Radio Advert Research

In today's lesson I researched into radio ad campaign's but I couldn't find any Radio adverts for Newspapers so I decided to look at them in General. I listened to 4 Radio Adverts and I will now look at what makes them appealing to their target audience.



The first Advert within the video is an advert for a Volvo Car. This advert is very serious as it is only a man speaking in a very serious tone of voice. This to me suggests that it is aimed at people with well paid jobs like a business man who has a family at home.

The second advert is for Kwik Fit. This advert is totally different to the Volvo advert as it is more of a conversation between a man and a woman which suggests the target is more general compared to the Volvo advert. I think the main reason why this advert is more generally targeted is because it is trying to promote a offer that they are doing rather than a specific product.

The third advert I will look at is HSS Hire. This advert is more for the people who are tradesman as the advert gives a list of jobs that they would do like maintaining, lifting, etc. This advert also seems quite serious to me as it only has one person talking and no sound effects but the person who's reading the script sounds a bit more up beat in his tone of voice which could represent a different target audience compared to the Volvo advert.

The final advert I will analyse is for a Company called Aer Lingus. This advert is like the Volvo and HSS Hire advert, whereby there is only one person in the advert speaking, but the main difference in this advert compared to the Volvo one is that there is up beat music in the background, which to me suggests that they are trying to grab everyones attention as they are promoting a sale.

One thing I did notice at the end of each of the advert they would either have there company slogan read out or details about the business like website, telephone number, etc.

Research/Planning into Newspaper poster's.

In today's lesson I looked for advertising poster's made by newspaper's to promote their companies. I found a lot of posters from the national newspaper "The Guardian", "The Metro" and "The Sun", and will now research them and what they are trying to tell the audience.

This is the first poster I found from the Guardian. It it very simple. I like the way the designers have a lot of computer mouses with a line leading to the centre of the page, and I think that they are trying to get the audience to think everyone's opinion is equal and they won't try and tell them any biased stories and is letting them make up their own mind.

They follow this idea up with a few lines of text saying:

"Listening to lots of different views, rather than just one, mean's you can decide for yourself, instead of being told what to think. Don't you agree? You don't have to of course". The designers have kept the text to this poster very simple but also tells the audience that it is interested in telling them honest stories and doesn't pressurise them into believing what they want them to.

This next poster I found was not actually advertising what the belife of the newspaper is about but instead about the content that is coming in the newspaper, in this case, a WWII pullout. They have put a lot of thought into this poster as it is advertising a WWII poster, they have give it like a tea stained background as it is old. The four arrows they have on the page cover four different aspects of the war and also join up in the middle of the page to reveal the Swastika.

Yet again the designers of this poster have kept it simple, by not going into great depths at what the pull out will actually include but they have got some symbolic things from WWII, which when people glance at it they will know immediatly what the poster is trying to tell them.

I will now look at a couple of poster's from "The Sun" newspaper. This is the first poster I found from the Sun.

This poster is very simple, as it has no price, no description on what is included or if they are trying to force you into believing their opinions.

I think this poster has been made the way it has as they are trying to get everyone interested in reading it as some people might like an unbiased view on news.

This is the second Sun poster I have seen. It has a lot more going on unlike the other sun poster. The slogan at the bottom says: "Big Opinions. Every Day", which I think is telling people that they are trying to force their opinion on to you whereas the Guardian let you decide what you want to believe.








For my Poster Campaign, I'am thinking of doing something a bit different from the poster's I analysed earlier. What I plan on doing is taking a photo of a brick wall and putting some of the things that are included within my newspaper in a graffiti style font. I like this idea as it has some of the things that people in my age range would do in their spare time, and that's what I think could make it appealing to my target audience.

One thing I will do that happens with the other poster's is the inclusion of their logo and a slogan. I have also decided to do this as it is for brand identity and your newspaper would be easily recognisable by doing this.

Final Product Design

This is my final newspaper layout for my newspaper. Iam happy with how my newspaper developed over the weeks since I started and it started to look more like a professional newspaper each week when I started to add new content to it.

Newspaper Construction

Over the past few weeks I have been concentrating on the construction of my newspaper. I have nearly completed my newspaper and I only need to take one more photograph. Once I have completed the construction of my newspaper I will research into newspaper advertising posters and newspaper radio adverts.

When I came up with a number of mock layouts for my newspaper I planned on sticking to the one that I thought was most appealing and using the feedback from my target audience. During the construction I decided to change a few things by moving stuff around certain pages but overall I'am happy with the way my newspaper is starting to look.

Mock Layouts

Over the last couple of days I have added stuff to my layouts. I have uploaded images of what I have added. I did not take those pictures I just added them to my layout to see what they look like. The first two images are of my front page designs.

I have added some images and colour to my second pages aswell. Below are the layout for them.

Research & Planning

I started of the research and planning section by carrying out some secondary research. The analysis of Liverpool Echo was key as I think that the amount of research I did into the layout and conventions of the newspaper I gained enough information and knowledge into what makes a succesful newspaper. The analysis of the other two newspapers I analysed The Metro and The Challenge we're also a benifit to my secondary research as they had different target audiences compared to the Liverpool Echo. Overall, I think the whole of my secondary research was a success as I did not have have knowledge into codes and conventions of a succesful newspaper before I started this task.

I also carried out primary research which included creating and distributing two questionnaires, and emailing a local newspaper. Before I started work on my questionnaires I emailed the Liverpool Echo with a few questions that would be benifical to my research but unfortunatley I never recived an email back from them but I think that the amount of research I done besides this was enough for me to plan my newspaper anyway. I created two questionnaies, one for people who read newspapers and one for people that don't read them. All of the questionnaires were distributed to people within my targeted age range so I ask them certain questions like what the like to read in newspapers and how much they would be willing to pay for newspapers, etc. When I collected all my results I created graphs for every question so that I could see all of the results very easily and notice certain trends in the results.

Planning of my newspaper was the final part of the research and planning section of my newspaper production. I started this after I finished all the research I thought was nessecary. The main part of planning the focus group as I got feedback on all the layout and fonts that I thought would be suitable for my newspaper. The focus group was a key part as the other people within the group said what they liked and disliked about certain things about fonts and layouts and how I could make it better. I have now completed all the research & analysis for my newspaper. This has been key for me as it has informed me of what my target audience want from my newspaper. If I just ignore this feedback and just start creating a newspaper I know that wouldn't read this newspaper as it doesn't appeal to them.

Focus Group

In todays lesson, me and three other people got together as a group and looked at eachothers page layouts and fonts. For this I created three front cover layouts for my newspaper and three inside pages for my newspaper. I also gathered some fonts together for people to decide what would be the best one for my newspaper.

Below I have added the three front cover layouts for my newspaper.

These are the three front cover layouts I created for my newspaper and the most popular choice with people in my focus group was the final layout which got two votes and the first layout getting one vote. The feedback for my most popular was that it would be ideal if I could move the blurb on the left just above the advertisment above the main lead.

I will now upload my three inside pages.

These are the three inside pages for my newspaper. The most popular choice with people in my focus group was the first layout I drew. I had no feedback for these layouts as the people said that they wouldn't change anything about the layout the chosen. I will now upload the fonts that I think would be most suitable for my newspaper.

Above is the list of fonts that I think I could use for my newspaper. The most popular font on those that I chose was the New Athletic font which is third on the list of those fonts. The feedback that I was given on the chosen font was that it looked a modern but at the same time professional font.

Third Newspaper Analysis

Today, I will start my third and final local newspaper. The newspaper I have chose to analysis is the Liverpool Echo. The Liverpool Echo is one if not the most popular newspaper in my local area.

Front Page

The title of the Liverpool Echo is located in the top left of the front page. They have placed the title in this location as people start reading from the top of the page, and they also read from left to right. The colours blue and red are used in the title as these are the colours of the two main football teams in Liverpool. There are also 3 main sub stories on the front cover of this newspaper, with the genre of stories from Sport, Crime and Community Events. I think that newspapers have other stories on the front cover of the newspaper as the main headline might not generally interest the reader and this will encourage them to pick it up and read it. The headline is in a bold black font which is not unusual for newspapers to use, as this stands out to the reader. The paper also kept it short and used simple langauge so that it appeal to people who don't have a strong vocabulary and/or don't like reading a lot of text. Also included in the main headline story is the writer of the artical. This is common in newspapers but with the Liverpool Echo they have placed a coloured box around their name. I think they have done this so the right person gets credit for their work. The banner advertisment at the bottom also stands out to me as it has a black background with orange lettering and I think that this has been created like this as it stands out more to the readers, but it is placed at the bottom of the page as they want people to read their content first.

First Page

The lead story from the front page is continued on the second page but only takes up a fraction of the space on this page as they want to fit as much content into one page as they can include more and a wider range of stories. The left hand side of the page is used as a section were the newspaper has included information like contact details which is important as people would like to voice thier opinion on certain things and send in their own stories to the newspaper to publish. The left hand side also has a contents section which is fairly small compared to one's you seen inside magazine's etc. I think that this has been purposly been created like this so that people continue to read throught the stories that as a short sentence wouldn't usually catch their eye, but this could also be down to the fact that their is a lot of content published within a newspaper and it would take up a lot of room to list every single item. The Liverpool Echo has included a competition on the left hand side aswell, which I think encourages people to wonder what the next prize would be and they could also tell friends and family the prizes on offer which then encourages them to go out and buy a copy of the newspaper. Their is also a web section located on the left hand side of the newspaper, and I think that this is becoming a key feature for succeful newspapers to have with the amount of people being able to access the internet increasing everyday and if newspapers could publish their stories before any rivals they would gain a reputation and more readers

Newspaper Layout's

Today I have started the planning stage of my newspaper by looking at the layout of The Liverpool Echo and The Metro, which are both popular newspapers in the local newspaper. I tried to create a layout in a very simple form trying not to use a lot of text to explain what each part of the newspaper is. The first newspaper I have analysed was The Liverpool Echo. In a way the front page could act as the contents page for this newspaper as their is no Fillers and all the stories have a page number for readers to turn to. I have noticed that the lead story of this newspaper takes up a chunk of space on the front cover whilst the Lead is of a fairly small size, but it also includes the By-line. The Liverpool Echo has alot of blurbs included which act as other small headlines for other stories inside and these also include page numbers.

I will now look at the layout of the Metro newspaper. The Metro is aimed at a different target audience compared to the Liverpool Echo but it is still layed out in a simple manner like the Liverpool Echo. Their is a lot of fillers in the Metro but it has a lot less blurbs compared to the Liverpool Echo. The main image is not related to the lead story but instead has a large caption to go with it, whereas the Liverpool Echo never had a main image. I have noticed that a lot of newspapers keep their advertisment at the bottom of the page, which both of these newspapers also do. The main headline of this newspaper is short and uses a bold font but is more towards the top of the page whereas the Liverpool Echo headline is in a more central position

Second Questionnaire Analysis

In today's lesson I collected in my second questionnaire, and put the results into graphs, I kept some of the same questions from my first questionnaire like people's gender and age.

This question shows that the majority of people who don't read newspapers are females, but there is still also a few males that don't actually read them as well.


For this question, I asked the same question from my first questionnaire, 'How Old Are You?'. Most people who answered this question are 17, but unlike the answers from the first questionnaire, the answers are more mixed and their is some more people in the 18/19 year old category.

I decided to ask this question as I believe that its important for me to find out if people read other sources to find out news or whether they don't read in general. Even though 5 out of the 9 people I asked said they don't read other sources of information, 4 people said they do read them so I think its important for me to listen to the feedback they have given me, so I can try and attract them into reading my newspaper.


I asked the people who said 'Yes' to the previous question if they could list their sources of information, wheather is it a magazine or website. Two people that answered yes said that they read 'OK' magazine to find out information, whilst one person reads both 'OK' and 'Hello', and the remaning person stated that they read a sports magazine called 'Four-Four-Two'.

I also asked this question from my previous questionnaire as its important for me to include more stories of a popular topic for people that don't read newspapers, in order for me to get them interested in reading a newspaper. The majority of people, marked the other box and I again asked them to speicfy what they meant but all five people said that they don't actually read newspapers. Whilst the most popular option I listed was Gossip, which links back to the previous question of when people listed the sources of information they currently use as I know that both 'OK' and 'Hello' magazine are of the celebrity and gossip genre. Again, one person ticked the 'Sport' box and this also fits into the last question for the same reason

My last question was mainly a feedback question, as I asked my target audience what it would take for me to get them interested in reading a newspaper. I got feedback from all of the nine questionnaires I handed out for people. One person would like to read about more local news, whilst another person would like to read about local sport stories. Two more of the people that I asked wanted to read about more celebrity gossip, whilst another two people wanted a wider range of stories to read about. The most popular answer was that people wanted a newspaper that was aimed at their age. I don't think that some of this feedback is hard to put into my newspaper as I am creating a local newspaper, especially the local news and sport stories. Also, I don't think that it will be very challenging for me to create a newspaper aimed at my target audience as I am in this age range myself. The most difficult piece of feedback in my opinion would be including more celebrity gossip stories, as this is mostly found in national newspapers instead of local.

Questionnaire Analysis

In today's lesson, I collected back my first questionnaire and put all my results into a graph so I can easily see what my target audience like in a newspaper.

From this graph I can see that 8 of the people that answered my questionnaire were males, whilst there was one female, so I know that the majority of people who read newspapers are males.

This graph shows me that most of the people in my age range were 17 years old, whilst there was one 18 year old and one 19 year old person who answered my questionnaire.

For this question, I decided to ask how much people in my target audience would be willing to pay for my newspaper. The best response was £0.36+.

The information I can get from this graph shows me that, my target audience like reading newspapers on a weekly basis, instead of a daily or monthly, and this can help me decide on how often my newspaper should be produced.

I thought this would be an important question for me to ask my target audience, because I wanted to find out whether they would like to be able to send in their own stories or opinions to my newspaper. The majority of the people who answered my newspaper said they would like to be able to do this feature, so I know how to include a Contact Us box inside my newspaper.

I asked this question as it would be beneficial to me to find out how most people who read newspaper find out local news. This was a multiple choice question for my target audience as they could find out news in different ways. The two main options that my target audience chose were internet and TV. Newspapers was they least chose option as most main stories are published the next day but, T.V stories and internet pages can be published 24/7

. I decided to ask if most people read local or national newspapers, and if they did read local newspapers, I asked could they specify what those newspapers are actually called. 2 people said they read national newspapers over local newspapers, but 6 of the 7 people that said yes read the Liverpool Echo, and the other person said the Metro

For my last question I asked what interests people the most in a newspaper. This was another multiple choice question that I asked, and sport was the most popular topic people like to read, whilst news and entertainment were the second and third most popular topics. The least two popular topics were Gossip and Other. If anyone chose the other option I asked them to specify what that topic was, and they put Politics/Science.

Email to other newspapers

In todays lesson, I constructed an email to the Liverpool Echo. I felt I would have a better chance of getting a reply if I put myself across to who ever would read my email. Below is the email I sent to the Liverpool Echo.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Iam currently an A2 Media student at Knowsley Community College, and for my coursework, and for my coursework I have to create a local newspaper and I have to research other local newspapers, to find out certain things about local newspapers are distributed and how they appeal to the target audience. I have enclosed an attachment to this email containing a few questions which I hope you would be able to answer about the Liverpool Echo. It would be greatly appreciated if you could take some time to answer these questions as it could be really beneficial to me in the construction of my coursework.

Matthew Cox
A2 Media Student
Knowsley Community College

I knew I had to keep the email short because who ever read it wouldn't like to read a block of text as they have jobs to get on with. In the email I introduced myself and also why I decided to contact them. I will make another post with the reply soon, If I get one from the Liverpool Echo.

I attached a document to the email with six different questions, but I didn't want to include loads of questions as I feel this would increase my chances of a response. Below are the questions I have sent to the Liverpool Echo and hopefully the answers I recieve will help me with the production of my magazine.

Analysis of The Challenge

Today, I analyzed a second newspaper named The Challenge, and I noticed a couple of key elements that this newspaper included. I don't think that this newspaper is quite as appealing to my target audience as it seems very dull and boring.

The Front Cover

On The Challenge, the title was included in a big red banner, which is unusual as in other local magazines I have seen they seem to have a red and blue banner for the title. The Challenge like most other local newspapers has a banner advertisement along the bottom of the page, but this advertisement isn’t promoting a business, instead its promoting activities for the youth in the local area.

One unusual feature of the challenge is that, they have included the contents page and page numbers on the left hand side of the front page. Even though most other local newspapers do contain contents pages, they are usually on the inside page rather than the front cover. I think they have done this so that if the main headline doesn't appeal to you, you will then be able to see what other stories are included so that you might read the newspaper.

There is also a lot of text on the front cover of The Challenge compared to other newspapers like the Metro. I think there is more text on the front cover of this local newspaper because they have an older target audience, who are not generally interested in pictures and short paragraphs of news.

Second Page

There are not many things on the second page of a newspaper that you would find on other local newspapers, e.g. lottery numbers, weather, etc., but there is a lot of new stories for people to read. Again, I think this is down to the fact that the target audience would like to read longer stories, but these things could have been excluded from the paper as it isn’t a daily paper but a weekly/monthly paper. One thing that I did notice was in this paper was this crime update column, which I haven’t seen in any other local newspaper. This could have been down to the fact that old people read this newspaper and it informs about what has been happening in the community.

Second Questionnaire

Today, I finished producing my questionnaire, which is ready to be handed out to my target audience, but I'm going to produce a second questionnaire to hand out to people who don't actually read newspapers, and see why they don't appeal to them and how I could get them interested in reading my newspaper.

I have came up with a list of a few questions to ask.

What is your age?

I think its important to know the age of the person I am asking, as my target audience is 16 - 24 years old, but different ages might like different topics, e.g. 16 year olds might be interested in sports but then 18 year olds might be interesed in News or Gossip.

What is your gender?

I would like to know what gender the majority of people who don't read magazines are as I could target the stories at the opposite gender.

Do you read anything else like Magazines or Web Pages?

I would like to ask my target audience this question as I would like to know if they don't like reading newspapers or they dislike reading in general.

If so, what are they called?

I would like to study the content, layout and colour scheme of these magazines if my target audience reads them as I could try and make my newspaper appeal to them.

Why don't newspapers appeal to you?

If my target audience don't like reading newspapers, I think its important to know why they don't appeal to them, e.g. They might not like the stories or layout, etc.

What would it take for you to consider reading a newspaper?

I would like some feedback from people in my age range, but who don't read newspapers as I feel this could help me, as a certain colour scheme might appeal to them, so it will help me attract them to reading my newspaper.

Planning of Questionnaire

In today's lesson, I started to plan my questionnaire. I have decided my target audience will be my age group (16-24) and when I collate the results of the questionnaires into a graph I will be able to see what makes newspapers attractive to my target audience. I have come up with a list of questions that I think would be suitable to ask my target audience. I have also asked some basic questions to my target audience like their gender and age.

Price-

I think it’s important that I ask what price my target audience would be willing to pay for a local newspaper because if I set the price too high most/ all of my target audience will not purchase my newspaper.

How often my target audience reads local newspapers-

I would like to know how often my target audience read newspapers, because it is not worth producing a daily newspaper if most of my target audience only read newspapers weekly.

Interactive-

I’ am going to ask whether my target audience would like newspapers to be interactive, so that they could give their opinion on stories that are included in my newspaper or if they like sending their own stories into the newspaper.

How do you currently find out local news?-

I think this is a good question to ask my target audience because if they find the majority off the internet, I could look out for different news stories that I think will attract my target audience to read my newspaper.

What newspapers do you currently read?

If I could find out what newspapers my target audience reads the most I could then analyse those newspapers and look at those codes and conventions and find out how I could then make them appeal to my target audience.

What news topic do my target audience find the most interesting?-

I would like to find out what stories my target audience find most appealing, because if the headline isn't something that doesn't appeal to the majority of my target audience, I doubt they would pick it up and read it.

Newspaper Analysis

In today’s lesson, I spent time analysing "The Metro" which is another local newspaper. When I looked at the front page of the Metro, I noticed a couple of key things that they had.

Metro Front Cover

I noticed the main headline of the Metro is in bold letters, and this is what makes it stand out to the audience. There are also 4 other stories that readers can find on the front cover and these stories will also intrigue the reader to look inside the newspaper. The main logo of the Metro uses the colours blue and red, which I have noticed a lot of local newspapers do, because it resembles the colours of the cities two main football clubs Liverpool and Everton.

The Metro is advertising the fact that it is currently a free newspaper by having the word 'FREE' next to the current logo, so it will attract more people to pick up a copy and read it. They also have a big banner advertisement on the bottom of the front page for cheap broadband which is another revenue stream for the newspaper.

The stories on the left hand side of the Metro start with the topic of what the story is about. They also have different coloured text for the different topics. For example, news has an orange font, sports has a blue font and fame stories have a purple coloured text. I think this is used so people can find the topic that interests them the most quickly and move to that section of the paper. Also between the two stories there is a comic sketch that is very short but mocks things in current news headlines, and I think it has been placed their as light hearted humour for all the commuters travelling to work.

Second Page

On the first page of the Metro I noticed that there was a large advert located in the bottom left of the page. I think this advert is a way for the paper to make a lot of money as it is quite large and people will read the first page of the newspaper as it has a contents section. The Metro also has a contact us section, and this makes the newspaper more interactive for readers as they can give their own opinion on stories and also feedback on the newspaper itself.

There is also an advert promoting the newspapers own iPad app, which is also another way of being interactive to readers. Also, next to the iPad application, there is a recycling logo, what is encouraging people to place the paper into a recycling bin after they have finished reading the paper.

The lottery numbers and weather forecasts are also on this page, because a number of people would like to know the lottery numbers and weather forecasts as this is key information for them, as most people who read different local newspapers such as the ‘Liverpool Echo’ are able to get up in the morning and watch the morning television which includes information, like the weather for the coming days, whereas the people who read the Metro will not be able to watch morning television so essentially this paper is replacing morning television for commuters travelling to work.

Coursework Plan

The schedule I have created, and I will try to use this as an outline as where I should be with my coursework a specific dates.

Secondary Research- For my secondary research I will look at some local newspapers and try to identify the target audience, codes and conventions of these newspapers. Once I have done this, I will decide whether I should challenge the codes and conventions of a newspaper. After I have finished these tasks I will email one of the local newspapers to ask what they do to make it appeal to the target audience.

Primary Research- Iam going to create a questionnaire as part of my primary research, and distribute them to people who are in the age range of the target audience Iam aiming my newspaper at. Once I have collected the results back I will then input the data into graphs from which I could easily identify what makes a newspaper appeal to my target audience.

Planning- For the planning part of my coursework, Iam going to create a number of different designs and layouts for my newspaper. I will then decide what I think would be the most effective plan and make that into a more detailed draft including more think like the type of font and the colour scheme I should use for the newspaper. I think its also important to plan the type of stories I should use for my newspaper because its important to have stories that will appeal to your target audience.

In the next lesson Iam looking to complete the analysis of another local newspaper.

Introduction

For my media studies coursework Iam going to make the first to pages of a local newspaper, advertisement poster and a radio advert.

Iam going to make a schedule for my coursework and I hope this will help me achieve the best possible grade in my coursework.

Firstly, I will have to look at a few key factors such as newspaper title, target audience and a plan of my newspaper. Once I have looked at these key factors I can start production of my magazine.