Our Component 3 project explores our creativity within the music industry through the creation of a music video package. Kika Laene is a persona we developed as an Electro Pop/Pop artist who promotes herself through her music video, digipak, and social media page, using a song and album from Lorde, Shapeshifter (2025). We want Kika Laene to create a strong connection with audiences aged 16-18 (Gen Z), who relates their present lives to her experiences.
Branding refers to the overall impression and consistent identity an audience associates with an artist across different media platforms. It is important because it allows audiences to easily recognise and artist while promoting their values, persona, and message, helping build engagement and marketability. In our project, branding is created through a rebranding narrative, where Kika Laene uses her past identity as a blueprint to construct a new and more confident version of herself. According to the Theory of Stardom, stars are carefully constructed through repeated media representations, and our music video, social media, and digipak work together to maintain this consistency. Across all products, visual similarities such as expressive makeup, bold fashion styling, fixed shots, and a consistent blue and yellow colour palette create recognisable branding. These colours juxtapose her earlier ordinary appearance with her new euphoric and confident persona, symbolising growth and transformation. In the music video, mise-en-scene, costume, and performance shift from casual styling and minimal emotion to confident expressions and stylised makeup (example in figure 1.1), visually communicating the rebrand. This transformation continues on social media where the artist deleted her previous ordinary posts and replaces them with promotional content, achievements and stylised imagery, reinforcing her new identity (seen in figure 1.2). The digipak further strengthens branding through the same colour scheme, expressive visuals, and a symbolic yellow artist logo, which acts as a recognisable code following Barthes' symbolic theory. Additionally, End of Audience Theory suggests audiences play a role in shaping star identity, as the rebrand encourages engagement and identification. Overall, the combination of consistent visuals, narrative transformation, and repeated symbolic elements contracts Kika Laene's brand as confident, expressive and inspirational, allowing audiences to associate her image with growth and self-empowerment.
Our digipak was researched into both pop and electro pop conventions, which shaped how we used and challenged genre expectations. Electro-pop digipaks are often counter-cultural, expressive and visually experimental, using dramatic imagery, extreme close-ups, bold colour palettes and digital visual effects to create a futuristic or electric aesthetic, while pop digipacks focus on emotional appeal, colour, strong star imagery and clear artist branding. We confirmed to these conventions by placing Kika Laene's artist logo at the centre of the design, using expressive euphoric makeup, vibrant colours such as blue, yellow, purple and pink, and extreme close-ups to emphasise emotion and star identity. The inclusion of a logo and consistent visual style supports artist recognition and reflects David Gauntlett's idea that identity is contrasted through media creativity and self-expression which an example would be during her magazine shoots where we can recognise her through her artist logo (seen in figure 2). Although Steve Neale argues that genres develop through repetition and difference, meaning subversion increases recognition, our digipak blends pop and electro pop conventions so that any way subversion of pop, such as dramatic effects or experimental styling, still conforms to electro-pop conventions. Therefore, the product remains recognisable rather than fully challenging genre norms. Research into branding and rebranding had the biggest influence on our project, as we designed the digipak to visually represent Kika Laene's transformation from her past to her new identity. The repeated colour scheme, expressive visuals and logo reinforce her rebrand and connect with her wide media presence, supporting the Theory of Stardom by presenting a renewed star image following a downfall and comeback. Overall, research guided our creative decisions to ensure the digipak both followed genre conventions and strengthened artist identity and audience recognition.
Our target audience is primarily females aged 16-28 who may relate to experiences of toxic relationships and emotional growth. Psychographically, they are audiences who enjoy cinematic, aesthetic content and artists who promote self-expression and healing. Our social media engages them through dreamy visuals, expressive makeup, and emotional colour palettes that reflect Kika Laene's journey, allowing audiences to relate and fee guided by her growth. Engagement is created through promotional posts documenting her rebrand, encouraging audiences to follow her transformation. Although she does not frequently reply to comments, captions acts as interaction by expressing gratitude and appreciation, creating closeness between star and fans ( seen in figure 3.1 ). Hermeneutic codes are used through teaser posts and the Shapeshifter announcement, generating mystery and discussion about her new identity. Additionally, tour announcements and links allow audiences to experience Kika Laene face-to-face, strengthening realism and engagement as fans move beyond the global online community into direct, present interaction with the star ( seen in figure 3.2 ).
Visual similarities across the music video, social media and digipak includes close-up shots, expressive makeup, and juxtaposed blue and yellow colour schemes which reinforces branding and support her persona of growth, confidence and self-love. The social media fulfils Uses and Gratifications by offering diversion through emotional storytelling, personal identity as audiences see their own experiences reflected, social relationships through shared fan discussions, and surveillance by providing updates about her career and achievements. Through the Theory of Stardom, her successful rebrand, awards and promotional visibility make her aspirational yet relatable, while Clay Shirky's Theory highlights how fans influence and participate in her success. The Theory of Fandom is shown as audiences connect with one another through shared excitement about the rebrand, forming a supportive fan community built around her journey (seen in figure 3.3 ).
Our products first represent the social group of an electro-pop artist, Kika Laene, exploring identity, rebranding and recovery from a toxic relationship. The dominant reading encourages audiences to view her growth as a guide, showing how learning from past mistakes leads to confidence, independence and healthier self-identity. High angle shots in social media present vulnerability and emotional weakness, reflecting how her toxics relationship affected her mentality, while close-ups and fixed performance shots created emotional intimacy. Across the technical elements, we juxtapose her past and present identity through mine-en-secene contrasts blue tones in the music video, symbolising depression and emotion lows, with yellow tones in social media representing healing and confidence ( seen in figure 4.1 ). Euphoric makeup, designer fashion and expressive styling further reinforces this transformation. Sound through emotional lyrics and performance conveys grief and recovery, while editing uses match cuts to juxtapose before and after versions of the artist suggesting toxicity becomes a learning experience. Her persona reflects the Theory of Stardom, presenting her as both ordinary and relatable yet aspirational through consumption and success. While emotional pop-star stereotypes are used for genre recognition, they are challenged through independences and active self-representation subverting aspects of the Male Gaze Theory.
The second issue represents toxic vs healthy relationships and the male vs female perspective. Influenced by Levi Strauss' binary opposites, the narrative juxtaposes love and conflict to drive meaning. The dominant reading encourages sympathy for the female character's growth, while a negotiated reading allows sympathy for the males regret. Technical elements continues this contrast by using colour palettes juxtapose artificial blue mores with confrontational yellow conflict, fast editing fragments memories, and longer takes to intensify arguments. Lyric matching and mirrored match cuts reinforces opposing meaning, present toxicity as a stage leaving to separation and growth ( seen in figure 4.2 ). Drawing on Judith Butler's Theory of gender performativity and the Male Gaze by Laura Mulvey, stereotypical gender roles initially appear but are challenged as the female becomes active, independent and emotionally empowered.
Link to CR Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13u5BGbrhiFm3TaYgFE28lHoOxrnZ9LJYzZfz_3oqvik/edit?usp=sharing
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