One Direction Website

One Direction are a great example of a successful group with amazing marketing behind them. We studied and analysed their website in order to employ some of these techniques on our own since we are both groups targeting a core market of teenage girls. Contestants on 2010’s series of X-Factor, originally all the boys auditioned as individual artists, however they were put together by the production team in the Bootcamp stages of the show and went on to finish third. Simon Cowell’s label SYCO decided to sign them anyway given their popularity and the enormous amount of public good will they received. The band already had a prime time fan base that had witnessed their whole story so the marketing team behind One Direction decided to exploit this and play on their individuality. The boys ranged in age from 17-20 and already had a broad appeal and diversity; 1 Irish, 1 Asian, 3 Caucasian. This set up allowed fans to have their favourite- a strategy similar to that of the Spice Girls. The boys core or primary target market was that of young girls aged 7-14 due to their good looks, style and charisma, but marketers also noted that they appealed to secondary markets of mums and older teenagers. Marketing looked at their audience pluralistically, playing on certain things to appeal to each market, e.g sexiness for older teens, ‘safeness’ for mums.

 

Since forming just over a year ago, One Direction have gone onto monumental success. Tickets for their first tour sold out in a record breaking time of just 10.6 seconds and their debut single ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ went straight to number 1, winning the accolade for fastest selling single of 2011.

 

Their website is the hub of the whole marketing campaign and cleverly utilises Web 2.0 and social media to appeal to their young fanbase. The website features a consistent brand image throughout and uses a multiplatform strategy to promote a 360degree targeting of their broad audience. Marketers have exploited the 5 key areas for a successful campaign: Broadcast and traditional media, press and publicity, social media, endorsements and merchandise and examples for each can be found on the website. Here are some examples of the different ways fans can interact with or ‘own’ the band:

 

Charley- 1D Website

 

Interactive opportunities:

Purchasing Opportunities:

Follow- Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, RSS Comments on post Fan Art- push/pull marketing (consumer/prosumer) Click to tweet news story Fan of the Week Design their Twitter Backgroud Meet1D.com – play game Q & A via Youtube Via Tumblr- Fan Art- ‘Bring 1D to Me’ Newsletter

Merchandising- Shop-personalised gift prints- (satisfies uses and gratifications of audience)- Different domain because of its importance Picture to buy the single on homepage New Book Trip at Lakeside Book launch- amazon link Tour on sale iTunes and HMV link (download song) Symbiosis with Pokemon and Nintendo DS Text- mobile pre-order album Nokia phone endorsement