How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The documentary was the main text that we created, and in order for it to be successful we had to think of a distinct target audience before we could create our product. This was also important for our double page spread article and our radio trailer, as they all had to appeal to our chosen audience. We chose our target audience to be students aged 16-18 as they will be taking their exams at college, and as we based our documentary in a sixth form this will make it easier for the audience to relate to.

Our documentary linked with the double page spread as you could see images on the magazine article that were still images taken from the documentary. This make an instant link as our documentary was unique and created with our own footage, this included stills of the experts that featured in our expert interviews i.e. Paul Ashdown. The title on the article is ‘Are Exams Fair?’ which is also the title of the documentary, so instantly the two are linked according to what their titles. The date and title of the documentary was featured on the article underneath the main image, and this clearly makes the audience aware of when the documentary will be on TV.

I’d say the radio trailer combined least effectively with the other products, as it didn’t necessarily feature anything from the documentary. It still linked with the documentary as it was advertising it and addressing the target audience directly. We meant to put a snippet of the vox pop or expert interview in the radio trailer but due to the duration of the trailer we decided to go against it, however, I think adding a snippet from the documentary might have made it more successful, so on reflection, I would’ve put something extra in to break up the voiceover and create a more noticeable synergy.