Branding of the spice girls and Katy Perry

During the mid 90s a family management team had the idea of producing a girl band that would be able to compete with all the boy bands that dominated the scene in the mid 90s to the late 90s. February 1994 an ad was made to look for girls to be part of this new girl band saying "WANTED: R.U 18-23 with the ability to sing/dance? R.U streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated?


The girls outfits were carefully picked for their first live appearance on American television;

• Victoria- She was sophisticated and wore a silky fitted black dress
• Emma- She was the youngest of the group and wore a baby pink dress
• Mel B- She was fierce and wore leopard print trousers
• Geri- She wore hot pants a top and bra
• Mel C- She was sporty and wore her favourite Liverpool top and tracksuit bottoms.

Selling the spice girls

• The spice girls were sold as a group of friends.
• They were a carefully selected group of strangers after a lot of auditions that had taken place.
• They had continuous merchandise and sponsorship deals and were involved in pepsi ads, Polaroid ads and Barbie style spice girl dolls.
• Everything about the spice girls (scary spice, baby spice, sporty spice) were controlled by men. Geri Halliwell. 
• Ginger spice almost didn't make it into the group as she looked a lot older than the other girls. In her audition when she was asked how old she was, she said "I'm as old as you want me to be. I'll be 10 with big boobs if you want."

Each spice girl was different which meant that they could reach a wider scale of audiences as different people will like a different spice.

Katy Perry's target audience is young girls aged 14-17. In order to appeal to this group, Katy Perry has to take on the role of being an ideal older sister and friend to her target audience. She has to be an idealised version of them. Her songs and videos have to reflect many fears and anxieties that the young girls may have. When Katy Perry appears 'sexy' it has to be in a non threatening way.



Interestingly, her brand suffered when she got married to Russell Brand who was a massive womaniser. due to this her videos became a lot more sexual and knowing which may result in threatening young girls. 

Following a messy divorce from Russell Brand, Katy needed to use her music videos to apologise and be able to explain to her fans and state to them that she was still the same person she was before she met him. The second part of this blog post will analyse key music videos and track the journey of Katy Perry.

wide awake is the video Katy made after her divorce with Russell Brand. During her time being with him her image changed resulting in her audience turning against her, she made this video to apologise to her audience and to tell them she is still the same person she was before she was with Russell Brand.