Mainstream - One Direction

One direction are signed to major label record companies, SYCO, owned by Simon Cowell and Columbia records. They were signed to these after participating in the talent show X-Factor and coming third place. They are now the biggest boy band in the world, beating even The Beatles in historical records.  

Artists on Columbia records include Beyonce, Jaden Smith, Katy Perry, Bob Dylan and many other notorious names. Artists on SYCO however mostly, but not exclusively, include those who participated in X-Factor under Simon Cowell's mentoring.

Independent - Lanterns on the lake

Lanterns on the lake are on a much less known label called Bella Union. Bella Union is a British independent record label which was founded in 1997 by two members of the Cocteau Twins, Simon Raymonde and Robin Guthrie. It is now run alone by Simon Raymonde.

Other artists on this label are also independent of course and much less heard of. They revolve mainly around indie rock and do not have large organisations behind them that help them cultivate a certain image or identity. These include: Midlake, Fleet Foxes, John Grant and many others.

Target audiences

As depicted above on the right hand corner, we see that in the United Kingdom the target audience consists of young adult females. This also occurred in America too. Given that the YouGov profiler only gives a sample of profiles and after more research we realised that alongside this more widespread audience, girls from 12-16 are mainly targeted too.

Lanterns on the lake did not have any results on the YouGov website but internet feedback and comments showed that they had a much older audience, females did not entirely dominate this small target audience like the one direction audience.

Merchandise

lanterns on the lake - small range of reasonably priced shirts. On the website and not sold anywhere else particularly. CDs are also sold physically and avaliable to buy on the website.

One direction - Very high priced, a selection of t-shirts, jewellery and perfume. Resold in other retail stores. Other merchandise is sold too in retail stores.

Purchasing music - Lanterns on the lake 

If you want to purchase any of the music Lanterns on the lake makes, you have to go to their, or their record company's, website and buy a physical CD or Vinyl. Their music is also available to download digitally on Apple Music. The concept of CD and vinyl is very important to this genre of music and independent artists as it's a convention despite being a format that's dying out amongst this generation.

Purchasing music - 
One direction

If you want to purchase any of the music released by One direction you can also do so through the website. The website contains all formats of music, CD, digital and vinyl and all these are also available on iTunes or Apple Music. All of these are priced higher and they are various packages available, for example, a double pack of two of their albums.