How can my campaign be edited to mimic the campaigns used by my distributor Channel 4?

Channel 4’s Mission Statement

• My reasoning behind choosing Channel 4 was down to their mission statement. Channel 4 are popular due to the fact that they bring niche and controversial subjects to the mass audiences. For example, the recent ‘Benefits Street’ has spark endless debates regarding important political decisions. Looking further back, Channel 4 have produced countless documentaries on tragedies such as 9/11 and the Columbine Highschool Massacre.

• Channel 4’s Mission Statement says that Channel 4 aim to shed light on more niche subjects and ant to support lesser known subjects, stories and filmmakers by giving them air time on their channel.

• Their style of documentary allows a range of people from different areas of the social ladder to understand and give opinions on important current events and to learn about more niche subjects.

Harnessing Social MediaChannel 4 make use of social media in their advertising by including their audience in the production. For example, Channel 4 upload all their TV adverts for their series ‘Benefits Street’ to YouTube. This allows viewers to make use of YouTube’s comments section to voice their opinions on the show and to discuss the show with other users. YouTube also allows users to share videos to their Facebook walls, allowing for more discussion between friends on Facebook. Channel 4 also makes use of Facebook by posting videos and discussion on their Facebook wall, involving their audience in the productions more.

I uploaded my production to YouTube, but not to Facebook. I could make use of Facebook by uploading the video and encouraging discussion and sharing by asking open questions for viewers to discuss after watching the production. Not only would this get my current audience members more greatly involved in the production, but it could also attract new audience members.

How my campaign could be changed

Channel 4’s marketing of their products often relies on creating sensationalism or controversy. I could look into presenting Soundcheck in this way in both my poster and my review. My poster’s centre point could be of a more controversial or hard-hitting image to highlight the difficulties of music. This could encourage sharing and discussion about the production. For my review, I could write more controversial opinions of the production and go into a bit more detail when dissecting the narrative.

As well as this, the marketing of my production could take advantage of social media and the ability my audience has to share. I could set up discussions on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to increase the hype surrounding the production.

How my campaign succeeded

I think there were several fronts on which my production was strong in miming Channel 4. Firstly, I think I successfully created a narrative focusing on a niche genre which is also available to the mass media. I reference existing structures that my audience will be familiar with and used that to explain points that they may not have prior knowledge of, opening these subjects up to discussion between my audience members.

I also believe that the accessibility of my production was typical of a Channel 4 production. Channel 4 have a ‘4OD’ page on YouTube which allows you to stream Channel 4 productions for no cost. My production is also available on YouTube, again opening it for discussion thanks to the YouTube comments section.