Assignment 1: Task 5: Research for media production

It is important for companies starting a new advertising campaign to do research before actually starting making the product and advert. The reason they have to do this is to make sure that the product will be suited to the audience they are aiming for. If this is not then there may be an issue with getting their product off the shelves or getting complaints from their video.

           Research is not as straight forward as it sounds as there are different types of research and different methods within the form. One type of research is audience research which deals with the question of who is going to be watching the advert and buying your product. If a company gets this research wrong then their product will unlikely sell more than if they got this research right. Questions that are addressed in this type are 'what do they do for a living?' This question is important because it lets the company know what there audience is doing for a living to determine how their product will fit in with the audiences lives. Another question is 'What area they will live in.' This is important because  the company will have to decide what region they are aiming to sell their product in more. This means that if the product is for a tractor then it would be pointless aiming this product for the city and so they would research more into the audience in area of the country. What hobbies they do is also another important topic to research as it will show the researchers what programmes people watch with specific hobbies.

Market research deals with looking at what other companies that sell the same product, trends which involve the product and awareness of the product. Looking at other companies will mean you are able to see how they have done in terms of sales and how they have achieved what they have. Doing this will help you to see if your product will be able to make a profit and if the market is too saturated for your product. Looking at trends and patterns you will be able to view how the product has done overall and in the past. It will also be able to let you see if it will become more or less popular in the future which is important so that you do not waste the money making an advert but does not have any effect because it has already been around and gone. Overall market research is very important because it allows the company to see if their product will be able to survive in the market and how to do it.

The final research to do is production and addressing the question, how is the product going to be made and at what cost. Logistics is important because it lets the company know how much money would have to be spent to collect everything for making the product and advert. Included in this is whether it is viable to complete the product and everything to make a profit. 

In research there are 4 main categories that it will come under and using more than one will be essential to gather the perfect information. One category is secondary research and this means you are looking at research what others have done and be videos, questioner, surveys or books. Pros of doing this method of research is that you will not have to use as many resources to find the information you will need and not spend a lot of money on resource such as paper or people to perform the questionnaire which you can spend on making the advert. Cons of this method are that the information you have gathered may not be for the specific requirement you are looking for and therefore not answering the question you need answered. Another con is that the research you find might be inaccurate or old which will result in you gathering the wrong information and not create a suitable advert.

The second research method is primary research and this is when you find the information you need on your own without taking research from other people through the form of something like a questionnaire or survey. Advantages of using primary research is that you are able to make your own questions meaning you can recieve more specific information for what you want such as ' On December 1st 2006 how many Wotsits did you eat?' which would be impossible to find from someone elses research. Another advantage is that you can control what people answer your questions to recieve information from your target audience. Cons of this method of research is that you will have to go out and use your own resources to get information which will cost money and time.

within these research methods there are also types of research which are quantitative and qualitative. These two types of research are how the information is collected and viewed. Quantitative research is information that is displayed as figures which is useful for comparisons. This is a good research type because it doesn't require lots of reading and can be viewed quick. Another reason why this is a good type is because it means you are able to show up this information as many things like graphs, charts or simply as numbers to compare trends through time. A third reason why quantitative research is good is because it fast to collect as it usually only requires tick boxes and not written words.  Even though these are good points there are still a few bad points one of which is that they do not give you lots of detail and are limited in getting details from the person answering.


Qualitative research is research that is written and not figures. Pros of using this type are that they can be very detailed which means you may get new information from people that you have not before thought of and therefore can research further to improve the data received. The participant is also not confined to the questions and answers given by the researchers meaning you will end with better results. Cons of this type are that they can take a long time to be completed which means you will not be able to ask lots of people to complete it as it will take too long. This could also mean that not as many people will want to take part because they are not willing to spend their time on it. There is always a risk of either not getting enough information from the person taking the survey or too much, giving irrelevant information which the person conducting the research will have to read through and use up valuable time. 

Assignment 1: Task 4: Regulation of Adverts

The ASA and OFCOM are independent regulators who help to regulate ads and take complaints from the public to make sure adverts have complied with code and not cause offence to anyone by receiving complaints from the public about the adverts. Once they have received these complaints they investigate and determine how to act, whether its removing the advert in full, partially or nothing. The ASA cover all types lots of different advertising in different forms of media some of which are magazines, TV, different forms of advertising on the internet and many others. Once they have received a complaint the person making the complaint will receive a message saying it has been received and then be updated on there progress. when looking into the complaints they will start an independent investigation into the advert which has had the complaint.

Although ASA and OFCOM do the same thing overall they are slightly different. One way they are different are that  OFCOM work to regulate Advertising on TV and communication channels such as postal services and fixed line telecoms. They also help to protect people against scams and making sure that TV competitions are working and not a fix to con people. Whereas he ASA work with the public by taking their complaints and proactively checking media for misleading advertising. The ASA and OFCOM respond to complaints by setting up comities and using different people to help determine if the advert should or shouldn't be removed from the form of media. These two regulators use codes which are like rules which should be followed. Some examples of these codes are to do with crime, religion, harm and cause overall offence.

There are two different types of codes, non-broadcasting and broadcasting. These codes can be downloaded meaning anyone can have access to them. Non-broadcasting codes are ones that must be followed by the company making the advert of what they are not allowed to include in their advert or guidelines of how much they can include. One code is for gambling and if included should not portray, condone or encourage gambling behaviour that is socially irresponsible or could lead to financial, social or emotional harm. It should not be aimed towards people who are not of age to use or do the subject. Another code is for things that include food, food supplements and claims about health and nutrition. some the rules included in this code are that any claims made by the advert must be backed up by recording s that it does do what you say. Another one is that you are not allowed to disapprove another product in ways that it damages you.

The other type of code is broadcasting and this is enforced by the regulator such as Ofcom or Asa. This acts as a second barrier fr advertisers as they make sure content which has broken the non-broadcasting codes are removed from the TV. These codes are the same as non-broadcasting are only different in the stage at which they are conducted are.



1) Paddy Power Blind Football





This advert received 1,089 complaints  saying that it was offensive to blind people and could encourage animal cruelty. This advert shows a game of blind football taking place when a cat walks onto the pitch through an opened gate and the footballer then kicks the cat. Because there were two separate complaints the ASA had to treat each separately looking into both the offence to blind people and how it could cause animal cruelty. After looking into both not upheld as they thought showing disabled people playing football was not seen as offensive and that the advert was not shown during children's programmes or in the day and that the situation was surreal.


2) Toyota Advert

   

This advert is for a Toyota GT86 a car by Toyota and shows an animated character driving a car that is not exciting then gets the said car above and drives it, at speed, through a wall whilst getting chased into real life. This advert was deemed to be unsuitable because complaints from the public said that it was "irresponsible and condoned dangerous driving." After these complaints and ASA looked into it and found that it broke some codes one of which was 19.1 "Marketing communications for motor vehicles, fuel or accessories must not depict or refer to practices that condone or encourage anti-social behaviour." The end result of these complaints were that the advert could not be shown on TV in the way it was which means that if toyota wanted the advert to be shown again then they would have to edit it so that dangerous driving was not shown.

Adam and Jane BT

BT (British Telecom) have using series advert for a while. The one previous to the university students involved two characters called Adam and Jane and we follow there life's. Series adverts are good as the audience gets to know the characters and the is to develop an emotional connection with them. These are also good as it allows a connection between the characters and the product. Downsides to this is that they can often get boring because they can usually only take the form of a realistic narrative and therefore unlikely to be remembered.





This is the first video in the series and starts off the story between the two characters. It starts of with a problem between the two characters and throughout the series it gets resolved.