Monday, 1 February 2010

A Look at HMV


So, to make an animation for HMV, I have to get a somewhat decent understanding about who it is I'm trying to appeal to (which would probably work better for me than when I went into doing a thing for a poker company with zero poker knowledge).



HMV is something of a multimedia store. Represented by it's well known logo of a dog named Nipper perked in front of a gramaphone, it's initial focus was as a record store. The name and mascot come from Francis Barraud's painting, "His Master's Voice". Nowadays, the stores sell the latest music, dvds, blu-rays and video games, as well as certain bits of technology such as headphones and iPods. Their competitors in this regard would be Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastores), and various other online stores such as Play.com or Amazon. In regards to videogames, they also have competition from various game outlets such as GAME, Gamestation and GameStop. The website is also currently working on a download section, which I assume pertains mostly to music, but could also offer downloadable game titles similar to the Steam distribution service.



At current, their brand look features a lot of rounded fontage and focuses around three main colours; black, white and pink. Like it has done over the years, it also features their mascot, Nipper, in the logo. Oh, and there's usually some cockney geezer working the voiceovers. With what I have in mind, finding a way to incorporate the brand trademarks, which are generally futuristic and bold, into my epic adventure kind of theme, would be quite difficult. General protocol for adapting logos into these scenarios generally involved a patchwork or metallic theme, so if I saturate some of the colours I could make it work. Although dogs you can stick just about anywhere and they'll fit.



In fact, looking at various adverts for HMV, they're pretty much nothing beyond a trailer or music video with some logos and a price tag slapped on top sandwiched between some fancy transitions. In fact, this was the only advert I found that was any different.



What I plan to do is radically different from all of that (particularly cos I can't be arsed to go through all the legal brewha of sticking movie/music video footage into the thing). I want the advert to say, 'Come to HMV, we rock', as opposed to 'Oh hey this new thing is out and I suppose you can get it at this place'. It's all about making HMV a preference, not simply an option.

As far as determining a target audience goes, one thing to immediately point out is this is an online shop we're promoting her. To buy things from online shops, you need credit or debit cards, something I'm pretty sure noone under the age of 16 has, so we can cheerfully strike that age group out of the picture. Going with what they generally show on adverts, there's a lot of the latest actiony movies, interspersed with your generic X-Factor shit, which puts the average audience somewhere in the early 20s. If we take into account the media hungry university student, you're looking at a target audience of about 18-25, give or take a few years. Sticking in a lot of movie-like stuff into my animation should appease the young adults. ;P

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