This proposal outlines plans for a promotional DVD for an Extended Creative Media course. The DVD will be sent to prospective students and uploaded online. It will need to effectively promote the college to 16-17 year olds. The proposal discusses including factual course information, making it suitable for the target age group, and being created with the college's equipment. The DVD will be 3-5 minutes long to provide all information while maintaining interest. Formats like promotional materials, advertising, branding, and file types are also considered for effective promotion.

1. Unit 4, 5 and 62 Proposal
I have been tasked to create a promotional DVD for the Extended Creative Media course - to be sent
out to prospective students who may want to join the college at the start of the coming year. This
proposal will run through some of the important aspects my DVD will incorporate, and I will explain
why I chose to use this specific method. I will include both a small explanation as to why the format
was used, and also an evaluation as to the thought process of choosing that specific medium.
After reviewing the following scenario:
“You have been asked to tender a proposal by the college to produce a promotional video for a department
within the college which can then be used on the college website, be produced as a DVD to send to potential
students and also be uploaded to the college YouTube site and Facebook site. As part of this assignment you
will have to negotiate a brief with your client and have records of communication and correspondence between
yourself and the client. While negotiating the brief you will decide on the style, length and content of the video
depending on your client’s requirements”
I have a good idea as to what you, the client, is looking for.
Because this DVD is being used to promote the college and attract high school students, it is going to
need to be effective at putting the college in a good light for students from ages 16-17. This means I
will need to think carefully about what people in this age group would like to see, and what might
make them choose Cheadle and Marple College over any other college in the area. It is always a
good idea to make sure the promotional media used to attract people to something is fitting of the
typical audience that the product/service may attract. I have compiled a short list as to what needs
to be considered when planning and producing a promotional product:
Relevant to the course – It is very important to make sure all information about the course is
100% factual and true to the course, as it would be unfair to students if the course was
completely different to how it was portrayed in the DVD.
Suitable for the age group – When creating the DVD it will need to be suitable for people
around the age of 16. This will greatly alter how the final product will look.
Making sure equipment is fit for purpose – However I finally decide to create my DVD I will
need to make sure it is able to be created with the equipment and software in the college.
For example I will not be able to use advanced CGI or helicopter shots as these kinds of
things are not feasible in college.
A suitable length – The promotional DVD will have to be a good length to both keep people
interested and to be long enough to get all of the information across. I have decided my
video will be from 3-5 minutes long as I feel this time frame will be capable of fitting all of
the information in, whilst still keeping people interested throughout.
Most, if not all companies will enforce some kind of promotional material to attract new customers.
There are many different formats of advertisement and many ways in which they will attempt to
promote themselves in the best and most effective light, these range from videos to text ads,
graphic advertisements in magazines and papers and also viral marketing. In this section of my
proposal I will cover each of the specific applications and explain the advantages and disadvantages
to each of the methods.

2. Promotional materialis the distribution of items that companies or organizations will send out to
prospective or existing customers in order to attract new business. These can be from coffee mugs
featuring the brand logo, to DVD videos that can be watched in order to gain a more in depth look at
the product. This method is a particularly effective one as typically the items sent out will be used,
which will give the company more coverage and thus increase sales. This is one of the primary
methods in which I will distribute the DVD video that will be made in order to promote the college,
as it is fairly simple to send a batch of DVD’s out to the homes of perspective students. As with every
form of advertisement this method has its drawbacks. The first and perhaps most important is the
cost – typically this kind of advertisement is one of the most expensive, as you have to acquire a
large number of promotional items before you distribute them, and this can be fairly expensive.
Another drawback to this method is that
if the person you distribute the material
to does not use it you have effectively
wasted the money that that piece of
promotional material cost. However for
the most part this form of advertisement
is effective, and is a good way for
companies to interact with customers by
giving them something for free. This is
also a good way to promote a company
as it can give prospective customers a
good indication as to the attitude of the
company, as the promotional material
that is distributed can be quirky and fun,
or serious and formal, each of which will
give the client a rough idea of how the
company operates.
Advertisement is one of many forms of communication in marketing. It is used to change the mind of
potential customers and sway the beliefs of audiences. Billions are spent every year by companies
around the world to get the most effective campaign. “In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at
$142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide”Typically most companies will have a
consistent logo or brand throughout the campaign, and this is called branding - which involves the
repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate certain qualities with the brand in
the minds of consumers. Advertising can come in
a huge number of formats including, but not
exclusively: Radio, T.V, Posters, Direct Mail,
Newspapers and magazines. Because
advertisements can become so famous and well
known often large companies will have a loyal
fan base behind just the adverts, and expect
advertisements of a similar style every time a
new one is produced. Some adverts have also
become synonymous with a company, for
example the Coca-Cola advert celebrating
Christmas has come to be expected of the
company each Christmas. All things considered, I
would like my video to feature a consistent throughout, such as the use of the college logo, or
colours.

3. Whenever you are creating anything to do with advertising, it is important to understand and know
the basic fundamentals of the technology associated with the creative packages to be used, and the
formats in which things will be saved and stored. It is much more important when dealing with video
to choose the most effective and best optimised file format because choosing the wrong one can
result in the video looking choppy and bad quality. There are a number of different file formats, and
the following should be taken into consideration before starting a video.
Compression:Compression is the shrinking of files whist also maintaining a level of quality. Good
compression is reducing the size of a file significantly whilst also retaining an acceptable level of
quality. A bad example of this would be reducing the quality of an item but not doing anything to the
file size. There are two main forms of compression – lossy and lossless. They do as explained in the
name. Lossless compression makes the file smaller without deleting any visible data; it does this by
using complex mathematical shapes and theories. Lossy physically deletes data in order to lower the
file size. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.
File Sizes:Depending on what you are doing with the final product this step becomes extremely
important as it will limit its uses. If you intend to upload a file to the web it is important to have the
smallest file possible whist still retaining the maximum quality as larger file sizes will significantly
slow down the download speed of media over the internet. Slower computers also have trouble
playing and opening larger file sizes making it impossible for some people to access the content.
Another way in which file size can play an important part is when you are putting content onto a
DVD. It is impossible to load very large files onto a DVD as they only have a certain amount of
memory.
Digital Rights Management Systems:Digital rights management (DRM) is a class of controversial
technologiesthat are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers,copyright holders, and individuals
with the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale, there are however many
competing definitions. With First-generation DRM software, the intent is to control copying while
Second-generation DRM schemes seek to control viewing, copying, printing, and altering of works or
devices. The term is also sometimes referred to as copy protection, copy prevention, and copy
control, although the correctness of doing so is disputed. DRM is a set of access controltechnologies.
Some companies will protect and manage the distribution of their products. For example, products
with a 30 day trial will have a watermark somewhere denoting to the fact that it is only available for
trial or evaluation purposes, it would be wise to not use these products for important assignments as
it makes the company seem cheap and unprofessional.