Research into Newspaper Advertisements

Advertising

Advertising is a type of communication that is meant to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action to do with what’s being advertised. It includes the name of the product and how it could benefit the consumer. For example advertising a TV channel. TV channels use newspapers to advertise to the public in order for them to want to watch the channel.

Research -
I used the Sun Daily newspaper to research advertisments. The first advertisement I found was used to promote the Sky channel FIVE.

This advertisement is around 10 inches long and 6 inches wide which is a fairly large space of advertising in a newpaper, although some companys used a full page.
The advertisement was situated in the bottom right corner of the news page. It isnt a particularly eyecatching advert. It consists of 5 pictures showing actors from different programs broadcasted on FIVE. Then at the bottom there is a bold slogan 'Get your 5 a day!' to link with the 5 pictures.
Under each picture is the name of the program and what time its on. Underneath the main picture is a small summary of tonights episode. The font colour theme is white on red. This is a good contrast of colours for readers to understand whats written easily. It also doesnt confuse anyone who is colourblind. So its suitable for all types of readers.
Over the main picture it say's 'Channel FIVE' in white.

My Opinion -
I like the simplicity of the advert and I think the '5 a day' slogan is catchy. Although, I would of chosen a brighter colour for the main text 'channel FIVE' so it would attract the viewers attention more.

Research - E4

E4 is a digital television channel, which is mainly aimed at an age group of 15 - 35. E4’homepage is well sized and easily visible to its audience. The size, colour and style of the font is very important , as it is vital for attracting the targeted audience, and in addition it ensures that the file size of each html page is kept to a minimum, so Internet users of an average or slow connection are not disadvantaged. The logo is simple but well-known, as well as cleverly designed so little space on the page is taken. It has creative bordering effects around it, making it eye-catching, unique and interesting.



The page enables you to play videos previewing the latest programs being broad casted on the channel. I thought this is an effective way to promote up and coming/ new programs.
The background is a school chalkboard advertising the new series of 'The Inbetweeners'. I thought that using a background as a promotional tactic was very clever and effective.

The colour scheme is mainly white and purple, with a constant background on each page. The language is teenage friendly, with the text being very informal.

The Layout of this page, similar to other pages, is very attractive, leaving plenty of space for images, widgets etc. Being a teenager myself I found there’s a lot on the page that would entertain me, as there are so many options to choose from. There are games to play, videos to watch and even a competitions page. Although it is a typical convention of a teen website the fact that every page has the same colour theme, in my opinion, is slightly boring! The pages do flow but I believe they could flow just as well but with slight changes in colours. I would change the colour backgrounds but keep the font the same from one page to the next.

From this research, I have found that the layout of the website will affect how easy it will be for the user to navigate around my website, also how attractive the page will appear. I have also decided that I might colour co-ordinate each page, so the audience doesn’t get bored by the same colours used over and over again.

Research - BBC Switch

Here’s an example of the teen TV channel website homepage which I find interesting and unique. It is the BBC Switch website.

BBC Switch is a fairly new kind of television, aimed at a teenage audience in the UK. It consists of a number of television programmes shown on BBC 2. BBC is one of the oldest broadcasters around, with many services ranging from television programmes, radio, and now online. The BBC aims to reach a large range of audiences by producing many different services, from Politics on BBC Parliament, CBBC for young children, BBC for factual and now BBC Switch for teens!

Similar to the other websites I have researched, there is an option of typing into a search bar. Searchbars are very important as they help to navigate quicker around the website, pinpointing specific information the audience wants to see. There are large white arrows on the left and right sides of the screen which stand out through the black background and have some form of special effect added to them (3D effect makes the arrow feel more interactive within the page).

The picture scroller at the top of the page is very attractive, as well as being user - friendly, it’s used to show a number of upcoming TV shows (there’s a possible use of widget). Also, each time you scroll through the TV shows, other TV shows are visible on each side of it. The special effect added with shadows gives the impression that it is a sphere going around you, similar to an IPod Touch when looking through albums. This feature is unique among similar rival websites.

The BBC Switch homepage is colour co-ordinated, such as yellow for Music, Orange for shows. There are also other options to select from such as online features/exclusives etc.., In my opinion this homepage may have slightly too much going on, as there are so many options to choose from, ranging from news, advice, games, online.., making it more difficult for an audience to choose from and a lot of it could be irrelevant. The font colour is effective, as well as the style of the font, as they stand out from the black background, which allows easy navigation. I like this idea, and I feel this will be a good feature that I could incorporate into my website.

Research - 4Music.com

The first TV channel based website I researched is 4music.com. This site is very much 'teen' orientated. It promotes a channel that plays programs mostly linked to celebrities and music.
The site is simple, yet effective. Its easy to navigate with clear bright navigation buttons. Its also very user friendly.

The first thing I noticed about the website is that there are navigation buttons at the top of the page. I particularly liked that if you ran the mouse over the buttons they would change colour from black to bright pink. This was very edgy and attention grabbing. I would like to use this for my website if possible. The shape of the navigation buttons is simple but funky and unique. I feel this is also a good idea when trying to attract a teen based audience.

Bellow the navigation buttons is an interesting element to the website. Its a picture section which allows you to click on any picture you want and the website will enlarge it in the centre of the page. (The picture bellow shows what I'm talking about!)

This element adds variety to keep the audience interested. I definitely consider using this to keep my website attractive and interesting.

There is a search bar at the top of the page allowing users to search for something particular. I like the background used on 4Music's website. Its very bold and attention grabbing. Although, this could also distract some users from the main content.

To navigate this page you simply click on any of the navigation buttons or search for something, its generally very simple and easy to navigate. The website has 5 different navigation buttons, so its not too much. It offers 'artists and tunes', 'on tv' and 'free stuff', I like the idea of having an option of seeing what free 'stuff' you can get with 4music. This is something I could consider when building my own website, I could possible advertise offers and free things on my website :)

4Music doesn't have too much content, in fact I don't think the site has enough content. I will try and include more content on my website, but not too much.
The site includes a top 10 music chart on the right side of the page.
The site includes 4 other main pages: Artist and Tunes, Free Stuff, On TV and Monkey.
The site also includes a gallery featuring pictures of artists, I think this is a good idea and I plan on using a 'Gallery' as part of my websites content.
The site also includes a hyperlink to a page named Monkey, I was curious to what this was about. This is an offer to users, sponsored by Orange, allowing the users to listen to any music, create play lists, get free texts and download music for free whenever they want.
Every page on 4Music's website is consistent in terms of layout and discourse features.
Although this is a good quality, I feel that there should be more of a variety, like BBC Switch for example. They have different colours for each page, yellow for music, red for news etc.

I very much like the 4Music's logo, I think its simple, easy to understand and easy to remember, which is most important.

The Brief for A2 Media Studies

Today I received the OCR Exam Board brief for this years Media Studies. The task is to design and create a website based on a new 'Teen Tv Channel'. The website will be used to advertise the new Tv channel. Additionally we will be creating a newspaper advert for the channel and a double page spread for a magazine, focussing on the channels launch.

In todays lesson we were split into groups of 4 to brainstorm and discuss the different teen channels that already exist and the websites used to promote them. I have researched a number of methods and ideas in order to help me plan and create a new Tv Channel Website. I have looked at a wide range of TV based websites which target mostly teens.

I will need to research into the web designing industry to find the different codes and conventions (colours, language etc).

Im very excited about this years brief and I will be updating the blog regularly with my progress :) x