Blog 7How Pop Videos Can be Used to Create a Brand (Spice Girls, Adele and Lady

Gaga)

Purposes or Pop Videos Advertisement Illustrates the song Appeals to a visual audience Expresses an individual’s emotions Tells a story Markets an image Creates a brand

Formation of “Spice Girls” Wikipedia In the mid-1990s, family management team Bob Herbert, Chris Herbert and

Lindsey Casbon set about creating a girl group to compete with popular boy bands that dominated the pop music scene in the mid- to late-1990s.

In February 1994, Heart Management placed an advertisement in The Stage trade magazine asking; "WANTED: R.U. 18–23 with the ability to sing/dance? R.U. streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, and dedicated?”

Documentaries on Spice Girls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c2y2xEZjUs

Piers Morgan 23-27 mins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1g-49itJBE

Clothes of “Spice Girls” Their clothes were "carefully chosen for their first appearance on American

TV:

Victoria in a sophisticated slinky black number,

Emma in a baby-pink dress,

Mel B in her leopard-skin trousers,

Geri in red hot pants, top and bra,

Mel C in her favourite Liverpool shirt and tracksuit bottoms

Selling “Spice Girls” The Spice Girls were sold to us as a group of friends, just goofing off and

making top-selling singles together.

They were actually a carefully selected group of strangers chosen, after hundreds of auditions.

They had endless merchandising and sponsorship deals, and were involved with everything from Pepsi ads to Polaroid ads to Barbie-style Spice Girls dolls.

Everything about them—including their Scary/Posh/Sporty/etc. nicknames was under the control of men or corporations. Geri Halliwell.

(“Ginger Spice”) almost didn’t make it into the group, because she looked older than the other girls; when they asked her age, she repordedly said, “I’m as old as you want me to be. I’ll be 10 with big boobs if you want.”

Blog 7 Promotional –Creating Brand Often artists/groups are sold as a brand and the music video acts as a

product of the brand, in the hope that the audience will be inspired to “buy into the brand”

For some artists the ‘image’ is of greater importance than the quality of the product. The Spice Girls are a good example of this.

Other times it is the song and the meaning of the song that is sold, and the artists ‘image’ has little to do with the sale of the song.

Marketing an Image Lady Gaga

Bad Romance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

Adele

Someone Like You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQl3WQQoQ0

Lady Gaga

Her image stems from the male, erotic gaze.

Video and high quality and cinematic – sci-fi, unusual.

Her body is more or less the main focus of the entire video – she’s selling her body image more than her music.

Promoting other products in her video – product placement.

Adele

Her image is more natural and ordinary – she’s more believable.

She’s selling herself as a singer and presents herself with a more relatable image compared to Gaga’s.

The mise–en–scene of her video is monotonous (she’s conveying her emotions through the video – her heart is broken).