Improved Ident

I decided to remake my ident because the quality of the initial one was not of a high standard. The footage did not fit the screen, you could also see other miscellaneous items which made the ident look unprofessional. Furthermore at the end of the ident a picture was cut off and it finished without showing the completed ident. In addition the camera was not set up to view the complete piece of paper because the bottom right hand corner of the paper was cut off by the screen. I therefore chose to re-do my ident, I changed the ident and this is much more creative and it does look much more professional than the original ident.

Logo Evaluation

Within the brief it was clearly stated that I had to include a logo for the advertisement. We were asked to do this and therefore by having a logo it would create an identity for Connextcast.

Furthermore I created a logo by using the Photoshop software. My logo consists of two hands coming out of two laptop screens and shaking hands. This image shows respect, unity and trust, and this clearly signifies these values and this can then symbolise that whenever you're online, you must have trust but also respect with one another and by having this you can be safe and secure.

Secondary Research- Internet

This articles examines the psychology behind advertising. It informs the reader that in order for an advertisement to be effective, it must use emotional response in the form of rage, love and fear. I would use a different form of emotional response which is compassion as this would be more fitting for my advertisement. Furthermore, the use of a persuasive technique such as celebrity endorsement can help to promote a product to the audience. However this would be very difficult to get a celebrity to be in my advertisment. This article also highlighted the purposes of an advertisement and they came to the conclusion that the four main purposes are to attract the consumer's attention, focus the attention on the message, make the consumer remember the message and to make the consumer take the desired action. These four main points will be contemplated whilst I plan my advertisement as it will ensure that my advertisement is successful. 

The second article investigated 'what was the best way to engage the audience'. Teixeira believed that evoking surprise was the most effective way to capture the attention of the audience. They found through research that the element should be used at the beginning of the advertisement, followed by a longer period of joy as this will get the most attention. I will try to create a sense of surprise at the beginning but I will make sure that the advertisement gets going straight away and I will avoid dragging the advertisement out because this will make the audience become restless.

Secondary Research- Book

This article is very specific towards advertising, addressing small details when put together are pivotal for a successful advertisement. The article claimed that advertising can have a variety of effects on the human thoughts, attitudes, feelings and behaviour. So by addressing this within my advertisement, it could lead on to my advertisement being successful because the attitudes and feelings of the audience would have been affected. The article also suggested what the major media are, which included television and the Internet. Additionally, this article emphasises the three main forms of persuasion which are argument, emotion and endorsement. Taking this into account, I would have to make certain that my advertisement included at least one of these forms to ensure that my audience were captivated but also persuaded. Moreover, the article implies that repetition is more likely to be effective to persuade the performer. This repetition could be in the form of a series and if this leads to the audience being persuaded, this could be a route that I could go down. Near to the end of the article it focuses on endorsements, particulary celebrity endorsement, this would be ideal to use because it would captivate the audience easily but it would be incredibly difficult to use a celebrity within my advertisement.

 Gerard J. Tellis (2004). Effective Advertising. United States of America: Sage Publications. 203.

Audience Research- Questionnaire Results

Summary of Production Research

As part of my advertisement I had to hire different pieces of equipment in order to film and edit my advertisement. 

The budget for my advertisement will be £800. This money will be spent on the equipment hire which includes actors, tripods and cameras.

I found that the Nikon DSLR cameras were much more expensive compared to the Canon DSLR cameras. Taking into account the two brands and the different prices that go with it, I am going to hire the Canon EOS 1100D camera due to the fact that it is the cheapest camera to hire for 2 weeks at £98 out of them all including the £85 deposit, which brings the total to £183. 

In addition, I had a range of different tripods from all different brands and the cheapest one I found was the Libec TH950/650/H22 tripod which will cost £12 a day. If I use this for the two weeks that I anticipate to film for, this tripod will cost me £168. The reasoning behind my decision is once again the cost, all these tripods that I researched would all be useful to me but I will need to keep my eye on my budget. 

The price to hire a Mac Pro with Final Cut and Avid software for the editing process would cost £38 but to hire a MacBook Pro Laptop with Final Cut 7 and Avid Media Composer 6 would cost £25 so I have decided to go for the cheapest option which is the latter.

The total to hire all these pieces of equipment comes to £376. With my total budget being £800 I will have £424 left over.

Furthermore I also had to decide where to film my advertisement, I decided to film the advertisement in my house. This is because it is easily accessible but also in terms of filming, there will not be any distractions. For instance, if the advertisement was filmed at school than I would have to be very cautious because people may walk past the camera and so I would have to re-shoot that scene. So I believe that filming in my house will be convenient. Moreover, filming in a house could be very symbolic because people would feel comfortable at home and wouldn't expect to be bullied but the idea of the advertisement is that the actor is being bullied in their own house. The idea of my advertisement was for a male to receive a text from a bully abusing him, whilst this is happening the music will be very dull to express the actor's feelings. Then the bully would run to his room to hide, until an anti-bullying hotline texts him; telling him that they can help. The music from here until the end will be much more uplifting which will emphasise the feelings of the actor. Especially by including music, it will meet the requirements of the brief because it is vibrant. Additionally it was imperative that I ensured that my advertisement appealed to my target audience. By including an actor who is of the same age as the target audience, it will appeal to the audience because they can relate to that person due to the fact that they are similar ages.

Audience Research Analysis

 As part of the process of creating an advertisement, it was essential to carry out audience research. This is because I wanted to gather some fundamental knowledge on how people stayed safe online and also their opinions on cyberbullying. This was done by completing two very different methods of research, the first was a Vox Pop, this is when I pose the same questions to a variety of people. Second was a focus group, this is a large group of people who discuss their answers with one another. I also created a questionnaire which I gave to 20 different people, all of different ages and lifestyles.

First of all I created a Vox Pop and my answers were very revealing. I asked the participants what their opinion on cyberbullying was and they all believed that it is wrong but unfortunately it still happens in today's society. Then I asked them what media platform do they watch advertisements on,  the majority watch adverts on the television as they're more frequent on this media platform. Furthermore I wanted to know what television channel do they watch the most, the results were varied as each volunteer gave a different answer. They included; E4, ITV, MTV and BBC Three.
Moreover, I asked them whether advertisements on cyber-bullying should humorous or serious. All of them thought that they should be serious because it is such a serious topic. Lastly, I found out that the participants all watch television between 7-11 and more specifically, 8 o'clock. 

By completing this Vox Pop, I gathered some initial ideas in which I could place my advertisement. However, I needed more information into how people stayed safe online and what makes a successful website on anti-cyberbullying so I created a focus group. 

I gathered a group of people within my target audience and asked them a variety of questions. Firstly I asked them how do they stay safe online, all of the participants said that they keep their passwords private and they they change their privacy settings to ensure complete protection. Here is an evidence of this answer.

Secondly I wanted to know what they thought was the best way to stay safe. They had different views on the matter which were to keep passwords private, to not give out any details about yourself and for parents to help protect their children by keeping them off certain websites. In addition, I wondered what they thought websites should do to attract people who are 16+. They all believed that bright colours should be added and also for interactive features such as games to be used. One volunteer said that websites should use simple language which would help children to understand the content. Another question was 'do you think 16- 30 year olds still go on anti-bullying websites?' a majority of the group believed that this age range would have grown up and wouldn't need help to solve an issue. However, a point was raised about there never being an age where you grow up from being bullied as it can happen at any age. Finally I asked the group, 'if you could set up a website to advise people to stay safe, what would you do?' they said that they would have a video explaining the top tips on how to stay safe online, they would use a range of statistics on the consequences of staying cyberbullying, they would also use bright colours and visual aids to attract the audience.

My last piece of audience research was a questionnaire, I asked 20 volunteers 16 questions because I wanted to know their lifestyles and also their beliefs towards watching television. This is a blank copy of my questionnaire:

These are some of the important results from my questionnaire:

I thought that these results were the most important because they give me the scope to create an advertisement. For example the results from the age question is crucial, a majority of the people who took the questionnaire were between 16 and 20. This coincides with my target audience and this overall shows that a majority of the answers were made by people within my target audience and so these results would show a true representation and so my advertisement would be valid because of the successful research. Furthermore over half of my volunteers were students and this allows me to make a clear and correct judgement for my advertisement placement because of this occupation and so people who are students will potentially be within my target audience. Additionally, over three quarters of the people I sampled watch television between 20:01 and 22:00, this allowed me to then pinpoint a specific time to place my advertisement because of the amount of people who watch it. Also if many of my participants watch television between this time, then it is very likely that people will see my advertisement. Lastly, their platform preference was the television. Also their top three most favourable television channels were ITV2, MTV and E4.

By completing various types of audience research it has allowed me gather knowledge on how to create a successful advertisement. In terms of actually creating a cyber-bullying advertisement, I now understand that bright colours should be used to attract an audience and also for simple language to be used. Additionally, I have formed many conclusions on when and where to place my advertisement and this has been helped by thorough audience research.