The variety and differentiation between the genres and artists they have signed to them are vast and allow a wide audience appeal. They produce rock, pop, R&B, classical, hip-hop and more and this helps their diverse audience consumption. In a way, they arguably cater to everyone’s musical interests. Each of their artists have their own brand identity and viewpoints which they ensure to highlight in their own ways.
When you first load up the Sony website, the current artists they are advertising and showcasing, reflect and represent a wide range of audiences and interests. They showcase a diverse and broad mix of artists and aim to promote their artists and stars in the best way possible for the brand itself. Their website has multiple conventions and keeps inform to their brand identify successfully by using their typography throughout as well as their logo in the top left hand corner.
Typical Conventions and features of the Sony Website:
- Logo on the left hand side - reinforces their brand identity
- Links to several different pages:
- Home - the hyperlink to the homepage of the website, generic convention amongst most websites, allows a quick and accessible way back to the homepage with minimal time consumption.
- About - has a drop down bar to either 'culture' or 'social justice fund' with an additional link to an overview of their franchise and creation when generally clicking on about, aids to reflect the views and ideologies of Sony and what is important to them, encourages further reading about them and what they can offer - useful to not only the public but to aspiring artists who one day wish to be signed to a company like Sony or Sony themselves.
- News - allows further reading to interesting and diverse articles, appeals to a wide range of audiences and broadens their interests, opens up topics of discussion and allows more research into different artists.
- Roster - link to a list of all of their signed artists, showcases the diversity and range within their company, interests the audience and could lead onto create a form of entertainment for the audience
- Labels & Partners - shows the convergence within their franchise, a profile for each of the partners etc. with an interactive link to a Sony personalised page to information about each item.
- Listen - has a drop-down bar to 'releases', 'playlists', or 'podcasts', which encourages interaction and entertainment for the audience, appears to cater to the different things audiences may like to listen to.
- Careers - has a drop down bar to 'jobs', 'internships' and 'benefits' further creating another audience/consumer for Sony.
- For Artists - help for the artists signed to them and to those who wish to be signed to Sony
- Contact - encourages connection between brand and consumer which is becoming increasingly more important within the media society today
- Search tool - allows further personalisation of the website and allows audience to find out the information they wish to.
- Same and consistent font throughout - helps to promote their brand identity and keep to their house style
- Consistent use of a colour scheme - helps to keep to their house style and reinforces their brand identity
A lot of the generic conventions of the Sony website align with the theory put forward by Blumler and Katz. Their theory, Uses and Gratification, outlines the premises that audiences are active when choosing and consuming the media. They believe that audiences use the media in four main different ways. Those being: Personal identity, Information, Entertainment and Social Interaction. These four ways mean and encourage different things amongst different audiences which ultimately alter and change the way each individual uses the media.
18.3.22 - website homepage
When loading up the website on the 18th of March 2022, I found that the content they were showcasing was up-to-date with the recent BRITS awards. They are essentially promoting the artists that are signed to them in order to reach their target audience and ensure that the public are aware that those winning or nominated artists are signed with them, thus further extending their brand. The entirety of their homepage on the date I loaded the website up, promotes and showcases how successful they are in producing and supporting artists.
For example, in the 2022 BRITs, Adele was the most successful award winner, winning three awards for herself and for Sony. They ensure to have a feature and a chance for further reading on her. The language on her feature, such as ‘dominates’, suggests just how successful she was at the awards ceremony. This ensures that when opening the website, Sony are able promote an evidently successful female artist that is signed to them, thus further growing their brand and franchise.
They also ensure to showcase the other awards and large events happening for their brand such as Jade Thirwell's new record deal, the Young Music Boss Awards and news on Bring Me The Horizon and their latest awards.
30.3.22 - website homepage
On the 30th of March 2022, I reloaded up the website to see if Sony had updated their homepage. I found that they had updated it but ensure to keep with their brand identity and generic layout. They used the same convention of showcasing their most recent and popular artists in order to appeal to a mass audience and grow their franchise further. However, the main image on their website to change is the one on the left hand side, previously the Sony logo with a caption about themselves was replaced with notice of Harry Styles' new album.
- Between April 2020 and March 2021 - Sony was able to generate 1.42 billion US dollars from the publishing sector of it's brand and 4.64 billion US dollars from their recorded music sector
- They own over five million songs in total (as of the end of March 2021)
- Sony bought the rights to all of Michael Jackson's songs
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