Ancillary Text Planning - Conventions of Magazine Advertisements

In order to fully understand what I need to include in my magazine advertisements, I need to analyse the codes and conventions of three existing texts. This will give me an overall idea of the conventions to follow when creating my own.  

The masthead ,band name, 'Manic Street Preachers', is the most dominant writing within this advertisement, this is done to avoid confusion with the audience. A lot of bands use the same font for their name on all products, this provides continuity and enables easy recognition. All of this advertisement is presented in the same font which provides continuity and creates a house style. The only part of this advertisement which isn't in the same font is the 'play.com' advertisement, this is in the house style of that specific institution, yet again making it easily recognisable to the audience. The tagline, 'Postcards From A Young Man', is the title of the album that is being advertised. The main image of this advertisement, which dominates the entire right side, could be considered abstract as it is not of the band or directly related to the title of the album. It is the same photo that is used on the album cover. The advertisement sticks to the conventional amount of three colours used in total. The quotes from positive reviews of the album by well-known media institutions helps in marketing this product as the audience are more likely to buy a product if it is positively reinforced by others (two step flow theory). This specific advertisement does not contain a release date, conventionally, it should be there and I will be adding one to my final piece. Another criticism that I would have with this specific advertisement is the lack of connections to social media. Since the development of Web 2.0, social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have become an open market for artists to promote their newest releases. This has led to artists' Twitter names and Facebook profile addresses becoming a regular convention of magazine advertisements, usually placed in the lower corners. 

This advertisement does not necessarily follow the classic conventions of its form but it is still effective overall. This advert is simplistic in nature, containing only the bands name, album name, release day and the band's logo as the main image all in black and white. The lack of information and imagery gives the advertisement a sense of mystery which could intrigue audience members into buying it. The fact that this advertisement contains no quotes from its reviews connotes that they would prefer their niche audience to make up their own minds without being swayed by the opinions of others.