Presentation Script

Hi. My name is Becky, I work for connexcast and have been commissioned by FACT to create a 30 second anti-piracy television advertisement aimed at young people. This presentation will show the different Audience, Market and Production research I have done to confirm my choices about the antipiracy advertisement you have commissioned us to make.

The first stage of research I conducted was audience research. As part of my primary research I carried out a few different data collecting techniques, these were Vox pops, focus groups and questionnaires. These specific data collections allowed me to gain both qualitative and quantitative research in order to help me in the future when making the advert and get a better insight into the target audience.

My vox pop was a very insightful way of collecting data and was easy to see the results. I chose those particular questions (read out questions on presentation) as I felt they would give an insight into what sort of things interest the audience and see how much knowledge these students have, this would help when finally creating the advertisement as then I know how much information to include about piracy itself.  The general consensus for question one was mainly a wide range but the two most common answers were action and horror so this could help when deciding what genre the advertisement should fall into. I also asked what TV channels they watch as well as how they watch movies; this gave me an insight into what channel I should aim my advertisement for. Which was to advertise mainly online as the general consensus was that they don’t watch advertisements on television. The brief states that it needs to be a TV advert, so instead I would say to advertise on a channels that also offer an on demand service. Vox pops are a valuable type of research as it shows all the answers quickly and proves that people have actually answered the question.

In my focus group I asked 3 girls four main questions which were; What is your knowledge of anti-piracy, what piracy adverts catch your attention, what type of things would you want to see in an anti-piracy advert and when do you usually pay attention to anti-piracy adverts. They know that piracy is watching or downloading things illegally and that people can be fined if caught doing it. The most common advert that catches their attention is ones that are memorable, through being shocking or funny, also, adverts that make comparisons. They would like to see something that shocks the audience or makes them laugh. Mainly something that scares the audience into not going onto the websites anymore and ones with a clear target audience. They mainly have to pay attention to these adverts in the cinema as they all said that it is when they are forced to watch the adverts, whereas at home they would use that time to go to do other things before the film actually starts.

The answers to these questions allowed me to form an idea of what they would like in an advert and what type of information these teenagers need in order to have a better understanding of piracy and the dangers involved with it. Through this focus group I have realized that using emotional response through shock or comedy is what will catch the audiences attention and cause them to remember it, therefore I will most likely use a sad/shocking emotional response. Focus groups are a valuable type of research as it allows the people involved to feel comfortable. It also means that you we are able to gain a few answers in a quicker way than doing individual interviews. Focus groups allow me as an interviewer to get more in depth answers compared to something like a questionnaire.

The questionnaires was the longest part of the audience research, I asked 20 volunteers 16 questions because I wanted to know their lifestyles and also their beliefs towards watching television. All the people asked were at school; this was because they all fit the target audience age and thus getting a more reliable result. The results were very interesting. The results showed over one third of the people watched their films on DVD’s and around the same amount watched films through Netflix. The questions about favourite genre of music and films showed the majority of people listen to pop music and comedy films. This insight helps when constructing the advertisement when choosing background music and the theme of the video. This helped to figure out what age group enjoys watching what sort of shows/listen to any particular music. So I have actually chosen to use pop music to my advertisement in order to appeal to a wider audience.

By collecting audience research in many different forms, I have learnt multiple aspects to think about and include in my anti – piracy advert. These are aspects such as music, what platform to advertise it on and most importantly the emotional response.

To make my research more reliable I could ask more people to fill out the questionnaire and for more people to be involved in the vox pop and having more people taking part in the focus group (or just set up more focus groups) thus causing my results to be more representative as well as reliable.

I then moved onto some market research. As part of my secondary research I carried out Analysis of Research into Existing Products. This qualitative research helped me figure out the main features of existing adverts.

I looked at existing social message campaigns to do with bullying, smoking and road safety. This type of research was able to tell me what kind of adverts caught people’s attention and how they got their main point across.

One advertisement I looked at was a Canadian anti-bulling advert called “Words Hurt” (play advert in background). It used emotional response, as a way of making the audience realise that bullying is wrong and even words can hurt. It was a dramatic advert as it is an over representation of a realistic situation. It is also realist advert, which shows the girl standing alone and in a real life situation. The target audience for this advertisement is clearly teenagers, particularly girls. You can tell this by the setting, sex and age of the actors. There are 4 girls shown in this advert all about teenage years and all in a school hallway setting. The other advertisements looked at were similar but on different subjects, such as, anti-smoking, anti-domestic violence, blood donation and road safety. These adverts were emotionally based and use that heavily, which is clear that it works. Therefore the advert I am going to make will use emotional response in order to get the attention of the audience and make them realise the importance of buying a film and not pirating them.

Another secondary data collection method I used was competitor analysis. This involved looking at other existing adverts for film piracy. One piracy advert that I looked at for this was the Knock Off Nigel advert. It shows everyone working with the main guy is against him and knows that he sells illegal films so they are making him feel out of place. It looks like he has been caught out and now he feels like he is in trouble. The main guy is wearing grey while everyone else is wearing bright colours, which almost highlights the fact that they are the good people and the main guy is doing something that is wrong. This type of market research is good as it means I am able to see what my competitors were doing and then I can make creative choices that make my product more effective. I found out that.

In order for my advert to have a good budget and not cost too much I had to research into many different ways of advertising. Overall I think the best channel for my advertisement to be on would be MTV, during breakfast/daytime for many reasons. One reason why I would choose this channel is that it means that the advertisement is played to the target audience, school children around the age of 12-18. MTV has experienced ratings growth over the last two years among their target audience of 12-34 year-olds, thus making it an ideal channel for the advertisement to be played on. Another reason to advertise on MTV is the price of advertising for a 30 second slot. It is actually quite cheap, the price ranges from around £10-£400 for one-30 second slot. Also breakfast/ daytime slots are when the channel is at its most peak times. The other channels such as E4 and Sky 1 aren’t as good of channels to advertise on as they are much more expensive and don’t play to the target audience as much as MTV does.

Another thing I had to do for this section was highlight important and key words and phrases that related to how an advert should reach to its required target audience. By reading all this information I found that there are a few main ideas that can improve the effectiveness and memorability of the advert. These are things such as emotional response. This type of research pointed out what ways many other producers have found particularly important, such as what to entice the audience with. However it also just highlighted other things that I already knew and thus was a little time consuming.

By collecting secondary research in many different forms, I have learnt multiple aspects to think about and include in my anti – piracy advert and what techniques others have used to get the message that they are trying to portray across. The techniques used are the most important pieces of information as I can use those when creating my own advertisement in order to make it the best I can make it the best standard I can.

I then moved onto production research.  As part of my production I had to create 3 different mind maps to do with what my advert could be. There were three basic ideas and I ended up choosing this one (show mind map I chose to develop). This idea is that the advertisement will start with a shot of a man sat on a bench in the park looking sad. Cut to a pan shot to a “past” shot of that man during the process of filming. This will be in colour while the other shots will be more saturated and thus looking more black and white. This will then cut to a shot of a teenager watching that movie in bed on their computer, which leads to a shot of the producer looking happy that someone is watching his film but then sad because it is being watched illegally thus affecting his career.

The Budget Research section of my production research meant looking into different prices of actors/cameras and other things that needed to be hired to make a rough production budget. This shows an example of the quantitative data I gathered. Camera hire costs around £90 with a tripod at  £20. The actors cost £30 an hour and as I will need them for around 5 hours it will cost around £450 for 3 actors. The location hire will cost around £500. We will also have to hire an editing suite, which will cost around £525 for 3 days. The whole budget price is around £1,585.

Location research is the final part of my planning for this advertisement. There are two main locations of this advert, one of which is in a park. The park this advert will be filmed in is Hamilton Avenue Recreation Ground, this only requires the permission from Sutton Council and thus is an easy and effective park to film in. The later part of the advertisement is filmed in a bedroom. The bedroom that is going to be used for this scene is going to be mine as it fits the idea of the advert and is cheap and easy to access. Both locations are approximately a 5 minutes walk from each other thus travel costs are minimal. These locations have been chosen, as they are cost effective and uncomplicated when getting permission.

Production research has helped me to develop my understanding of production and the different things involved with it. Trying to develop new ideas to my planning documents can take time and can be hard to understand at first but overall it is most helpful and needed in order to succeed. Production research ensures that we create the product efficiently and cost-efficiently.

Here’s a copy of my treatment, for you to look through. It outlines the main ideas and plan for my anti-piracy advertisement.

That concludes my presentation about the anti-piracy advertisement I plan on making. Are there any questions?