AS1 blog 7: Audience information

audience information

It's useful for advertisers to study audience because then they know what adverts to show, when to show it and is it an appropriate time to show it. Also if helps the advertisers know when the best time is to air the advert, so when the most viewers are and when most people will see the adverts.

Audiences are divided so it is easier for advertisers to determine people the same as one person in the same 'division' as them will most likely to be watching the same programme. Audiences are divided in different ways, one way is their 'social grade', so if they are upper class, middle class, lower middle class and working class. This way is to see what the different classes watches. This is useful because the different classes will most likely watch different programmes.

Another division is where they live, they take a few people living in the same area and check what they watch and then generalise it to decide what other people in the same area are watching.

The other ways the audience is divided are age and gender. It's useful to do it this way because most women and most men watch the same things so it generalises what people are watching very easily.


It is useful to identify sections of your audience because then you can determine when they watch the most TV, what genre they watch and it makes it easier to generalise your audience.


Barb
BARB stands for 'Broadcasters' Audience Research Board'. BARB are the people that measure how many people are watching a programme for the whole of the UK. They do this by putting a small box in peoples living room and when the viewers press a button it starts recording what they are watching and the data goes back to the panellists who then records that data. Another organisation like this is RSMB. RSMB are partnered with BARB and they do the same thing but with these countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary and Sweden plus statistical advice on TAM panel design in the Republic of Ireland.

An audience measurement plan is when a person represents a number of people in the universe, particular country or area (e.g. London). This is useful because it makes it quicker and easier to generalise what people in a area watch and if your programme will be watched and where it will be watched.

AS1 blog 6: Methods of research

Methods of research 

There are many different types of research, one of them are audience research. Audience research is research that is taken and the people that are researched is determined on their interests, attitudes, preferences or behaviours. The groups are determined on various things like, race, gender, age, education or family income. This is useful because the film/programme producers can see whether the target audience would watch it, if the producers never done audience research they wouldn't know whether their show would be watched by their target audience.

Market research is when a business get employees to go out and do surveys, questionnaires etc. on the public. The people they ask are chosen randomly they don't look for a certain person. There are two techniques used by companies who do market research, they are qualitative or quantitive research. Qualitative research is when they get feedback that is good quality even if they have not got much feedback. Quantitive research is when they get as much feedback as quick as possible regardless if its good feedback. The pros of using market research is you can get feedback from people that may not even know what your company are which means they cant be biased or anything. The con of doing this is if you release a online survey or something like that people can lie about their answers. You will do this to see if people will buy your product or use your service and you can do it to improve your product.

Production research is research done to get information about the product and it focuses on the production of a product, how its made. The pros of this is it gives the company information about wether their product will be successful and if the characteristics of their product is suitable. For example Lynx does research and they do it by the physical aspects of someone and once they have the information they know what to do with the product.

Primary research

Primary research is when a company does their own research and doesn't use any other companies research. This will be best used for audience research because you can't use other research for a programme because every programme is different. A con of doing this is it is time consuming for the company and it takes a lot of time and money to do it.

Secondary research

Secondary research is when a company uses other research maybe from a similar company researching a similar product/service or they can use the media for research. You could use this for market research, if someone has researched a similar product or service you could use their research for your own use. This saves time and money.

quantitative research

To get large amounts data and generalise results from a sample to the population of interest. To measure the incidence of various views and opinions in a chosen sample. In other words, you get as much data as possible for your product/service. This would be used for production research because you want peoples opinion on your product, the more opinions you get the better because you can generalise everyones opinion and determine if your product would be good. 

Qualitative research 

This is used to get good quality feedback instead of lots of feedback. this is usually used with small groups of people, this would be effective for audience research because it gets quality feedback and you don't have to rush to get as much feedback as possible so people can give better feedback and you have a better insight in if your product will be a success. 

AS1 blog 5: Regulations

Regulations

ASA

The advertising standards authority (ASA) ensure all adverts can be aired and that they follow the rules of advertising. 

The ASA cover a wide variety of advertisements including: 

• Magazine and newspaper advertisements 
• Radio and TV commercials (not programmes or programme sponsorship) 
• Television Shopping Channels 
• Advertisements on the Internet, including:
  • banner and display ads
  • paid-for (sponsored) search
  • Marketing on companies’ own websites and in other space they control like social networking sites Twitter and Facebook 

(https://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/What-we-cover.aspx)

The ASA deal with complaints by getting the person who wants to complain about an advert to fill in a compliant form. 

Ofcom

Ofcom is the communication regulators for the UK, this means they ensure that people living in the UK are not scammed and get the best uses out of their communication services. 

This is what the actually do and their legal duties are:

• the UK has a wide range of electronic communications services, including high-speed services such as broadband;
• a wide range of high-quality television and radio programmes are provided, appealing to a range of tastes and interests;
• television and radio services are provided by a range of different organisations;
• people who watch television and listen to the radio are protected from harmful or offensive material;
• people are protected from being treated unfairly in television and radio programmes, and from having their privacy invaded;
• a universal postal service is provided in the UK - this means a six days a week, universally priced delivery and collection service across the country; and
• the radio spectrum (the airwaves used by everyone from taxi firms and boat owners, to mobile-phone companies and broadcasters) is used in the most effective way.

(http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/what-is-ofcom/)

Ofcom only covers TV and radio complaints whereas the ASA cover all types of advertisements.

Ofcom ask people to make a complaint within 20 days of the airing of the TV show or radio show. to make a complaint, on the Ofcom website there is a complain tab and when you click that they get you to answer some questions about the programme you are complaining about.

Banned tv advert

The ASA banned this TV advert because 37 viewers complained about this advert because it was shown at 8:45 and because it's a trailer for a horror TV show and it was during Britain's got talent which is a family show with children watching. The issue with this was viewers complained because of the time it was showed and there is a possibility of children being distressed by watching this. The ASA decided to upheld it because it can distress young children. it was seen by approximately 1.6 million children, 745,000 of whom were aged between 4 and 9 years. 

AS1 blog 4: Analysing a television advertisement in detail

Analysis of a advert

The advert I am analysing is the Think campaign.

This is the advert I am analysing. The form of this advert is realist because it can happen to the average driver and when you watch it, it makes you feel emotional. The style of the advert is shocking because it makes you feel shocked that it happens. The target audience for this advert is car drivers/parents, we know this because it shows a working business man trying to get on and do his work but he keeps seeing the little boy he killed and it seems like it the boy is haunting him. The advert does this because it shows how much it affects people. 

The advert provokes an emotional response because if your a parent or a driver you would imagine how you will feel if your child got run over or how you would feel if you killed a young child. The advert hasn't used a celebrity because the advert isn't trying to sell any products or any services, its an awareness advert and usually celebrities are used for products or charity adverts to get people to buy/donate. 

It doesn't use any branding because again its for awareness it isn't for selling a product or service so there is no need for a brand. A brand is to identify a company that is selling products or a service and this is promoting road safety so it isn't a company. This advert is very persuasive because the fact it is promoting safety means it has to get through to the viewers and it has to persuade people to be careful on roads. It uses many emotions such as: guilt, sympathy etc. 

The advert is promoting the dangers of road accidents and that it doesn't just effect the the person who gets hit by the vehicle but it also effects the driver. It does this is various ways, during the advert the man (the driver who killed a kid in a car accident) is doing everyday activities but as he is doing them it shows a little boy in every scene laying on the floor dead and the man sees him and it shows the man's life being ruined by the guilt. 

The scene that shows the man going down the escalators it shows the man and the little boy at the bottom of the escalators and shows the man looking the opposite away from the boy, this is effective because it suggests the man can't cope with the guilt. It adds to the purpose of the advert because it 

portrays the man's guilt is unbearable. 

AS1 blog 3: Styles of television adverts

Advertisers use different styles of advertisers to appeal to different target audiences. The styles of adverts are:

Humour: This is an advert for Vodafone, the target audience for this is mainly adults who use phones. this style aims to make the audience laugh to make it memorable. It makes it memorable because it stands out to other adverts that are promoting mobile phones. This style suits this product because this isn't a serious products and this isn't a serious advert.

Parody: A parody advertisement makes references to well known texts or famous/iconic movie scenes etc... and makes fun of them. this style makes us remember the advert and it makes us feel smart that we knew what it was referencing. a good example of this is the '118 118' adverts and they name themselves 'the A-team' obviously making fun of the A-team. An advert of theirs makes fun of the Ghostbusters theme tune, "who you going to call?".  This is effective because it makes people remember the advert which means the will remember the product.

surreal: Surreal adverts make the audience not sure of what the products is because it has nothing to do with the product until the end usually when the advertisers put the product at the end. This type of advert is memorable because they are not normal, they are totally different to other adverts out there. This is effective because it is different and the audience are likely not to see an advert like this that is so strange so they will remember. 

Shock: This style is to try and get the audiences attention and makes us feel sympathy. This style is usually for charities or to get you to think about safety. This is effective because it may be personal to some of the audience which means they will be more affected and will get them thinking about the purpose of the advert and if it is a charity there would be more of a chance of them donating.  

Repetition: Adverts are repeated so much a day because it gets more people seeing the advert and the more chance of people remembering the advert. It's affective to repeat a advert because it gets more people watching and remembering the advert and the purpose of the advert. 

Famous faces: This style means the advertisers use a celebrity that people know and if people look up to this celebrity and see them promoting the product they will go out to be like them and buy it. this is mostly used in fashion adverts for fragrances or clothes and jewellery, this is because if someone sees their favourite celebrity wearing something they will want to be like them and buy it. In this advert the advertisers used David Beckham to promote a new clothing line, they done this because they know David Beckham is a well known celebrity and that men want to be like him because everyone knows who he is.

Intertextuality: This style is when adverts use references from other texts, usually films, and they do this because if the audience understand the reference they will feel smart, thats what the advert style is for to get the audience to feel smart about understanding the reference. 

All of these styles are successful in my opinion but it depends on what the product is and how the advert is directed, if it is directed good and works that style it will be successful for example, if a charity advert uses surrealism people wont take the advert serious even tho it is a serious advert however if it uses shock or famous faces it will work because the audience will feel sympathy and also will want to donate because the famous face is promoting the advert.

  

AS1 blog 2: Forms of television advertising

Forms of television advertising

realist narrative: This advert presents the viewer with a 'real life' situation that makes the viewer feel like they are watching something real and believable. This is effective because it makes the viewer feel real emotion for the advert and get them aware of what the advert is promoting. On the other hand the negative of using this type of advertisement is if it gets the viewer in a bad emotion they wont want to carry on watching so wont see what the advert is promoting and not be aware of the product or service. The target audience for this is usually for the older audience because they would have gone through more 'real life' situations. An example of a realist advert is:

Anti-realist: This is the type of advert is the opposite of realist and it presents the viewer with a situation or concept that is obviously unrealistic. The target audience would be for anyone because its not a serious advert so it wont be a serious product. This is effective because it is usually humorous so the viewer laugh.  An example is:

Animation: This is effective because animation advert are mostly amusing to the audience. Also there are no limitations to what you can do with animations.This form of advert is for any audience because its an animation its not going to be an advert for something serious. An example of animation is:  

Documentary: You are being informed about something and it is set in a professional environment. This is effective because it makes the viewer aware of the problems and situations the advert is trying to show. it can be negative because if the viewer has gone through the problems ,like child abuse, they could get emotional but it informs them that there is a child line to call if they need help. this advert will be targeted at older audiences because young people wont be interested unlike older people will be more interested because there is more of a chance it can be more personal to them.

Talking heads: this is a television pundit who talks about a specific topic directly to the viewer. This is effective because it makes the viewer feel like its a real conversation and its more realistic. This is for anyone depending on what the advert is promoting.

Stand alone: single adverts that advertises a product or service that does not link with any other existing adverts that advertises that product, service or brand. This is for anyone depending on what the advert is promoting because it is a brand new advert and product people wont know who the products/service is for.

Series: sometimes ad campaigns use adverts as a series and the adverts differ slightly and the adverts drag over a long period of time. The target audience for this form is anyone because any type of product could use this  

AS1 blog 1

Welcome to ‘An Introduction to Advertising’. A blog designed to tell you everything you need to know to be successful in the world of advertising!

This blog will include:

• Different formats of advertising
• Different purposes of advertising
• Examples of effective/ineffective advertising campaigns
• Examples of controversial advertising campaigns
• Different styles of television advertisements
• How television adverts are researched and designed
• How television adverts are produced
• Common Codes and Conventions
• How advertising is regulated.