Research: Brand Identity, Synergy and Cross Media Convergence

Iron Maiden are a Metal band from London, England. This band are known for particular synergy and brand identity throughout their 38 albums. The most notable part of their synergy is their mascot who has appeared on every album, Eddie was originally a papier-mâché mask used in Iron Maiden's stage backdrop, the band transferred the name "Eddie" from the mask to an illustration by Derek Riggs, which was used as the band's debut album cover. Although he is occasionally described as "zombie-like" in the press, Eddie assumes a different guise relating to the themes of individual albums and their corresponding world tours, and has appeared as a cyborg, an Egyptian mummy and a mental patient as well as many others. Pictured left is their third studio album "the Number of the Beast" from 1982, the tall character using the devil as a puppet is Eddie, he can also be seen on their 2010 album "The Final Frontier" attacking an astronaut. 

The font of their album title is always the same and it always positioned at the top of the album cover. This is their house style and this has become their brand identity as it is so iconic to their band.

Iron Maiden are also heavy users of cross-media convergence as they market products for many different media platforms, including print media (Kerrang, Classic Rock Magazine, NME), Television as their music videos are often on a music channel called Scuzz, they have a website including gig dates, ticket prices and exclusive videos as well as links to music videos, they even have their own video game "Legacy of the Beast". Iron Maiden originally had a mainly male following from ages 20-40 in the 80s and they still attract that audience now by playing similar music to how they did when they first started out and using the same designs and fonts which has become their house style, this has satisfied their existing audience however in more recent years it seems they are trying to also attract a younger audience as they now use a lot of social media and they have even created a game for phones, PCs and tablets, these electronics are now a huge part of youth culture and younger people are stereotypically glued to their phones and social media and now Iron Maiden are using this to their advantage by attracting the younger audience via social media and electronics. Iron still clearly aim to satisfy a male audience no matter what age, most colours they use are deemed as stereotypically masculine colours and aggressive gory art they use is stereotypically aimed to satisfy men as it is 'too scary' for women.

Initial A2 Brief Response

Brief: A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two ancillary tasks: a digipak for the album's release and a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

Initial thoughts?
I am very excited to carry out this task, due to my music career and having be the subject of the music video I am extremely looking forward to being the producer and learning all about the processes of production for a music video, I am also looking forward to applying my existent knowledge on making a music video as well as the skills that I attained from AS media.

Skills and Development
I feel that I will need to use my knowledge of shots from section a from my AS Media Studies. I have the feeling that this knowledge will be very beneficial to the production of my music videos as well as the analysis of other music videos. I also believe that my knowledge of making my music magazine from AS Media Studies will also be very helpful when coming to making my digipak as I have learned about my print media features and how to correctly and effectively use synergy. I feel I will most definitely have to improve my time management skills as the quantity of work will be massively increased for the this project, I also believe I need to improve my editing techniques as it took quite a while to edit the still images for my magazine.

What am I looking forward to the most?
I am really looking forward to filming and directing the video as well as finding the locations and thinking about what the subject/s of the video can do to fit the song I will later choose to use. The whole aspect of being a director really interests me and I hope this is visible throughout this task as I feel I can create a high quality of work.

What worries you the most?
My main concern is the quantity of work however I am aware that is in my hands and I am very dedicated and motivated to complete this task however I'm also worried about getting copyright for the song I choose as that is obviously someone else's decision.