Promotion Packs

We researched albums on Play.com and we discovered that quite often, bands will release promotional packs of their albums. Take for instance, the band Pendulum. Their latest album In Silico has a distinguishable cover. On Play.com you can buy a dvd of a live performance of them at the Brixton Academy, playing all the popular songs from each of their albums. The cover for this dvd is remarkably similar to the album cover of In Silico.

We think that this is used as when glancing over the albums quickly, it will seem like the normal version of the new album, but actually, on closer inspection of the CD cover, you will notice that it is actually the live dvd. One of the main differences of the dvd to the CD is that the background in the dvd is black, making the cover seeming quite bold. This is similar to the promotional package of the new Coldplay album. The old album called Viva La Vida had a recognisable logo, of the text against a colourful background. The new promotional package of the most recent album Prospekts March is the Viva La Vida album cover, only with a bold black background. The songs of the new album appear in a second CD, with the songs from Viva La Vida on the main one.

This research has allowed us to realise that if we want to make a promotional poster or package, then the background colour should definitely be black, as it stands out yet at the same time it isn't too shocking to look at, therefore not looking out of place in a line of normal CD covers, allowing the buyer to be more surprised when they see that it's a promotional one off, therefore making them more inclined to buy the product.