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

I think the combination of the radio drama and my ancillary texts was very effective and compliment each other very well, as well as the marketing timetable. I managed to keep the tone and approachability throughout in order to reach and address my target audience and this is reflected in my audience feedback.

The aim is for the poster to be pre-released to create a buzz for the storyline, to reflect and represent it yet without giving too much away. The poster could be placed upon billboards, in newspapers and magazines, majority of which are more likely to be women’s magazines due to being our predominant target audience and publications like Radio Times as it is specified towards the intended audience. The advantage of using a poster to publicise our product is that not only will it reach the audience who already listen to radio dramas, or who may be pre-aware of ‘Pembroke Gardens’ or the types of radio dramas on BBC Radio 7, but it will also have the opportunity to entice new audience members. This is especially reflected in having the poster used as a billboard as the audience is no longer niched it accesses a mass audience. The concept of advertising multi-platform allows a sense of versatility and wider audience interaction.

The feature, itself, is more likely to be published in Radio Times than a women’s magazine due to the tone and register of the text and the interview format. The feature interviews the cast on the way in which the product has interacted with society, the press and the audience. It focuses more on how ‘Pembroke Gardens’ tackles and promotes raising awareness of the issues the product contends with. Adding to the media hype of controversy in a positive spin would be very good publicity for the product, as those who will read the feature who are virginal to ‘Pembroke Gardens’ may find themselves intrigued into what all the hype is and become drawn into the storyline, those who follow soaps may find this feature interesting on the basis that it gives insight on the actors behind the characters and for our regular audience it would indulge their curiosities. The secondary aim of the feature is to get to know the cast better as people, away from the characters they portray. I included within the interview that some of the actors had had previous work that they may be known for; this will also draw in an audience who are familiar with that actor or the texts they have previously worked on. Choosing to include the poster will help, to make both the title of the product and also image, the audience to remember the product or allow those who aren’t very aware get interested.

The episode of ‘Pembroke Gardens’ will follow a week after Radio Times, in order to take advantage of the buzz created in this storyline arc allowing audiences to prepare themselves for it by tuning in until our episode plays. We chose to schedule the show at 5.30pm on the weekdays as this will be when people are driving back from work or during evening meal preparation time; they may see the billboard and tune in or have read the feature earlier and decide to tune in, this holds high effect in the ease of access to the product. The issue with language that was raised as to whether the product should be played after watershed or not was minimised due to having a similar use of language on evening television soaps and because of the timing it would be a show that wouldn’t be played with children as the intended audience.

With a steady and cumulative buzz growing in preparation and about our product, we should have a large enough prospective audience for the product to be a hit, ratings wise.

I did some personal research through using Facebook polls for audience feed back, for both individual texts and combined. In regards to my poster, I had a positive consensus, noting how the poster was effective in promoting the storyline, although the models used should have been older. The feature proved to have done well also, those who replied like the layout, said it looked like a real feature and that the text was engaging. Those who didn’t agree, noted on the similarities in photographs and didn’t like the use of the red in the pull-quote.