Here is the branding esearch Cheryl did. She had picked Lizzy McAlpine to research on as her songs are within the Indie Pop genre, which is the same as our group’s song genre.
Lizzy McAlpine
Social media (Instagram)
Music albums
Music videos
Pushing It Down and Praying - https://youtu.be/fURMwsfmdXU?si=rHcQ24QhqY-HHcdB
ceilings - https://youtu.be/2bpMSpFTdzM?si=7iuR3FpCl4Xczha5
doomsday - https://youtu.be/GFumHG4Wt1g?si=2F5rNCfFja_vcuKD
Magazine shoots
What brand identity are they giving off?
Across her media products, it can be seen that they all have a consistent warm tone and natural aesthetic over them, making it her brand identity as audiences may constantly feel a sense of intimate emotional feeling. Especially in her music videos, the warm tone is often incorporated to the message that she’s trying to convey in the lyrics where repeatedly, it would revolve around deep emotional feelings or struggles. In addition to that, in her visual-related media products, there are quite a lot of times where her expressions would portray her as yearning, emphasizing to the audience her emotional and vulnerable aspects. Furthermore, other mise-en-scene elements such as her simple muted color attires helps create a sense of authenticity within her brand instead of bold and flashy attires that may make her brand feel commercialized.
What is their persona and what image are they creating for themselves, how?
Lizzy presents herself to her audiences as someone genuine and artistic. I picked this up from the contents she posted on her social media account where instead of posting professional studio images or advertisement images of herself, she posted more personal content showing both herself and her team through their musical journey ranging from her practicing alone and together with her team, to when they hung out together, as well as her candid concert pictures. They were all randomly posted instead of following an order or theme as well, thus to the audiences, they may see her in a more unfiltered and somewhat friend-to-friend way instead of a strict artist-audience way. Furthermore, audiences may also see her as someone approachable with how she displays herself as she is from her posts without makeup and unbrushed hair.
How do they speak to their fans?
Through her music videos, she speaks to her fans through her lyrics where it would be in a deeper and more emotionally connected way since through it she is conveying a story of herself to them. Whereas in social media, she speaks to them in a more informal and casual way where she has been using slangs such as “tmrw” for tomorrow, multiple emojis in her sentences, as well as informal written words such as “nowww”, “orrrr”, “youuu”. Speaking informally this way gives her fans a sense of familiarity or closeness with her, as if they are close friends. Furthermore, she often uses “you” when addressing her fans in her caption, where this would make it feel more personal as she’s talking directly to them.
What visuals link all of the media products together?
Through her media products, I noticed several similarities coming from elements that she repeatedly used or displayed. One of the most obvious would be her warm tone color grading that is used all across her music videos, her social media posts, as well as some of her album covers. It creates a feeling of warmth and comfort from her to aid the heavy feelings that she is continuously trying to relay to the audiences. In addition to that, her minimalistic look that can be seen from her mise-en-scene such as her subtle makeup, simple and muted colored clothes, and natural hairstyles, reinforces the natural aesthetic of all her media products. It also helps her show how she wants her fans to focus on her authenticity regarding the message she has across every of her media products rather than focusing on her visual appeals. All these repeatedly used elements altogether shows her audience the building of her brand identity as someone deeply emotional and authentic to it.
How could this artist influence you?
Her simple mise-en-scene so her audience focus on the narrative and the message
Because we chose a song with deep meanings implied within the lyrics, we would like the audiences to focus on the narrative we have created and the conveyed message. Seeing that this was done successfully by how Lizzy diverted the audience’s attention towards her storytelling elements instead of her visual appearance because it was simple and minimalistic, we would like to conform to this method as well. This would benefit us as well taking into consideration that we are shooting this music video with a low-budget.
How she communicates with her fans through her social media (informal and casual)
Since we would like our own star actor to have a down-to-earth personality, the best way to portray this is by how she communicates to her audiences as they would then get the idea on what her personality is roughly like. Being friendly and approachable by talking casually and informally as if they are all friends, would be a great method as that was many of Lizzy’s audience’s impressions of her after.
Doesn’t follow a fixed arrangement in her posts (unless promotional)
My team and I would like to follow how Lizzy doesn’t follow a fixed arrangement in her social media posts unless it is promotional. This is as it further emphasizes on our star actor’s authentic personality, giving the audiences the idea that she posts whatever she wants and whenever she wants, making it more relatable to the audience. Doing otherwise and having a really polished social media feed would make it feel heavily commercialized or managed and therefore lose its authenticity. The over commercialization would also give an undesired artist-audience gap instead of the friend-friend connection that we want.