Q3 - How effective is the combination

of your main media product and the corresponding

ancillary texts?In order to create a consistent brand for our

products, it was vital during the construction of our double page spread and radio trailer that we referred back to the documentary in order for the three to link cohesively. To do this we used quotes, pictures and information featured in the documentary in our ancillary texts in order for the audiences to immediately make the connection that these texts are linked, as well as for an air of consistency between the products, which would increase the perceived level of professionalism.

Our target audience seemed initially quite broad, so we began to draw it in to a more specific demographic in order for our texts to be most effective together. Our target audience was for young male and females aged 17 to 24, who were perhaps middle class and Caucasian, as well as having a primary interest in their phone and use it a lot; this demographic would have been exposed to mobile phones for most of their lives and will have as a result used them a lot.

However, we were keen to not exclusively appeal to this target audience. We made an effort to not make the documentary race-specific, and the age of the audience may be better if they were younger, it by no means that parents of the target audience and adults who frequently use their mobile phones are ruled out when it comes to appeal in the products. In order to maintain this air of broad appeal, we selected statistics which could intrigue any audience member, as one of the product's primary aims is to be educational, and anyone from any age can be mentally stimulated by our documentary and the resulting information gained from it.

The tile of our documentary, "Necessity or Luxury" is carried over to both ancillary texts; in the radio trailer it is repeated at

the end, and the double page spread features it as its headline. This is a constant reinforcement of our band and the connection between our products is linked, with the audience being constantly reminded about the documentary topic and title.

In our double page spread, we also used images that we felt may perhaps best represent members of our target audience, as well as images that are relevant to both the article and the documentary, such as moments in the documentary that are referenced in the article, such as Siobhan's social experiment.

Our pull quotes are also connected closely to the article, being quotes pulled from both the article and documentary itself (referenced in the article) . As a result, quotes from our experts we felt would be most appropriate to feature in both the radio trailer (as soundbites) and our double pages spread (as grab quotes) in order to maintain the educational air and intention of our documentary, as well as reinforcing the overlap between our products.

Our ancillary texts, we feel, are also consistent with each other and effectively combine elements from each other and have influenced each

other, as well as the actual topic area of mobile phones, something we made a conscious attempt to not get lost from everything else that we had used to create realistic and professional products. This is evident in our usage of conventions such as drop shadows, language and a house style appropriate to the audience, and so on.

Contrastingly, our choices of TV guide listings in RadioTimes, and our choice of our radio station being Capital FM and our TV station being Channel 4 are all seemingly random choices, and make the documentary come across as confused and muddled, all over the place almost. From our research, we found that these individual channel/station/magazine choices might be appropriate for our target audience, we also felt they were quite inconsistent in they had little previous connections explicitly visible. This leads to us having less of a connection overarching between our products and so less consistent and effective product.

Overall, while our connections across products could have been built on, I felt we did well and made an effort to connect the texts and have the ancillary texts promote our main product in an effective way with consistency. This consistency is possibly crucial in the audience's decision to watch the documentary or not, so the brand must be clear and cohesive, which I felt we achieved to some extent.