Unit 4- marketing your Documentary

A description of the target audience & potential market

You need to expand and refine your original target audience that you researched for unit 2 and find 2 potential markets that are outside your original target audience.

The potential markets that you need to create and profile are Niche & Mass.

Mass market- This means an expanded version of your original target audience which takes in a wider range of people. You need to answer the following questions.

Besides your original target audience. What other age ranges would your documentary appeal to and why? How could your documentary be appealing to both male and female & different

ethnic groups and why? What social class would your mass market audience be predominantly from and

why? Would they be most likely from a Working class back ground- (not university educated, likely to be in skilled or

unskilled manual labour jobs e.g, cleaner, dinner lady, electrician, plumber, mechanic, retail worker)

Middle class background e.g,- university educated, in a more professional type role eg, lawyer, teacher, doctor, creative & artistic career, journalist, managerial positions etc.

Upper class background- aristocratic, inherited wealth, ruling class, wealthy What type of area would your audience be likely to live in e.g, if middle class an area

like Hampstead or Richmond, if working class your audience might live in an area like Eastham. Check out website www.upmystreet.co.uk to find descriptions of a typical area in which your mass audience might live.

Do a profile of the typical lifestyle of your mass market audience including type of job, hobbies, interests, studies etc.

Niche Market

This would be a more specific market who may have a special interest in the type of subject that your documentary is about. For example,

If your documentary is about modelling, it may appeal to an affluent gay market who are in to style and glamour, interior design etc.

If your documentary is about married Muslims, it may specifically appeal to a British Muslim audience.

If your documentary is about ex criminals, it may appeal to an audience who are specifically interested in crime, or may work in the police force.

Ensure that your profile covers all the points from your mass market profile, but remember that this will be a more refined and narrow profile.

Focus group

In a similar way to your unit 2 work, interview a potential audience outside your peer group (eg, your age group, friends etc).

This could involve interviewing your parents, teachers, parents friends etc. Try and ensure that they fit in with your mass audience & see if you can find any one to interview who fits in with your niche audience profile.

After this, organise a focus group to view and answer open ended questions about your documentary. Film their responses to the more focused open ended questions.

You could ask questions such as………. What do you think of the way in which the main subject has been

represented? Are there any elements of the representation of the subject that

you feel are unfair or stereotypical? What could have been done to potray the subject in a more

accurate light? What are your feelings about the way in which the documentary

has been edited, the use of special effects etc? How do these add to or take away from the documentaries

narrative?

Marketing plan – part 2

You must now produce a report outlining the following……………………

A review of the competitive market for this type of product. Look at the market for documentaries on a similar subject to your own product (Use the

IMDB for this) looking at broadcasting channel, audience figures, reviews etc. For example, America’s top model, Feltham sings etc. research using the Top 50 documentaries programme & the IMDB database, find reviews on the internet.

A description of the target audience/consumer & the potential market. Use the information from your mass, niche and target audience and write a description.

Show how this fits in to the market that you identified in your review (above). The target audience for my documentary can be described as………………… This would fit in to the market for documentaries such as…….because……… The aims of the advertising campaign. What are the aims of your advertising campaign? What different modes of advertising will you use e’g, TV? Billboard?, internet?, mobile

phone? In what areas, channels, ISP’s would your adverts be shown and why? Justify your

reasons in relation to your target audience/ potential market? What do you want your billboards, TV advertisements etc to signify to your target

audience/ consumer/ potential market? Cut & paste copies of your print advertisements and annotate using media language.

Produce a draft/ storyboard/script for two possible adverts. In addition, produce a draft/storyboard for 2 possible promotions.

For example, you might want to run a competition in relation to your documentary e. g, model competition, makeover, holiday, free gift with the DVD edition of your documentary.

The promotion could be done as a short advert at the end of or just before the commercial break of your documentary depending on what channel it is to be broadcast on.

Schedule for release of adverts/ promotions/ description of how feedback will be gained

Produce a schedule for the release of the adverts/ promotions

At what time of year will your promotions/ adverts be released?

How soon will the promotions/ adverts be released before the actual documentary is broadcast? Produce a release schedule and justify your reasons for choosing your particular dates.

A description of how feedback on the campaign will be gained.

How will you get feedback from your advertising/ promotional campaigns?

e.g, questionnaires, audience viewing figures, response to competitions.

An explanation of the potential use of two official research bodies in gaining feedback

Look up 2 different research bodies on the internet Write an overview of the function of 2 of these particular research bodies and how there services could be used in gaining feedback/ improving your advertising/ promotional campaigns. Find out reseach bodies that work at gaining audience feedback for example, Mori does audience testing research for the BBC

e.g, www.mori.com/media www.nop.co.uk www.mediatrack.com www.mediaanalyser.com www.mrg.org.uk Also, check the IMDB and see if you can find information

on audience testing about the documentaries that you have studied e.g, Supersize me, Biggie & Tupac, Being Terri etc.

An explanation of the role of the ASA and other official bodies in influencing the content of the adverts

Search the ASA and Ofcom websites and find information on regulation to determine what you can/ cannot include in your advertisements, e.g, violent/ sexual images, bad language etc what can/ cannot be shown before the 9pm watershed.

How does your advertising campaign adhere/ not adhere to these regulations?

Producing advertising and promotional materials for your documentary.

Production diary In your groups, have a meeting to decide on the type of

advertisement/ promotion that you have agreed on. Record the minutes of this meeting.

In the meeting, allocate someone to be in charge of the meeting and someone to take the minutes (notes)- this will be observed by your tutor. The person in charge will produce a mind map /spidergram or commercial board. (keep this as evidence to attach to your production diary).

Attach to your production diary- annotations of drafts of materials to show the development & editing process. Print out screen grabs from photoshop & illustrator showing full actions, history & layers boxes.

Annotate your finished adverts using media language & explaining advertising techniques.

In your production groups produce 1 example of the following:

Direct advertising, e.g TV/ Print advert/ Billboard.

Indirect advertising e.g newspaper article, chat show appearances from the subject of the documentary, documentary directors etc.

A promotion- e.g, competition, holiday, other prizes relevant to the subject of your documentary.

Client meeting

After you have produced the above, you must book a client meeting with your tutor who will pose as an executive from the broadcast channel that you wish your documentary to be broadcast. You must present your proofs ( e.g, your example adverts & promotion) as a group and have a discussion justifying your choices.

Your tutor will do an observation sheet based on your group discussion

Discussion points

1) Discuss your USP and your print ad.

2) Look at ideas for your print ad and discuss.

3) Create with client/ teacher in role – an advertising campaign.

Example

Week 1- Interview with documentary subject on a chatshow on Channel 4.

Week 2- Release TV ad for the documentary.

Week 3- Billboard version of print ad where will it be placed & why?

Week 4- Print version of ad in TV guide, showing of documentary on TV.

Task 4 – Focus group presentation

Using your information from your target audience, get a focus group together which represents a broad mix of each of your potential markets (e.g, Mass market, original target audience & niche audience)

In your production groups present your advertising and promotional materials to your focus groups & film their responses.

Show your focus groups the feedback from your client meeting in the form of graphs, a commercial board, and a DVD cover for your documentary.

Show your adverts to your focus group. Get your focus group to complete short open ended

questionnaires about your adverts (print & TV) & promotional materials (Ensure that you include open ended questions).

Do a one to one interview with a target audience member outside your peer group.

Focus group continued….

In your groups have a discussion about the effectiveness of your marketing plan, the documentary & your advertising (this must be filmed). You may include your tutor in the discussion if you wish, but your group members must lead the discussion.

Discussion points What are you hoping to achieve with your marketing

plan?. What is already effective about your marketing plan? What could be improved? Why have you chosen that particular image? Caption? In

your print advert? How will it hook your different target audiences eg, mass

market, original target audience, niche market? Have you produced different types of advert to attract

the different markets? If not, how would you do this?

In your teams ensure that individually you can evidence to show how- make notes as evidence on the following……..

Your contribution to the planning of the presentation.

That you have done one of the following…….. Either a) produced a questionnaire for your focus

groups response to the documentary. b) Produced a questionnaire for your focus groups

response to your advert or promotion for the documentary.

c) or that you interviewed a target audience member outside your peer group.

In addition, you must ensure that you each had a turn at leading the discussion on feedback at some point in your presentation for either your Client meeting or your Focus group presentation.

Evaluation

Evaluate feedback about your documentary and the advertising campaign/ promotional campaign that you devised.

Write about Changes to your documentary that you might make if you had more time.

Changes that you would make to your marketing plan if you had more time.

A written report, using professional layout about your client and focus group presentation. If there is any difference of opinion between the client and the focus groups needs and responses, you need to write about these and talk about how you would resolve these differences.

Finally, Come to a conclusion about aspects of your two presentations.

Ensure that you use clear sub headings for each part of your evaluation.