Billboard Research

Radio Research

Further Billboard Research

As part of further research for our ancillary task, I was eager to find out more about advertising on Billboards. So, I found this website which is based in London that allows other businesses to advertise their companies around London. These screen shots show the different types of billboards that are available and what effect they have. Now, that we have developed technology institutions are able to have a modern and more appealing Billboard to hail their audience. From this research I also discovered that a great example of this would be sites located on the M4, which is the route from Heathrow into the city. This is excellent for targeting both business and tourist clients. Billboards are definitely one of the most popular ways to advertise and appeal to their audience.

Main Cover Lines

When researching into subjects and topics that our target audience are interested in, we found that they preferred to read about topics such as fashion and restaurants. This is why we have decided to base our main cover lines on 'fashion' and 'restaurants'
However developing on this, we found that many members of our target audience were interested in London Fashion Week which took place in Spetember. by making this our main cover line, not only will it interest the reader, but it will reinforce that it is a regional magazine due to the show taking place close by. 
When researching restaurants, we found that there are many luxurious restaurants nearby which our audience would be pleased to know about. By including information about the best places to eat, it can help the audience and also give them what they want. We found that restaurants such as the Gordon Ramsey restaurant is situated in Chelsea, therefore we can provide the customers with the indulgent restaurants they were looking for in one magazine.

Masthead; Overcoming Obstacles

Overcoming obstacles was something we had to do when finding the title of our regional magazine. We were very happy with our orignal title however it had to be changed due to there already being an established regional magazine on the market with the same title. This caused us to understand the type of problem we may encounter at later dates and to be ready for it. By finding a new masthead we were able to understand how important a masthead is in proving that it is a luxury and effective magazine. When overcoming this obstacle we realised just how important our target audience is. Our main focus is them and by making the magazine effective essentially means that our target audience must like it. By creating surveys and questionnaires, this allowed us as the institution to build a closer relationship with the audience. Thus allowing us to realise that the closer the audience and the institution are, the better the outcome of the regional magazine.

Masthead

When creating a masthead, you find that it can be extrememly hard to get the font, colour and size right. This is why I did some research into these area's of interest and decided what I would do about each one.

Themes Questionnaire Results

The results of the questionnaire allowed us to understand what our target audience would like to see in the regional magazine. Taking these results, we will in-cooperate them into our regional magazine, therefore providing the most effective and enjoyable magazine for our audience.We found that Beauty, clothes, food and home wear were subjects which our target audience are interested in. This will help us enormously when deciding what our main topic should be. Most of the target audience wanted a distinct topic each month therefore we have taken this into account and decided to lay out the magazine editions like this. 

Publishing Company

When researching Regional Magazines, we were quick to notice that most of the regional magazines are published by Archant Life. It is now the largest publisher of regional magazines in the UK. Archant Life publishes regional magazines all across the UK, including Kensington and Chelsea, which is the region we are making a magazine for. This is good news as this means Archant Life can be put into our magazine as our publishers, therefore increasing validity and allowing the magazine on a whole to be more professional. As Archant Life  publishes more than 1 Million copies each issue, it will have the resources that will make a magazine effective. Archant Life promotes a luxurious lifestyle which is perfect when coming to our own regional magazine. This is because our regional magazine is going to fashion luxury things, therefore the publishing agent and the magazine itself will go hand in hand. The luxury items would not be too out of reach for the people in the area; however we will promote designer brands which are well known in the area. Archant Life published magazines like this such as ‘Grove’ Magazine which includes designer labels such as Givenchy in articles.

To show that the magazine is published by Archant, a small red icon saying Archant is at the top left or right corner of the front page. This is instantly recognisable and allows the reader to understand the publishing company and to credit the company which fundamentally helped the magazine come to be.

When editing the front cover’s of our regional magazines, we understand that the positioning of the icon is important. In every edition of the magazines that Archant Life publishes, the icon is always placed at the top, therefore we will also do this to allow our magazine to look legitimate. 

Textual Analysis

Themes Questionnaire

I devised a questionnaire to decide what theme to base the two regional magazine's on. We understood that to make our magazine effective, we would have to understand what the audience want from the magazine and what they would prefer would feature in the regional magazine. This is why I devised 5 questions online and I sent them out to our target audience. The outcome of the questionnaire resulted in interesting results which we could use when planning our magazine.

Questionnaire Feedback & Analysis

These bar charts show the results we received from our questionnaire as we created one to ask our target audience what they expect from us to deliver. We asked certain questions such as question 10 as we were unsure about specific things. However, this feedback allows us to closely analyse what our target audience want, which tells us what we need to do. Our magazine is not focused on fashion, but in one edition as our audience would prefer a particular topic each month, we have decided to make September's issue associated with London Fashion Week. Looking at the other part of the results, this has can help us make the decisions that we were unsure about.

Radio Advert - Textual Analysis

Audience: Food lovers would be the obvious target audience for this Nando's radio advert. I believe that the advert would be able to target effectively anyone who is old enough to understand the advert. This is because the person doing the voice over is speaking very broadly, including an anecdote of his childhood. Children from 11+ would be able to understand the language used, therefore it can be targeting families, as there can be many generations in one family.

Narrative: Nando's radio advert is named 'You happy We happy'. This is because in the advert the speaker, who is speaking in a Portuguese accent says 'You happy We happy, that is the spirit of Nando's'. By saying this, it shows that the main interest in the restaurant would be the customers  therefore having an effective response.During the course of the advert, the speaker talks about how his Grandma had said that whenever he was happy, she would also be happy. However once he started wearing her clothes, she was a little apprehensive. The significance of this anecdote is to start a rapport with the listener, as although it may not be real, to share your life with someone else can be seen to be intimate. This allows the listener to share a laugh with the speaker. After that the narrator talks about Nando's and how willing Nando's is to make the customers feel welcome and happy. The narrator also says they will 'not judge' people with the way they eat things. This makes the customer feel welcome and at ease therefore more people will eat there. The narrator himself has a lively and interesting voice which is different from the other voices which may be on air. This allows the listener to differentiate this advert from others and allow them to remember it. 

Genre: The genre of the advert is food and lifestyle. This itself is broad enough to attract anyone's attention and the advert is effective in telling the listener how nice the food of Nando's is by using words such as 'succulent'. This will make the listener start craving foods which they are mentioning such as chicken. The casual tone of the advert will allow the comfortable atmosphere and great food to seem irresistible. 

Institution: Nando's is the company which is promoting itself. This is essential as it will broaden their range of customers and allow old customers to revisit the restaurant. By using the Portuguese theme it allows the continuation of the theme as they use the Portuguese history to shape their restaurant.

Ideology: Narrative and Genre fit into this category as the idea of the advert is to call to food lovers and to convince them that Nando's is a very good place to go and eat. This is so more customers come to the restaurant which in the end will allow the company to gain a larger profit.

Representation: By using a Portuguese narrator it fits into the theme of Nando's on a whole which allows the company to be unique and to use continuity, which could imply they will always give out great food like they will always be Portuguese based. The funny, light tone of the narrator's voice makes this conversational type of advert seem like it is friends talking, recommending a restaurant to the other. This is effective as it may make some people think that the tone is friendly now, so it must be in the restaurant too. 
Nando's Radio Advert - Link.

Billboard - Textual Analysis

MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS: In this Billboard we have a Celebrity being represented as a young, beautiful woman. This is through the medium shot taken of her body and face. The way she is positioned flaunts her body shape and her pose makes her look glamorous , her face alignment with her arm allows her hair to fall behind lightly. The institution who are representing Cheryl Cole is Facebook as they are advertising her new Album as well as their website, therefore there are two ideologies converged in this Billboard. I believe this is a fair and accurate media representation because the institution have used a famous celebrity who is popular for always looking amazing on camera to advertise the Artists album as well as promoting their Facebook page for the audience to win X-Factor tickets.

MEDIA LANGUAGES AND FORMS: The dark coloured background contrasts with the light, warm colours which attracts the audience. Her name and the name of her Album is written in a different font which is quite curvy and italic, therefore this implies that this Billboard will be hailed towards the younger audience and furthermore this would appeal more to women as it is quite feminine. The name of Cheryl Cole's new album "MESSY LITTLE RAINBOWS" is presented on the bottom left side of the Billboard which can con notate her feelings or her personal life but shown through her music. As I have mentioned before, her facial expression shows her beauty and glamorous figure.

NARRATIVE: As this is a Billboard the narrative structure is very simple as it is only advertising and promoting the institution. The audience are hailed through certain aspects of this Billboard e.g. Having a large image of a celebrity and using a popular TV Show to promote their company (X-Factor).  A role such as iconography is featured in this Billboard. It can be argued that Cheryl Cole is seen as a beauty icon to some women as they aspire to maintain this elegant and beautiful look. 

GENRE: Here, the Billboard is advertising Cheryl Cole's début album therefore the genre belongs to 'Music' however, it is also promoting the X-Factor and Facebook which are different genres. These three institutions have emerged together to promote each other. As technology is now increasing vastly, it seems convenient for media institutions to do this as they can gain more from converging. As I am part of the audience, I can notice that this Billboard's genre is 'Music' because Cheryl Cole did belong to a popular girl band and now is a solo artist, which is why her new album is now being advertised. This billboard is using Cheryl Cole's star quality to also advertise other institutions such as Facebook and the X-Factor.

MEDIA INSTITUTIONS  'Premier' is the company in which allow advertisers to advertise with them. They are owned by a charity "Premier Christian Media" and rely on funding over 50% from the public. They are responsible for allowing advertisers to advertise on their billboards across Britain. The audience may realise that this billboard is produced from the same company as the other billboards around London therefore, they can trust this advertisement. The text has been distributed via billboard, which is an affective way of advertising because it is bold and eye catching which is more visible to the audience as they walk/drive by.

MEDIA VALUES AND IDEOLOGY:The main ideology shown in this billboard is to represent Cheryl as a style and beauty icon for young women who aspire to have this glamorous look. Also, the institution want to promote other companies such as Facebook and the X-Factor which is a form of convergence. 

MEDIA AUDIENCES: This advertisement strongly emphasises Cheryl Cole's star quality and therefore it appeals to young women, who enjoy listening to her songs as they are mainly about relationships,heartbreaks and being an independent woman.I also believe that this advertisement hails the male audience as well, because it is known that many men find Cheryl Cole attractive and like to watch the X-Factor as she stars in it. I would say, the age and background will vary as she is mentioned in the media a lot and is seen on the X-factor where all ages can enjoy watching it because it is on Saturday and Sunday evenings which is commonly spent indoors as 'family time'


 

YouTube Tutorial - How to Create a Billboard on Photoshop

This YouTube tutorial has taught me how to create a Billboard on Photoshop. I now know how to insert an image and adjust it to my own needs. These four screen shots presents the stages in how to create a Billboard, however they use a background image as a template. I discovered that the third screen shot is the most difficult one to complete as you have to practice your skills on Photoshop in order for the image to be inserted perfectly. But, as this is research I can now attempt to try and create my own on Photoshop which can help me develop my skills.