheme of the advert, it is limited to three colours (black, red and whiteish yellow) and is subtle but they all compliment each other.

2. Greenday - 21st Century Breakdown

Another rock band, but a kind of harder rock if that makes any sense. You can see from this advert that the band are going for a more hard core rock rebellion type of thing. This is apparent from the uneven and ALL CAPS fonts used throughout, in contrast to the clean cut easy-to-read Kasabian fonts. Again, this advert is just an enlarged copy of the album artwork, I am sensing this may be a genre convention or just a convention for all artists. Again Green Day keep to three colours (black, red and yellow) and two fonts, which are pretty similar. Like Kasabian, the biggest information on this poster is the band name, followed by the date that the album is released. Green Day's target audience is a little trickier to place as they have been around for a long time so original fans of theirs who were young when they started might now be quite old, however I know Steven is a fan and so is my brother so it's clear Green Day are still popular among males 16-28 like The Jewellers would hope to be.

3. Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown

The album cover

To prove my last point wrong, this Kings of Leon advert is not just an enlarged copy of the album artwork although it is very very similar both in subject and in colours, I think many wouldn't notice they were different pictures to be honest. Kings of Leon are again a rock band but I think their target audience may be a little older than The Jewellers, although I am mainly making this assumption based on the artwork they have chosen for their advert and album. Visually it is much less exciting than the Green Day and Kasabian album covers and adverts, this could be due to the relaxed colour scheme of which nothing seems to jump out and instead just hazes into the background. I'm sure this was a conscious decision on their part, perhaps the album has that sort of sound to it. Only two fonts are used yet again and although technically I'm sure more than three colours were used, it seems mainly yellow/orangeish/brownish and it all blends together. I don't think this is a great advert to be honest, it doesn't jump out at you and it isn't very memorable. I will try to avoid something this vague and instead have something clear and memorable for my advert and digipak, I think younger target audiences need this.