Ancillary text research - Eminem 'Recovery' promotional poster

The Eminem poster promoting his semi-recent album Recovery says true to the conventions of promotional posters. The artists name (Eminem) is in a black bold text, which stands out to due the fact that all other aspects of text on the poster are in white. Also the unique text style featuring the backwards 'E's for the artist name and the name of the album are based on Eminem's signature logo which is continuous through all of his work from the very start of his career. An audience will easily recognise this as he is a well established, famous artist, that is easily identifiable.

The main image of Eminem himself walking down a long road continues my idea of how indentifiable he is as an icon. The dress sense of the man within the image can easily be identified and associated with Eminem as his costume always has a hip-hop edge, (especially due to the beanie and baggy trousers) and this is what Eminem is always seen wearing. This sense of star appeal on the poster will fulfill the expectations of the audience to see the artist on the poster, and without his presence, the poster would have much less promotional value and would not appeal to a mass audience.

The black text of his name against a sky blue background contrasts greatly and stands out very well from the white. This is almost shows a divide between the information and the artist himself, as he is of course the main attraction and the main point of interest. The font size of the artist and albums name is significantly larger than anything else on the poster, which further asserts their importance as this is what the public will be searching for when it comes to consuming the product.

A release date of the media is second largest, providing the audience vital information on when they can actually purchase it, done a conventional white text, which is bold and blocky, like the rest of the poster. This shows continuity.

Another form of continuity that I need to implement into my product is the fact that the poster must show a similar pattern or image to the digipak, to show that they are the same product. This allows an audience to easily identify the product from the poster. This is really implemented with this example of Eminem as his album; Recovery (which is being advertised) has the same exact main image and text style. Which displays conventional continuity.

See the below image.

The fact that not only one extremely popular (registered platinum) hit single has been included on the poster, but four is a great feature which will promote the album and persuade people to buy it. The fact that the artists featured within the tracks are also included on the picture such as Lil Wayne, Pink and Rihanna is a referral to other famous recognisable names and their media texts. I believe that this feature will appeal to fans of these artists and therefore introduce a larger fan base to the product, which fulfills the posters promotional purposes extremely well.

An 'explicit content' symbol alongside the logos of the institutions involved are included conventionally in a very small size in comparison to the rest of the magazine to show that they are not the main point of interest, but enclose who is behind the product and what to look out for. A web page address for the artists website is also included, which I think is a good inclusion due to the fact that it will link an audience to his web page and therefore all of his other online media, which serves the purpose of exposing an audience to the artist and their work through web 2.0.