Task Eight: Referencing

“The Media: An Introduction Edited by Adam Briggs and Paul Cobley.” “Chapter 17 Audience research by Ray Kent”. Longman 2002. ISBN 0-582-42346-5

“    “The Media Magazine. The English and Media Centre.” “Analysing Still-image adverts: Reading Lynx by Mark Ramey”. Issue 45 / September 2013. ISSN 1478-8616

·      “The Media Magazine. The English and Media Centre.” “How I make things. Garth Jennings on making a TV commercial”.  Issue 39 / February 2012. ISSN 1478-8616

·      “The Media Magazine. The English and Media Centre.” “Adjudicating ads. Claire Forbes”.  Issue 23 / February 2008. ISSN 1478-8616

·      “Top 30 Programmes” :  Broadcasters Audience Research Board http://www.barb.co.uk/www.barb.co.uk/viewing

·      “Top 10 Programmes”  Broadcasters Audience Research Board  http://www.barb.co.uk/www.barb.co.uk/viewing

·	·      “How we do what we do”:  Broadcasters Audience Research Board  http://www.barb.co.uk/www.barb.co.uk/viewing

“      “Five controversial TV and internet ads – video” - The Guardian www.theguardian.com › News › Media ›Ad break‎ :

·      http://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2013/jun/20/five-controversial-tv-internet-ads-video

      Advertising Standards Authority”: http://www.asa.org.uk/

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofcom

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_Standards_Authority_(United_Kingdom)

     YouTube.com :

Task Seven - Sources of Information in Advertisements

Task Seven - Sources of Information in Advertisements

When producing a new advertising campaign clients or agencies would often gather information about the product they're advertising, this includes the audience that its aimed at and the demand for the product.

IMDB - "Internet Movie Database"

Any movie that is to ever be released to the public, from Blockbuster Hollywood films to Bollywood or University short films each would be added to the Internet Movie Database where it would contain information about the Movie/TV Show such as the people who worked on the movie and the cast; these movies would also be rated by regular visitors to the website.

IMDB is a very popular website that contains many users and visitors to the site, this is a great place to look at what movies would be popular and what kind of movies are on a trend. Advertising agencies would usually try to use websites such as these to gather information on whether the Movie/TV Show would gain a lot of hype from their advertisement, most often advertising agencies would often try and create demand by making a great enough advertisement that attracts a bigger and larger audience to their product.

BARB - "Broadcasters' Audience Research Board"

BARB was set up in 1981 and its main function is to provide the industry data on what programs audiences regularly watch, BARB have approximately 5,100 Homes participating in the panel where panellists would gather data overnight about the programs audiences would regularly watch. Using the information that BARB gathers you can come up with the conclusion that shows such as "Downtown Abbey" would be more popular with women over 50 years of age or programs about Football would be more popular with the male gender. 

BARB is useful to an advertiser as they would understand when to show an advertisement and where to show an advertisements for example an advert about washing powder would be more effective showing at a time of Downtown Abbey advertising breaks rather than showing it during Football advertising breaks.

The "Rate Card"

The rate card is a document containing the prices for the time in-between Movie/TV show breaks, some  show breaks would be more expensive then others for example buying advertisement space during a show as popular as the Superbowl would be far more expensive than paying for advertising space for a more unpopular show on an 'unsociable' hour, this is because more popular movies/shows contain more viewers thus increasing the price of the advertising space.
The cost of advertising is a significant factor for example a advertisement about kids toys would not be successful being shown during the Superbowl because the price of the overall advertising time would not be popular with the audience and would cause a deficit with the product.
Websites such as www.itvmedia.co.uk actually have the rates of their most popular shows on channels BBC One and ITV.

Task Six: Audience information

Before creating an advertisement it is important to gather some audience research however we would also have to gather some audience information that would be useful to us. Gathering audience information allows advertisers understand what the audience would want to see and how to sell the products to them.

The audiences are divided into different groups, when creating an advertisement you have to check off as many people as you can from these groups in order to create the best advertisement possible however advertisers have to always remember that you can never please everyone. The Groups and labels of the audiences are as follows:
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC): Also classed as 'Social Grades' by advertising companies the SOC which classifies all the working class people, one person may have a higher social grade due to their occupation which means that to be sold something would mean that they would require an advertising structure suitable to them. For example a Businessman would want an advertisement about how they can use the product in their work.
Psychographics: This is about the common attitude of the audience such as the study of personality, values, interest and lifestyles. When working to advertise to this group you have to show how they would use the product.
Geodemographics: This is about where the general audience live and what the general population need, For example a Japanese sweet company would not have much success advertising their sweet product in somewhere like the UK or France however not to say that they would never be successful. Some companies have had success advertising in areas that would be Geo-demographically inept.
Age: This is about the age range of the general audience targeted for the product, this is one of the biggest group factors and would require completely different advertisements depending on what age range your aiming at for example little children would require colourful pictures and animation while the older generation would have different advertising means.
Gender: This is about the sex of the general population and different genders would think differently about advertising means for example an advertisement about sports would generally aim towards the Male gender however the Female gender may be interested also.

Dividing the audience into these groups make it easier for advertisers to produce an advert as they can tick boxes if they think they sparked an interest of the general audiences from these groups.

How is information gathered by advertising companies?
Information is usually gathered through BARB which stands for Broadcasters Audience Research Board which was set up in 1981 to provide the advertising industry audience demographics and television ratings for the UK. BARB is owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and IPA

Advertisers use an Audience Measurement Panel which measures how many people are in the audience from radio, television, newspaper, magazine and web traffic on the internet. The pros are that it allows advertisers to understand what the general public likes to watch however the cons are that they can't tell what individuals would like.

Task Five - Methods of Research

Methods of Research

Before producing advertisements, it is usually important to be research about the product that your advertising, there are three different types of research:

Audience Research: There are different types of audience research which include:
Descriptive Research which describes your audience and their characteristics.
Analytical Research which is used to understand the 'What' and 'Why' for the making of the advertisement.
Predictive Research which is used to consider any 'What If?' situations that may be predictable for the near future and how the audience would react to it for example What if  we were to change the company name how would the audience react?
Tracking Research is a long term research that is used to track and identify changes in the product's industry that your advertising. Tracking research can usually be researched constantly for years.

Stages for the Audience Research include
  Stage 1). Target Audience: Describing and defining the correct audience for the advertisement.
    Stage 2). Plan: Plan the research that you will be concluding.
       Stage 3). Research: Collect the research data.
         Stage 4). Analyse: Analyse the research data you have collected.
           Stage 5). Apply: Use this research data in your final advertisement piece.

The pros of this research is to find out if the advertisement that we will be making is going to be getting positive feed back or if the audience is looking for a product like ours. Having our audience research allows us to be able to understand our audience and be able to understand what they are looking for. The cons of this however is that audience research can be sometimes difficult to gain and that everyone is not the same so people will always have different opinions on your advertisement. Another con is that audience research can be a very time consuming task.

Market Research: This research is to find out what competitors or competition you have for the product that your advertising and how the product that your advertising can be better than the others. With market research you can find weaknesses with competitor products and focus on 'What is our Unique Selling Point?' to advertise your product in a way that makes your product look better than others on the market.
The pros of having market research is that you will be able to understand the market that you will be advertising in and if you will be more successful than your competitors. The cons of this research is that you will not always be certain with this research for example you will not know for the sure the weaknesses of the competitor products.
Production Research: This is about hiring the correct crew for your production, you need actors, script writers, editing etc... How much will the production cost overall? what to spend the budget on?

When researching there are four types or categories that you can research,
1). Primary Research: This is research that you conduct yourself and gain from your own sources, this is extremely useful as you can get research that you need.
2). Secondary Research: This is research that you gain from other means such as looking on the internet or from another source that has been created from someone else. This research can be useful however will not always benefit you as its not researching what you need to know.
3). Quantitive Research: This is research that is measured. This research can be in the form of numerical values and can be portrayed in graphs and tables. Conducting this research is mostly done by questionnaires and surveys, this information is useful as you can conduct large amounts of this data however the data gathered may not be honest or accurate information by the people and end up being false.
4). Quality Research: This is research that you conduct that is all about the audiences feelings and thoughts, this can be about asking questions or surveying different individuals. This research is useful to find the audiences opinions about products however is not as informative as quantitive research.

Task Four: Regulation

Regulation

Advertisement regulation is there to try and make advertisements more reasonable by banning any advertisements that may be offensive or illegal, advertisements that have copyright infringement will be banned as well as advertisements that are offensive to viewers such as being racist. Companies that review advertisements in the UK are the Office of Communications ((OFCOM)which is a government approved organisation) and the Advertising Standards Authority ((ASA)which is a non-statutory organisation and so cannot interpret or enforce legislation).

The role of OFCOM is to regulate the content of television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. OFCOM has a statutory duty to represent the interest of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public by offensive and harmful material. Some of the main areas that OFCOM works in are licensing, research, codes and policies, complaints, competition and protecting the radio spectrum from abuse.

The role of the ASA is to 'Regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK' by investigating complaints about advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing and deciding whether the such advertising complies with its advertising standards codes.
The ASA are particularly concerned about:

• Misleading information
• Inaccuracy
• Ambiguity
• Exaggeration
• Omission 
• Racism

Two questions that the ASA would ask for an advertisement are:

1). Is the advertisement Misleading, inaccurate or Exaggerated? 

2). Is the advertisement harmful or offensive to viewers?

If the answer is yes then the advertisement would be referred to organisations like OFCOM to either be banned or altered. Sometimes the companies making the advertisement might have a compliance team to ensure that the company removes the problematic claims.

Investigations

For investigations the ASA may begin by contacting the advertiser for its views on the advertisement and, where appropriate, substantiation claims in it. The ASA on occasion may seek advice from industry experts on more complex issues.

Once an investigation is complete then a draft recommendation will be sent to the advertiser as well as the original complaint for any comments. The draft recommendation is also sent to the ASA council which then discusses the complaint and the draft recommendation and votes on whether to uphold the complaint or not. The adjudication is then posted on the website for the public and press to see.

ASA Tobacco Intervention
Before the ASA intervention in 1965 for the Cigarette and tobacco advertisements many of these advertisements were packed with misleading information. the 'Hamlet' Cigarette company had produced many misleading information in their adverts such as cigarettes make you happy and make everything better, the ASA intervention caused many advertisements on cigarettes such as Hamlet to be banned however cigars and tobacco were still able to be advertised until 1975 till more rules were applied for advertisements about cigarettes and tobacco.

ASA Controversies
The Apple Inc controversy is noteworthy because the apple advertisement in 2004 stated that the Power Mac G5 is the "Worlds fastest Computer" which was judged to be unsubstantiated. Apple also had an iPhone advertisement banned due to false claims stating that the iPhone can access 'all areas of the internet' whilst the ASA stated that the iPhone was lacking major plugins such as Flash player. My opinion is that false information is the worst type of advertising because it works so well with people, when people see that an advertisement says that it is the "Worlds fastest Computer" then people will believe it when the advertiser is clearly wrong. The ASA had been clearly in the right for this controversy

Another controversy that is noteworthy is the Maltesers when it stated that it is "the chocolate with less fattening centres" which indicates that the chocolate helps you stay slim. The ASA stated that the chocolate company is delivering false information by stating that the chocolate is a low energy food. This is a very dishonest way of advertising for the people because by delivering false information about food the people will believe it and will try to have more of these snacks in order to stay slim whilst being oblivious to the truth, whilst its great for the company in way of making money it shows that the company is a bad company and untruthful. The ASA had been clearly right for this controversy and Maltesers deserve a banning for their company.