Evaluation Question 1

Advertising Campaign

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Bus T Side Advert

Bus Stop Advert

Billboard Advert

Promo / Pre-roll Advert

Advertising Campaign Research and Development

Why a Promo / Pre-Roll Advert?

- A promo advert plays across the BBC channels in between shows and can be shown at times when the target audience is most likely to be watching TV (e.g. after a specific programme that is likely to have the same/similar audience to 'Man's Best Friend'.)

- They are between 20 and 40 seconds long and show a quick montage of what the viewer should expect from the documentary and engage them by using attractive clips.

- The promo can also be shown as a 'pre-roll' advert on sites such as YouTube where the advert plays just before a video. The videos the advert plays before can be selected so it is only shown to a specific audience. For example, showing the advert before 'cute puppy' videos will reach the audience of people looking to watch dogs.

After putting together the first version of the promo advert I realised the voice over was quite loud. This could be uncomfortable for the viewer and put them off the documentary. Therefore, I lowered the volume of the voice over.



For the second edit with the lowered volume I also added the title 'Peter Bamforth' (the presenter's name) so that the audience can identify with him more and possibly research him. I then showed people for feedback, they suggested I slow down the transition that introduced the 'Peter Bamforth' title because it was quite fast and did not fit with the pace of the rest of the advert.



This final version of the promo / pre roll advert is very simple, informative, and engaging, which are three elements that were suggested I make sure to include from my audience research.

Advertising Campaign WordCloud

I asked multiple people for their opinion on what makes a good advertising campaign. I then put the most frequent suggestions into a WordCloud which can be seen below. This helped me to focus on putting suitable elements into my advertising campaign for 'Man's Best Friend'.

Man's Best Friend - Completed Main Task

Magazine Spread

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Magazine Spread Research and Development

 Real products and previous A2 work:

(LEFT)

In class we looked at real magazine spreads as well as spreads done by the previous media studies students. We studied these in detail and annotated them with what was done well so that we knew what to include in our spreads to make them as good as possible. It taught us what worked well and what did not on a double page spread, this would allow us to avoid making the same 'mistakes' when we started designing our own ones.



















Real product:

(RIGHT)

When the hearing dog charity people visited us for the interview they gave us their magazine, 'Favour'. This was helpful because it was very related to our documentary. I used this to look at how to structure a magazine spread as well as what type of content to include. I then applied these skills, such as pull quotes and appropriate images, when designing my own spread.

Initial ideas:

(LEFT)

After researching how to design a magazine spread and learning what elements I should include to make it the best it could be I started drawing out some rough ideas. This helped me to where I should put the titles and main body of text etc. and what worked well in each position. When I had a solid idea of what I wanted my spread to     look like, I started to edit it on the computer using a 'Sony Vegas' editing suite.

Feedback and improvements:

(RIGHT)

After I had completed a first edit of my magazine spread I showed it to people to receive feedback on how it could be improved. I was told that I should include a picture of the presenter to accompany the 'A chat with the presenter' segment. I was also told to reverse the alignment of the text as well as remove the image of the hearing dog charity logo because it looked too much like an advertisement. It was suggested that I replace this with a pull quote. These improvements can be seen on the final piece. 

The Editing Process

Media Screening

From the feedback received it is clear that people really liked our subject choice of dogs because it was interesting and engaging. We also learnt that we had achieved our goal of making the documentary quite happy and 'feel good' as well as informative through the use of appropriate music and interviews. However, it was also said that we could have looked into dogs as pets more. If we were to film the full documentary we would definitely have explored this area in greater depth. The audience also noted that the camera angles and footage used were very appropriate, 'cute', and edited together well to keep the documentary 'slick' and 'very professional'. Another area we could improve on is the speed of the presenter talking. One audience member thought that the presenter was speaking too quickly, however, this may not have been the view of the entire audience who did not mention this as an issue. Finally, it was great to see people either leaving the 'bad' box blank or writing phrases such as "no improvement needed!".