this is my response to second question asked in the A2 media coursework evaluation section.

1. How effective is the
combination of your
main product and
ancillary texts?
By Jack Beale-Burchell

2. O Alongside the documentary we had
pieced together a double paged article
that is used to advertise and promote the
piece, and a short radio trail also used to
advertise and promote the documentary.
Both of these two ancillary tasks are used
to promote the documentary.

3. O When looking at all 3 together we notice a synergy
between them all, both the article and the radio
trailer have extracts from the documentary within
them, creating a relation between the 3 pieces. The
article is done in similar colours to the overlays in the
documentary and does have a modernised theme.
The radio trail on the other hand uses modern music,
similar to that in the documentary, as so it can
appeal to its target audience. The reasoning behind
making the two ancillary tasks very modern is so that
they can appeal to their target audience and
therefore can be well advertised with the bracket that
we are trying to market the documentary to.
O As all 3 tasks are very similar, I do believe that there
has been a creation of a brand identity, meaning that
they are recognisable as being related to one
another. With this strong sense of synergy between
the pieces, it allows the two ancillary tasks to do
what they were designed to do and promote the
documentary. I believe that this was done very well
as the feedback that we received was overall very
positive about all 3 pieces, clearly showing that the
article and the radio trail had done what they were
supposed to do.

4. O To look at whether the article and the radio trailer promoted
the documentary well, I have to look at the strong and weak
points of each.
O I believe that the only weak points of the article is the
content of the text and that the background is blue, which
challenges the conventions of radio times double paged
articles, but as it is a minor change, I believe that this alone
cannot impact the effectiveness of the article as a piece of
advertising for the documentary.
O Whereas with the radio trail, I believe that although it states
what its advertising, for example ‘On BBC 3 we embark on
a journey to find out more about the fastest growing social
networking site in the world’ some of the lines said in it can
be perceived as ‘cheesy’ and therefore can damage the
message behind the advert and this could detract from the
point being made, ultimately resulting in less viewers. But
as it was designed to advertise the documentary, I still
believe that it does this very well and does do what it was
intended to do well.

5. O Comparison of double page spread and radio
times article. Coloured backgrounds are not
usually used by radio times.

6. O Overall I believe that all three pieces have
a strong synergy between them which
creates a brand identity, which I believe
makes each of them synonymous with
each other, leading for the two ancillary
tasks to be very strong pieces of
advertising, which makes them successful
and in turn the documentary.