Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?

In order for our two ancillary products to sell and advertise the documentary, successfully, we needed to make sure that they worked well together and overall combined well with the TV documentary, attracting our target audience.

Our target audience were 16-24 year olds, we chose a slightly younger audience as our documentary was about teenage stereotypes. Considering there are a lot of them e.g ‘Chav’, ‘Emo’ and ‘Rocker’ (however these stereotypes can be associated with older groups as well.) Our documentary just chooses to focus on teenagers who are stereotyped as we are (Me, Kyle, Amy) teenagers ourselves and see and experience stereotyping of this kind on a daily basis, and I was personally interested in the topic as were the rest of the group therefore it seemed a good idea to have 16-24 as our target audience age range, with the assumption they were probably interested in the topic too, and therefore would want to watch the documentary.

Target Audience

There is no specific race, ethnicity or disability that our documentary is aimed at and in terms of gender we aimed it at both. Location wasn’t a particular issue however places with higher crime rates etc. may be more interested in the first episode ‘Chavs’ as there is more likely to be people who are stereotyped as a ‘Chav’ living in those areas. Therefore there are probably more people living in those urban areas/city’s which may want to watch the documentary for example people living in ‘Birmingham’

We felt that those who felt stereotyped themselves were most likely those who were going to watch it. As it would interest them. As mentioned earlier. For example this girl, looks like your stereotypical ‘Rocker’ therefore she might be interested in the documentary series, as she may feel stereotyped herself.

Wearing converse.

Wearing a skull top.

Long dark, black hair, with a dyed pink strip.

Black skinny, ripped jeans.

Likes photography.

Age = around 16-18, student at college. Possibly studying Media or Photography due to the camera.

Wearing wrist bands, most likely from concerts or online sites supporting certain bands.

Dark, eye makeup.

Listening to her ipod, most likely a rock band of some sort due to clothing style.

In order for our products to combine well and attract our target audience as best they could, we had to make sure that each individual product did just that. I will now take a look at each individual product and explain how they attract the target audience and link to the other products.

We wanted our documentary to be relaxed and comical despite it being a somewhat serious topic as our target audience were a younger audience and this is what would attract them. We chose to use Kyle for the voice over for our Documentary. This was because we felt the tone of his voice was fitting and with him being within the same age range as the target audience it worked well. Our first episode focuses on the stereotype ‘Chav’ and so we could have plenty of fun with this trying to make the documentary comical(attracting the target audience) as and where we could, for example we had Kyle dress up as a stereotypical ‘Chav’ And we know that this did actually attract our target audience as one of the comments we received from our audience feedback was ‘when you started to define what a chav was and had Kyle dress up and imitate one it was really funny’

TV Documentary

Many elements within our documentary were comical and we tried to keep to a ‘chav’ theme for example the title screen. As ‘Chav’s’ tend to graffiti on walls we felt the title screen for the first episode worked well and reflected the theme of the documentary episode. Attracting the target audience. Our audience feedback results also showed that people liked the title screen also, as most of them felt this was their favourite element.

Something we felt that would really attract the target audience would be to include an interview with someone within the same age range as our target audience, who felt stereotyped themselves. As our first episode was on ‘Chav’s’ we spoke to Duaine, a local youth worker. As Duaine explains he is stereotyped negatively, as a ‘Chav’ yet is actually a good person at heart. We felt this would really appeal to our target audience with the assumption in mind that most of our target audience probably feel stereotyped themselves. We realisedthis was the case when looking at our adiuence feedback too as people had left us comments such as ‘The interview with Duaine because I felt I could relate to what he was talking about’

To attract our target audience further we decided to include vox pops with students at the ‘6th Form College, Solihull’ this would appeal to the target audience as they can relate to the views that the students gave us making them want to keep watching.

In order not to bore our viewers and make sure our documentary appealed to our target audience, we wanted to include some Archival footage which would interest them and related to the topic. For example we chose to use footage of stereotypical ‘Chav’s’ being abusive and causing trouble etc. As we as a group found videos like this on Youtube, interesting and we felt it would have the same effect on our target audience.

We chose to air our documentary at 8pm on Channel four, this was because 8pm seemed like a reasonable time, it wasn’t too early when students may be busy such as doing work or eating dinner, or doing after college activities etc., but wasn’t too late when students may want to be relaxing or getting ready for bed due to the early morning start for college/uni or for the older people in our age range, work. We also chose to air it on Channel 4 as it is a U.K based Television Channel which aims to attract any race, religion, gender, ethnic background or nationality. Also when looking back at out focus group we asked ‘What types of documentaries do you watch? (Why do you like that? / Why don't you watch them?)’ most people answered saying they liked documentaries such as ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ (a Channel 4 documentary)therefore it seemed highly appropriate to air our documentary on this channel.

When looking at Channel 4’s TV listings for the next four days at 8pm it was clear to see that documentaries are constantly being aired at this time on that channel, all which would appeal to the target audience in which we aim to target too. Further evidence as to why ‘Channel 4’ was the right channel to air our documentary , making sure it got plenty of views and why 8pm was a good time to show it.

So, how does the radio trailer attract the target

audience and combine well with the documentary and

Radio Trailer?

We chose our radio trailer to focus specifically on the first episode of our documentary series, which was the episode looking at the stereotype ‘Chav’ we did this so we could allow to make the radio trailer as comical as possible yet have it still remain professional by following the usual conventions of existing radio trailers. For example including details on when it will be aired, what time and what channel. By doing this it allowed for us to appeal to our target audience more as we didn’t want to bore them with a boring radio trailer, which would give the documentary a bad look. We wanted to grab their attention, with a funny, catchy radio trailer.

By having Kyle and myself narrate the radio trailer in a stereotypical ‘chav’ voice it made the radio trailer comical which would grab our target audience’s attention. But also anyone who had that station on would immediately wonder what was playing and listen in, allowing us to attract even more viewers whether they found the radio trailer annoying or funny it would still grab their attention and promote the documentary which was the sole purpose of the radio trailer. The fact we used a ‘Chav’ voice also meant it reflected the documentary perfectly and gave the listeners a real flavour as to what stereotype that particular episode was exploring, but also as we are of the same age range as our target audience and the voice over was comical it would attract them further and would also allow them to realise that they are going to be watching a documentary aimed at their age range, not a boring, dull, statistic filled documentary aimed at older audiences.

By choosing to use voice clips in our radio trailer it allowed us to let the listeners know what to expect, should they watch the documentary. For example one voice clip was of Duaine explaining about how when you see certain groups of people, dressed in a certain way etc. you begin to stereotype them. However another reason we chose to include voice clips was to add to the comical effect of our radio trailer. For example another voice clip was from one of our formal interviews with Neil, due to the contrast in dialect/speech between how me and Kyle spoke and how Neil spoke it made it funny, since Neil was speaking grammatically correct and posh whereas me and Kyle spoke in a ‘chav’ voice using slang. And at the very end I even made a reference to Twitter (a social networking site used by our target audience) with the words ‘Hashtag YOLO’ As ‘Hashtag(#)’ is something used on Twitter and ‘YOLO’ is a slag term meaning ‘You only live once’ commonly used amongst our target audience in today’s society, as an excuse for a silly action they or someone else has done or a reason to do something (so in this case a reason as to why they should watch the documentary). Therefore this attracted the target audience further as it allowed them to realise it was aimed at their age and would find the documentary interesting and a reason as to why they should go watch the documentary.

We chose to air our Radio Trailer on ‘Radio One’ this was because when doing some research into target audience’s of existing radio stations, ‘Radio One’s’ target audience sounded very similar to ours.

This meant that we could maximise the amount of potential viewers we could reach, as it would be broadcast on a station where a lot of our target audience tuned into.

"broad range of young listeners with a distinctive mix of contemporary music and speech."

So, how does the TV listings magazine attract the target audience and combine well with the documentary and

radio trailer?

When we first look at the double page spread we see that there is a large image of teenagers this conveys to the readers that this documentary is about teenagers and the title behind them ‘Labelled’ hints at the fact it is to do with labelling teenagers in some way. In other words stereotyping them. As the people within the picture are the same age range it means that those of the same age as the people within the image (our target audience), reading the magazine will be more attracted to it, promoting the documentary well. This works well with the documentary and trailer as it reflects the target audience the documentary aims to attract and fits nicely with the comical radio trailer which is aimed at older teens/early twenty year olds.

The slogan here, looks almost like a piece of graffiti, which immediately conveys to the readers that this first episode is probably about the stereotype ‘Chavs’ as graffiti work is associated with ‘Chav’s and it draws the reader in due to it’s eye catching appearance. It links well with the documentary and radio trailer as it sticks to the theme of the stereotype ‘Chav’ and let’s the readers know what to expect in the first episode.

The overall colour scheme of the double page spread, is bright and eye catching meaning when flicking through the magazine the reader will stop and glance at this double page spread. The layout is also professional and there is no sign of any white space or large gaps. A comment we received in our audience feedback also allowed us to realise that we’d done a good job too – ‘The layout was professional and well thought out’

The smaller images, are stills taken from the documentary itself and let the reader know what they’re in for, should they watch the documentary. As the images show people aged in the same age range as our target audience it should attract them more and the second image allows for the reader to realise that this documentary series is about stereotyping, and we have specifically chosen to use the still image which shows a person being stereotyped as a ‘chav’ as the first episode looks at this particular stereotype. Promoting the documentary nicely and linking well with radio trailer and the ‘chav’ theme. We know that’ they did attract our target audience’s eye as well with comment such as ‘‘The images used were really eye catching and I especially like the main image’ in our audience feedback.

We chose to get inspiration for our TV listings mag from ‘Tv&Satellite Week’. We chose this magazine as although it generally has a higher age range for their target audience, it is a popular magazine with a broad audience, therefore our target audience is still likely to buy this magazine. Also should our target audience’s parents buy the magazine then our target audience is likely to read the magazine anyway, meaning we had a high chance of reaching our target audience. We also put our own spin on our double page spread, for example the bright use of colouring and choice of images, which were eye-catching, which meant it would appeal to our target audience anyway.

TV&Satellite Weeks’s readership figures also prove to have been increasing in the past year and therefore it means that this magazine was a good magazine to replica.

Overall all three products combine well together advertising the documentary series and it’s subject matter ‘Stereotypes’ and the episode which will be shown first on the stereotype ‘Chav’. The ancillary products evidently, successfully promote the documentary, attracting the target audience making them buy the magazine, listen to the radio trailer and watch the documentary itself.