Kiya Persad
AS Media Production and Communication
Beyonce Knowles is a female singer that does R&B and pop music. Her target audience is females in their late teens to late 20's, predominantly African American. This is because as this is what she is herself, it becomes more relatable to her primary target audience. As she used to be in Destiny's Child, this age range is suitable, as they have followed her in her musical career since they grew up with it and feel like they can connect with her.
She has a clothing range and 7 fragrances. Her clothing range and fragrances are examples of horizontal integration as she is endorsing her own bra, however, it is another product other than her music and the product of herself. The use of horizontal integration is good as she can self promote her product which gives further publicity to the products through cross promotion. Her clothing range appeals to her target audience as it is all female products. The designs on the clothing is very suitable for her target audience as it is quirky and something that the age range would be likely to wear. Her perfumes are good for her target audience as well because most females wear some form of perfume, so it is immediately appealing and something they would be likely to buy. As she has 7 fragrances, it also gives a range and thus allows choice when buying which may lead to it being sold more. Another example of her working with another product is the charity work she does with charities such as 'Chime for Change'. It is an example of synergy because she promotes the charity, which is another company, and is an ambassador of the charity and promotes the company.
Her work with Chime for Change is also partly an example of interactivity. As she is an ambassador herself, she also strongly encourages her fans to become ambassadors themselves. This shows that her website gives her fans something to do. Another example of interactivity is her use of getting fans to join the fan club and gaining access to the newsletter once you have signed up. Many fans will find this appealing as they will be kept updated with what's new on the website as well as being updated if there are any upcoming events to be involved in, such as presale tickets to her upcoming tour or a local concert for a tv performance.
She also shows her social media pages which can act as a forum for her fans to communicate with each other and her. This can be shown in her navigation bar where there is an option to follow, which includes her twitter, facebook and instagram page. This can appeal to her target audience as most of her as the age group would be most likely to be using social media a lot anyway and so it will be a useful forum to connect with her and other fans.
Her main image is a picture of her from a magazine interview with GARAGE magazine. It shows a picture of her face but also uses synergy to promote the magazine and her recent interview. It is a side profile shot of her face which clearly establishes her as a product to show that it is her website. It allows her fans to clearly see her as a product and it's the first thing they would notice as soon as they go on the website as it is visually attracts the audience. It represents her as an artist as she is known for being pure and down to earth so the simplicity of the magazine cover represents this. She is an advocate for feminism and encouraging black people to empower themselves. Her hairstyle in this picture is braids which shows her encouraging natural black hairstyles as beautiful. Often in the media and Hollywood it is encouraged to have straight hair to look beautiful, so by her doing this type of hairstyle, she is showing that natural beauty is just as beautiful as what is portrayed in the media. Her natural look also encourages women that they can be powerful as they do not need lots of makeup to be beautiful.
Beyonce has lots of multimedia content on her home page. Two of these are the option to watch the clean or explicit version of her latest track 'formation'. This is appealing to her target audience as it shows the two separate clips being clearly shown on the website for easy access if youu want to watch the video at home. It is also useful as if they want to show someone the video they can choose between the explicit and clean version. The option to download the song/video is also mulitmedia content as it is a video but it is interactive for the target audience as they have an option to actively download the song. She also has an option in her navigation bar called 'vault'. This shows her latest activity through pictures and is a source of multimedia content for her to interact with her fans what goes on her life as it makes them feel like they know her personally through seeing photos from behind the scenes which makes the fan to artist relationship seem more realistic and personal.
Her logo is her name in all capitals. This represents the artist through the simplicity and the recognition it brings from being so simple. As it is so simple to remember her logo, it appeals to her fans as it recognisable and would stand out anywhere you saw it. It represents her as an artist as she is so recognisable that her logo can just be her name in all capitals as everyone would automatically know it is her. It shows her success from where she used to be as her logo has changed, like many artists and products in general, through the years to adjust with her current image. Although the font has changed throughout her career, her fonts have always been simple, but representative of her current album so each one changes. Apart from her first logo that resembles that of the juicy couture logo, which was a very popular brand at the time of her use of this logo, the rest are in all capitals and the only thing that has changed is the font.
Conclusion:
As Beyonce is a worldwide phenomenon, her crew have worked with her to make sure that her website includes all of the conventions of a website in order to make sure that the audience and her fans can gain as much as possible from her website.