Our trip to HMV...

As we are creating our own album cover,  Tom and I had to do research on contemporary Digipaks. So on Wednesday the 10th of November, 2010, We went as a class to do a research lesson in the local music store, HMV. We based our research on a questionnaire given to us before we arrived at there.

1. Stand in front of a range of CD's and allow your eye to travel until one or some design(s) catches your attention. Examine it: What features drew your eye in to it? 
   
   • the first album that caught my eye straight away was 'Biffy Clyro's' digipak of their latest album, Only Revolutions. The reason it caught my eye, was mainly because of the colours placed on the front were Red and Blue. These are two very contrasting colours, so putting this on the front of the album creates an attractive eye catcher. These colours also represents the French Revolution, linking to the title of the album.
     
     
     
   
   • Another Album that caught my eye was Battles' debut album, Mirrored. Like Biffy Clyro's Album cover, the colours sprung out at me. Mainly of the yellow drum kit and red keyboard. Another reason why this interested me was as I looked at this cover, I thought I was seeing more instruments to the left of the picture. I then looked at the album name 'Mirrored' and realized that it was a mirror reflection of the glass room.
     
   
   
   
   2. Where are the music DVD's located in the store?
   
   
   • Looking around the store, I noticed that the music DVD's were four rows down the shop, about 3/4's of the way in to the store. This meant that they are obviously not as successful as the CD's that came before the DVD's.
   
   3. How were the Music DVD's arranged? Eg. By genre/artist?
   
   
   • They were actually arranged in a simple alphabetical order, line after line, stretching out over half of the store.
   
   4. Look at a range of DVD's. What percentage of the following do they mainly showcase?
   
   • Performance- 70%
   • Documentaries- 20%
   • Compilation- 5%
   • Other- 5%
   
   5. What is the purpose of the Music DVD?
   
   
   • The DVD's show the artist or group performing in a live performance/ show. This then encourages fans to go and watch the real thing, live.
   6. Where are the CD's located in the store and how are they arranged?
   
   
   • As you walk into the store, the CD's are located from the right side of the shop, with all the new chart singles and debut albums. Moving more into the middle of the shop are genre music CD's like: Rock/pop, Hip Hop, Metal, classical etc.
   
   7.  What does this tell you about the relative importance of CD's compared with DVD's?
   
   
   • There are more CD's than DVD's as people want to listen to the band instead of watch them. CD's are also more portable and easier to use than DVD's.
   
   8. What is being played  at the listening posts?
   
   • Songs from the charts were being played when we were looking around the store. This was to encourage customers to buy the albums and singles. The song that was on while we were looking around was 'Club can't handle me' by Flo Rida.
   
   9. Does this give you any indication of HMV's customer base?
   
   
   • There is a very wide range of genres for different people who like that sort of music.
   
   
   
   
   
   We then found one DVD and two CD's in our genre (as recent as possible) and analyzed them:
   
   
   CD-Biffy Clyro/ Only Revolutions:
   
   
   
   • Images- People standing in an open field holding red and blue flags with a fire behind them. 
   • Brand identity- They are rockers that wear red skinny jeans.
   • Presentation of artist/band- They are not on the album cover or in the digipak itself. They are obviously well known already.
   • Other information- There is Historical context of the red and blue symbolizing the French Revolution.
   
   
   
   CD-Kings of Leon/ Only by night:
   
   
   
   • Images- Eagle face is being morphed into human faces in a green tint background.
   • Brand Identity- They are quirky and want to stick out as a different band to others.
   • Presentation of band/ artist- The bands faces have been combined into one and morphed into the eagles face. This shows that they are serious and the eagle symbolizes being quite solemn and stern as a band.
   
   
   
   
   DVD- Keane/ Live:
   
   
   
   • Images- A photo of the band on stage in front of the crowd with the lead singer strutting his stuff!
   • Brand identity- They are very laid back rock stars. They dress like normal everyday people speaking out to all types of audience.
   • Presentation of artist/ band: They are natural performers.
   • other information: The image is distaughted.
     
     
     
     
     
   
   
   To finish off our trip, we handed out a questionnaire to a staff member with these questions....
   
   
   
   1. What is your customer base at HMV? Guildford Town center.
   2. Why do you arrange the store the way you do? To increase sales and merchandise.
   3. How do DVD sales compare to CD sales? Why is this? DVD's outsell CD's 40% because there is a larger variety of genre's of DVD.
   4. How do you encourage people to come into your store? By offering customer service, and putting up adverts around Guildford.
   5. What stratagies do you use to compete against internet downloads? deals such as '2 for £10', Rewards and loyalty cards.