Focus Group

Alison Smith

Alison primarily brought the idea forward that if we are going to have a brand that is aimed at both a male and a female audience then we need to use gender neutral colours that do not have particularly masculine or feminine connotations, as this could deter either gender towards our brand identity. Moreover, Alison said that we should look towards using fonts that appear as dynamic in a sense because this will look a lot more interesting and therefore we will be able to target not only a young audience because our fonts will be enticing – but also adults around the age of 30 because our products will appear as ‘fresh’ and therefore appealing as we will stand out from the rest of the institutions.

Danny Barnes

We interviewed Danny because he would be able to give a good impression on how to promote our brand, he is a 20 year old man and therefore fits into our target audience, so already has an understanding on which features appeal to him specifically. He thinks that using web 2.0 and synergy across a brand is vital, because of the fact that it allows the audience to become engaged with the products in a variety of ways – and this is something that we strongly wish to adhere to because of the combination between traditional methods of marketing (newspaper advert) and then modern technology (TV channel website). He says it is extremely important to use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, so that we can promote our products to a mass audience, as this allows a range of people to become engaged with our brand.

Angela Nixon

One thing that Angela was certain upon was ideas for our representation of newspaper advert, as she told us to profusely follow the conventions of a typical newspaper advert, rather than subverting any of the typical aspects of mode. She said that by signifying our brand in a way that is concurrent for other brands is integral, as people will instantly know what our brand is all about and also what we are actually advertising, something that we have prior knowledge of because of our textual analysis into ITV and Channel 4’s newspaper adverts. A close up image of characters from one of our flagship shows (either the soap opera or the reality TV show) should be conveyed on our advert, along with our logo standing out on the page, as well as all of the sufficient information needed, like the dates of shows, times, sponsors – in order to allow the audience to interpret our brand successfully.

Edward Jones

Edward gave us an extremely good idea of putting our double page spread into context, therefore meaning that we can put our final product into a real TV listings magazine, to convey the realism and professionalism of our products and that our brand would fit alongside the substantial institutions in the UK. Furthermore, Edward was similar to Angela in the sense that we should follow the conventions of mode intrinsically, so that we can become recognisable alongside the larger institutions, by representing our double page spread in a way that promotes the brand and our programming also – by using the colours of our brand throughout the double page spread, with bright colours that are not gender-specific allowing a mass audience to be subsequently enticed.

Eleanor Harrison

Eleanor gave us the idea of following all of our research from our textual analysis, because of the fact that that we found out about the representation of genders within brands like BBC and ITV, as this is extremely important for us due to the fact we are aiming at a male and female audience. She agreed with our theoretical research of following Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory because this is conventional to the soap opera genre, as with initial promotion of our channel if we subvert the genre too much, then it would not be enticing or accessible for the audience as it would differ too much from the archetype of the genre. Moreover, Eleanor said that representing different genders and races would be important because this would succinctly highlight a sense of diversity, which can therefore appeal to a mass audience. In terms of our reality TV programme, she was split on our idea of how to convey the show, as we initially said through our theoretical research that we would follow the typical conventions, though we would not necessarily be showing the entire ‘glamorous’ lifestyle like shows such as Made in Chelsea and TOWIE. Eleanor said that if we are going to subvert this aspect, then we need to be entirely accurate with our representations so that we do not potentially offend either gender, because this could deter an audience from our brand.

Shaun Jenkins

Shaun gave us advice about how to successfully represent an ethos alike how ITV convey themselves clearly as a commercial broadcaster, because this needs to be at the forefront of the brand. Our channel is going to be a commercial broadcaster – thus meaning that our visual style is extremely important and we need to signify our information in a range of ways. We need to highlight our information in a way that stands out, and we aim to do this by using wix.com for our website, because there are several templates that we can use which combine graphical and textual content, therefore allowing a mass audience to access the information in a way that suits them personally, showing that we cater to our audiences specifically. Finally, Shaun said that we need to keep our products consistent across our entire brand, in order to represent our ethos in our main product and ancillary tasks, because this would show the brand to be professional, as the audience could expect to see the same colours and fonts throughout – alike with the institutions that we looked at in our research.