P2 cross media plans

 The brief I have been given is to create 3 different advertising campaigns on different platforms, the non negotiables of the brief are that these must follow conventions of the media type used as well as abide by the legislation in place around advertising. The final edit of all the campaigns must be completed by January of 2024

The aims of the campaign is to introduce my TV drama to a large audience through advertising with print, TV radio and social media. The aim of the campaign is to persuade the audience that views the advertising campaign into watching the show. In turn, watching the show hopefully will also raise the brand awareness of BBC 3 which is another objective stated in the brief.

The TV drama I am advertising is under the genre of a horror. To appeal to the target audience 15-21 year olds of the show,  the advertising campaign must demonstrate that the show is under the horror genre. To do this, the standard conventions of the horror genre could be seen in advertising such as showing the audience jump scares or using dark colours as a stylistic choice.

The target audience of the TV, as stated in the brief, is 15-21 year olds. The geographic of the target audience are UK residents since the show caters towards them due to the setting and characters being of this age and the show being set in the UK. The psychographic of my target audience would fall under strugglers or explorers since they are the most likely to be persuaded by the advertising campaign. Strugglers are typically seeking escapism due to poor work life or other factors, this means that the advertising will engage them due to the their want for excitement and entertainment. Furthermore, the psychographic of explorers will be easily persuaded by the campaign due to the themes of the show that will be engaging to the psychographic. The characters and plot of the TV drama that is being represented in my advertising campaign will be engaging to the psychographic and age of my target audience sine they can relate to the characters due to their age and personality traits which are similar to the target audience as well as the plot of a post A level summer after school finishes.

The suitable mediums for TV show advertising would be the use of print, TV adverts or radio adverts which all conform to traditional advertising used for TV dramas and Films. The use of print is suitable for this campaign and is often seen in advertising campaigns in billboards and posters with is appropriate for promotion since it is easily accessible. The main TV adverts can be seen with the use of trailers which provide an entertainment to the audience due to the content often being action heavy to excite the viewer which thus promotes the show. Radio ads, while less suitable than print or video, provide an extension to the reach by advertising to people outside the target audience.

Some legal and ethical concerns for the advertising campaign would be to make the campaign less explicit than the actual show to avoid watersheds. There will be concerns in copyright and intellectual property rights for the campaign when using sourced footage as well as the ideas for my advertising meaning I will have to make sure there is no issues with the sourced footage and the idea will have to be original. As well as this, I will have to ensure I undergo the correct requirements before filming such as consent forms, permission to film and risk assessments. The campaign will also have to be careful of ethical issues such as adhering to age requirements that the BBFC have enforced as well as avoiding stereotypes and being conscious of the representations portrayed in the campaign.

2nd draft script

 

Changes:

The changes from my first draft include a lengthening of the content and story whilst attempting to keep the dialogue authentic

Feedback: Use more parentheticals in script to demonstrate character emotions, less long paragraphs, work on 3 act structure

Changes I will make- use of parenthetical, set out clear single stranded structure in attempts to convey to 3 acts, use more dialogue to break up the action blocks and make them more concise

Unit 22 M1

 

P1-Existing cross media advertising campaign

 The Blair Witch project advertising campaign

The advertising campaign for the Blair witch project used innovative forms of shock/guerrilla advertising to promote the viewership of the film. The campaign included marketing strategies such as the combination of new and old media to creating missing person stories which innovatively spread through the new found social media with the use of websites and print-out pamphlets and found footage videos which created a reality to the film that the general public perceived

Aims and objectives- The use of shock advertising in this campaign shows that the aim of this advertising was to broaden the range of the viewership of the film to create box office success through the use of viral marketing through social media due to the shocking nature of the advertising. As well as this, the campaign was specifically designed to provoke social media interaction and sharing by the use of shockvertising in the missing persons pamphlets and the created narrative which greatly increased the shareability of the campaign. This was backed up by the use of the newly created internet to easily share the website and chatrooms.

Target audience-the demographic of this advertising campaign was likely directed at a young male audience since the genre of the film is most appealing to a young audience. The location will likely be directed at Americans since the film was American made and produced but despite this, the film had large reach outside of America. The demographic is likely to be white male due to the genre being horror which is more typically enjoyed by males. As well as this, the target audience will be members of society who are somewhat well off since it enables them to access the advertising campaign such as the use of a computer to access the website and chatrooms as well as being able to afford a cinema ticket.

Slogan- "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared into the woods near Burkitsville Maryland while shooting a documentary.... a year later, their footage was found" The use of slogans in film advertising is commonly seen and is used to condense a general theme of the film into a short, catchy sentence. This slogan is effective since it reinforces the idea of the theme of the found footage style which gives the audience an insight into the style and genre of the film. 

Key messages-The use of the advertising campaign to generate excitement to a film means that there must be messages conveyed to the viewer to give them insight into the themes of the film as well as demonstrating that there will be a fulfil of needs of escapism under the uses and gratifications theory. The advertising campaign has many unique selling points such as the narrative created for the advertising campaign seen in the website that described the mythology of the Blair witch. This provided an interesting storyline for the target audience to indulge in which was then corroborated by the chatrooms that were created where the narrative can be discussed.

Approach- the approach to this advertising scheme is a mix of guerrilla, shock and viral advertising to promote the product. Guerrilla marketing is seen in this advertising campaign through the use of missing persons pamphlets and websites that were created about the characters as if they were real. This in turn, turned the campaign into a viral marketing scheme since the unusual nature and realistic nature of the guerrilla marketing encouraged the target audience to share the websites and pamphlets as well as use the chatrooms that were created for this purpose.

Call to action- The use of viral marketing highlights the call to action of the campaign to make the audience spread the advertising campaign themselves after viewing the missing persons websites that were published. The chatrooms created encouraged the call to action of discussing the narrative created and therefore discussing the film. The use of a TV and print ads however, provided a different call to action, directly encouraging the target audience to watch the trailer.

Representation-The characters in this advertising campaign are representative of missing persons and their families. The advertising uses stereotypes to demonstrate how people act to missing persons such as the families. Stereotypes are also used in the representation of the social groups of university students where they are shown to be smart and capable however they lack maturity and favour having fun over the project at hand which is seen throughout the narrative. The campaign represents women by a subversion of stereotypes where a woman is one of the main protagonists instead of the damsel in distress. Instead the protagonist is portrayed as smart and outgoing, which is atypical to many popular horror films to provide a positive empowerment of women.

Campaign logistics- This campaign abided to the flighting/bursting model of advertising where the advertising ran where the demand is peak with increased number of ads shown around the time of release. This was seen in the full page newspaper ad in Variety Magazine after the films opening weekend which promoted the film as well as the website which boosted promotion to the website and film itself

Choice of media- This campaign used the upcoming social media scene as well as print and TV to display the campaign. This was appropriate for the campaign since the upcoming internet and social media was dominated in use by the films target audience such as the chat rooms that were created which boosted the promotion to the target audience through viral marketing The use of the internet was extremely effective in this advertising campaign as the website that was created had reportedly had 21 million hits after the opening weekend. 

The campaign used TV as a medium by creating TV trailer as well as a documentary on the myth of the Blair witch. They used a partnership with the sci-fi channel on American TV to promote and show the TV trailer. As well as this, the trailer was shown in universities and niche setting to be more in line with the target audience. The campaign used print in the missing person leaflets that were posted around places as well as fake news stories in the real life local area.

Legal and ethical issue- The producers of this campaign will have considered the ethical issues of the nature of this advertising campaign since it the use of social media and print created very large uncertainty amongst the local population by the creation of missing persons stories. This created ethical issues due to the obvious emotional toll it could have potentially created due to the seriousness of the narrative created as well as the deceptive nature of it. The BBFC rating of the Blair witch project is a 15 meaning the advertising campaign could not exceed this in and TV trailer or print advertising that was created. This meant that the content shown could not be overly gory or demonstrate overly sexual scenes.

Script- Final Draft

One piece of feedback I got for this draft, was to add character arcs and work on a 3 act structure within the extract. 

For the final draft of my script, the changes I made included further use of parentheticals. This allowed me to better represent the story of my TV show by demonstrating the emotions of the character as well as giving better instruction for actors and directors. As well as this, I worked on adding a short character arc to the male characters in the extract to show the fear and enormity of the situation as they go from confident to scared.

Advertising theory

 Cross media advertising campaign- this method is used by business' to effectively achieve a broadest scale possible in the advertisement campaign where various types of traditional and new advertising 

eg. film promotion- combines new media and old media. Billboards, trailers, social media

Viral Marketing- a form of advertisement where consumers are encouraged to share information about a companies product

eg. ALS Ice bucket challenge

Shock advertising- using deliberately outrageous or controversial images to violate public norms to ingrain the advert into consumers

eg. Blaire witch project advertising- Created missing persons record and found footage

Guerilla marketing- using surprise or unconventional methods to advertise

eg. ALS ice bucket challenge

Celebrity Endorsment- Celebrities are paid to promote a product

eg. Nike Jordans

Web Banner- advertising on the internet that is delivered by an ad server

eg. Pop up ads on websites

Contextual advertising- targeted advertising appearing on websites or other digital platforms

eg. pop up ads about products directly relating to the website that the ad pops up on

Paid sponsorship- giving out money in exchange for advertising

eg. YouTuber ads 

Intertextual references in advertising- Quotation or parody in adverts to set up relation between target texts and source texts

eg. Popcorners- breaking bad intertextual reference

Hashtags- used to direct advertising to a specific audience on twitter or other social media

eg #shareacoke

Above the line marketing- Mass marketing often with high expenditure

eg. High budget film advertisements

Below the line marketing- Lower budget advertising

eg. pamphlets

D1 Requirements met

 The client has asked me to produce a screenplay for a promotional extract to the TV drama that is 10-15 minutes long to gain interest from viewers aged 15-21.

The conventions of my screenplay fall under the genre of a TV drama under the sub genre of a horror drama since it is reminiscent of slasher films from the 80s and 90s with a masked killer and a group of teens however it is adapted to be more appealing to young British audience. Conflict is clearly seen between the protagonists as well as between the hero's and villains of the drama as they fall under Propp's character types. The conflict present in this extract is physical and emotional since while the protagonists are in physical danger, they experience the loss of a friend that they care about as is shown in the opening of the extract. My show falls under the conventions of TV dramas being episodic and available to home audiences being on BBC 3 and is linked to an ongoing narrative that is present in this extract.

In this extract, the storyline is shown at the point in Todorov's narrative theory of the disruption as this is clearly the first time the characters have experienced the antagonists since it has they are not seen to have any knowledge about the villains of the show up to this point. Using this point of Todorov's narrative highlights the innocence of the protagonists since it is clear that there is a lack of experience of dangerous situations as seen by the way they act in the extract when faced with the disruption. This is also helpful to show the audience how evil the antagonists are as they are seen to have no morals or care for who they are targeting. This section of extract will not include a resolution/repair since, to stick in line with the brief, it ends on a cliff hanger. This will be beneficial to the promotion of the extract since it is more exciting and tense

The theme of my TV drama is the loss of innocence that the protagonists experience as emphasised by the disruption stage of the narrative I have used. The theme is presented across my script with the obvious disruptive event where their friend has a near death experience which exasperates the loss of innocence due to it being such a huge dramatization of the experiences and normal life they have prior to the disruptive event, this is shown in the beginning stages of my script where a stereotypical teen life is shown versus the contrast of the gory conflict seen later in the extract. This will be the main character arc for the protagonists across the entire show creating a falling character arc. This character arc and theme are stereotypical to the horror genre and are present in most horror films and TV shows, this will make it useful for promotion since the demonstration of the theme in this extract is conventional and therefore known to the target audience of 15-21 year olds as well as being exciting to the viewer as there is a level of relatability in the show that will interest the target audience. The use of young characters to emphasise the theme in my TV show will also be useful for promotion since it similarly gives a level of relatability to interest the views.

Conflict is presented in my show in a gritty and mildly gory way due to the genre of the show being horror. The hook in my extract is the ending where the protagonists are cornered by the two antagonists creating an exciting ending where there is a raise of the stakes to create an impossible situation for the protagonists which excites the viewer.

To meet the brief, I made sure my script met legal and ethical requirements for the BBFC age rating of 15. To achieve this, I made sure that there was not copious use of swear words which could be deemed as too mature for certain audiences. As well as this, the use of drugs in the script is not present since it is not needed in my script and it would similarly be too mature for certain audiences if it is shown too explicitly. Violence is shown in my script in once scene, however this falls under the BBFC 15 classification which states that violence should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. This is in line with the 15 rating since the violence shown is not overly detailed with a use of close ups and it does not include torture. As a whole, the extract is not slanderous or copyright infringing meaning it meets legal and ethical requirements.

The target audience of my TV drama is a niche audience of 15-21 meaning they have specific needs that the TV show must satisfy their needs. My TV drama satisfies the needs of escapism and personal identity under the uses and gratifications theory due to the entertainment as well as the characters that are shown in the show which are relatable therefore giving the audience insight into personal identity. The characters in my show relate to the target audience by the use of authentic dialogue to make the characters seem real. The key events in the extract similarly make the characters relatable by showing on screen conflict between friend groups in the form of arguments which is authentic to real world relationships therefore making the characters relatable in order to gain viewer interest and satisfy their needs. The setting used in my TV drama gains viewer attention by being recognisable to develop a comforting narrative in order to gain interest. I used the setting of a British woods in my TV drama since this is a recognisable setting in which my niche target audience find relatability in, this comforts the viewer making the show easily watchable. The contrast of a comforting setting to an unsettling setting by the use of the house in the woods in the final act of the extract peaks viewer attention making the extract entertaining and conforming to viewer needs of escapism.

The layout and format of my script conforms to conventions of traditional screenplays through the use of alignment and 12 point courier font meaning that a page of my script will be roughly a minute therefore making my show approximately 10 minutes long which meets the brief requirements.