media a2

1. Q3 - How effective
is the combination
of your main
media product
and the
corresponding
ancillary texts?
In order to create a consistent brand forour products, it was vital during the construction of our
double page spread and radio trailer that we referred back to the documentary in order for the
three to link cohesively.To do this we used quotes, pictures and information featured in the
documentary in our ancillary texts in order for the audiences to immediately make the
connection that these texts are linked, as well as foran air of consistency between the products,
whichwould increase the perceived level of professionalism.
Our target audience seemed initially
quite broad, so we began to draw it in to
a more specific demographic in order for
our texts to be most effectivetogether.
Our target audience was foryoung male
and females aged 17 to 24, who were
perhaps middle class and Caucasian, as
well as having a primary interest in their
phone and use it a lot; this demographic
would have been exposed to mobile
phones formost of their lives and will
have as a result used them a lot.
However,we were keen to not
exclusively appeal to this target audience. Wemade an effortto not make the documentary race-
specific,and the age of the audience may be better if they were younger, it by no means that
parents of the target audience and adults who frequently use their mobile phones are ruled out
when it comes to appeal in the products. In order to maintain this air of broad appeal, we
selected statistics which couldintrigue any audience member, as one of the product's primary
aims is to be educational, and anyone from any age can be mentally stimulated by our
documentary and the resulting information gained from it.

2. The tile of our documentary, "Necessity
or Luxury" is carried overto both
ancillary texts; in the radio trailer it is
repeated at the end, and the double page
spread features it as its headline. This is
a constant reinforcement of our band
and the connection between our
products is linked, with the audience
being constantly reminded about the
documentary topic and title.
In our double page spread, we also used
images that we feltmay perhaps best
represent members of our target
audience, as well as images that are relevant to both the article and the documentary, such as
moments in the documentary that are referenced in the article, such as Siobhan's social
experiment.
Our pull quotes are also connected
closely to the article, being quotes
pulled from both the article and
documentary itself (referenced in
the article) . As a result, quotes
from our experts we felt wouldbe
most appropriate to feature in both
the radio trailer (as soundbites)
and our double pages spread (as
grab quotes) in order to maintain
the educational air and intention of
our documentary, as well as
reinforcing the overlap between
our products.
Our ancillary texts, we feel, are also consistent with each other and effectively combineelements
from each other and have influenced each other, as well as the actual topic area of mobile
phones, something we made a conscious attempt to not get lost from everything else that we
had used to create realistic and professional products. This is evident in our usage of
conventions such as drop shadows, language and a house style appropriate to the audience, and
so on.
Contrastingly, our choices of TV guide listings in RadioTimes,
and our choiceof our radio station being Capital FM and our
TV station being Channel 4 are all seemingly random choices,
and make the documentary comeacross as confused and
muddled, all over the place almost. From our research, we
found that these individual channel/station/magazine
choices might be appropriate for our target audience, we also
felt they were quite inconsistent in they had little previous

3. connections explicitly visible. This leads to us having less of a connectionoverarching between
our products and so less consistent and effectiveproduct.
Overall, whileour connections across products could have been built on, I felt we did well and
made an effort to connectthe texts and have the ancillary texts promote our main product in an
effectiveway withconsistency. This consistency is possibly crucialin the audience's decision to
watchthe documentary or not, so the brand must be clear and cohesive,which I feltwe
achieved to some extent.