Evaluation Question 2

1. How Effective is the
Combination of your Main
Product and Ancillary Texts?

2. Target Audience
One way in which we attempted to make the combination of our products effective was through the
consideration of the target audience. As our documentary highlights the dangers of teen
drinking, our primary audience is teenagers. By creating various audience profiles, and being
within that audience ourselves, we were able to shape our products around this. However, we also
had to consider that this program may also appeal to adults, especially parents that may want to
further educate themselves on the dangers presented in our primary task. With this in
consideration we felt that we needed to keep a sophisticated feel to all of the tasks in order to
increase the overall effectiveness as it meant that more people would be interested in watching the
documentary. With this is mind, we decided on BBC Three as the channel that we would
theoretically air our documentary on. This was chosen as BBC Three’s target audience is very
similar to that of our primary and ancillary tasks. The BBC official website states that ‘The channel
needs to be disciplined about focusing on the young - its centre of gravity will be 16-34 year-olds:
people who are young in spirit and mind-set.’ This shows that the main audience for the
documentary would be teenagers but it would also need to appeal to adults. I think that by making
sure that all three tasks are aimed at the same audience we created an effective combination
between them.

3. The design of our double page spread task adds to how effective the
combination of all three tasks is. For example, the background image
of the double page spread is a shot of a nightclub that is also used in
the documentary task. This helps to create continuity between the two
tasks and adds to the overall effectiveness of the combination. This
was also achieved through the use of an image taken from an
interview in the documentary and also through the text used in the
double page spread. As displayed in the images, the text used on both
tasks is the same font and colour, again helping to create continuity
and a familiarity between the tasks.
Also, we decided that the main image of the double page spread
should be something related to the topic of teen drinking (i.e. a
nightclub) but that we should not use a lot of images of teenagers. This
way, we do not limit the audience of the article to just teenagers but the
overall topic of the article is clear through the large title.
The pull quote on the article is also taken from an interview used in the
documentary. This helps cement the subject of the double page spread
and means that if people were to read the article and then watch the
documentary, they would easily be able to draw comparisons between
the two. This also adds to the overall effectiveness of the combination
as it means that people would be more likely to take in important
information such as this which is one of the main aims of the tasks.

4. Radio Trail - Documentary
The content of our radio trail also adds to how effective the
overall combination of our products are. Again, we
managed to create continuity between the three products
through the radio trail. We added in extracts from
interviews in the documentary. For example we included
the question ‘What is the legal age to drink alcohol’ and the
responses. We also included some information provided by
the voiceover in the documentary which talks about how
alcohol abuse can lead to liver failure. This adds to the
effectiveness not only through continuity between the
products but by engaging the audience with interesting
information. As the ancillary tasks are meant to advertise
the main product, adding interesting information would
make people more likely to want to watch the
documentary.
In addition to this, by adding the time and channel that the
documentary will be broadcast, it is clear what the radio
trail is advertising and provides the audience with when
they will be able to watch the product. We also decided
that the radio trail would theoretically be broadcast on BBC
Radio 1.

5. The reasons for this being that it reaches a national audience and is one of the
most popular radio stations in the country with around 11 million listeners per
week. Also, with our documentary being aired on BBC Three it would make sense
for the BBC to advertise it’s own products. Finally, the remit for BBC Radio 1
(taken from bbc.co.uk) is as follows ; ‘Radio 1 is to entertain and engage a broad
range of young listeners... Its target audience is 15-29 year olds’. The target
audience of Radio 1 is very similar to the target audience of our documentary.
This means that the people that our product is targeted at will be able to hear
about our product on a large scale. Showing how the combination of the radio trail
and the documentary would be very effective.

6. Conclusion
Overall, I think that the combination of our primary and ancillary tasks is very
effective. The ancillary tasks both display continuity and solidarity with the
primary task by using the same images, text and extracts and information
used in the documentary
Also, I think that it is clear on all three products that our target audience is
primarily young people. The choice of radio station and channel on which
we would air our products is evidence of this as their primary audiences are
very similar to ours.