The product
that is the focus of this advertising is a Theatre In Education piece that is
being performed by a year 13 BTEC drama class in order to raise awareness for
the charity SToRMS, who focus on male mental health, and also highlight the
growing need for communication, specifically in the male population of our
society. Therefore, the piece is aimed at young males at the age of 15-17, as
this is the focal period where boys begin to realise social pressures that are
placed on them and they try to find their place, not only in the modern society
that we live in, but in their social and home lives as well. We are planning to
go into as many schools as possible to ensure that the message can reach as
many male students as possible. Before anything else we need to delve into the
world of advertising and marketing for us to find the most valuable and
effective method of advertising the piece to the teachers who could be
interested in us coming to their school and performing. Advertising methods can
be categorised into specific and non-specific techniques: specific being a
focused campaign that is aimed at a group that we know in our target range and
non-specific being a campaign that has a more widespread field of focus.
A common advertising technique that is used in the current
society is emails. Using emails allows the recipient to easily forward the
email onto someone else, which could include teachers at other schools, and
therefore can become known across a wide range of people in a short amount of
time. Files and images can also be attached easily onto emails meaning, we can
send small videos or photos of what they can expect of the piece and emails are
also free to send meaning that they wouldn’t cost the theatre company anything
to send them. Also sending an email doesn’t require a face-to-face meeting so
that means that neither we nor the recipient need to take time out of our
schedules to meet. Emails are a specific method of advertising and so we can
narrow down who the emails are sent to in order for our piece to be advertised
in the correct way and to the correct people. Although emails are a good method
of marketing, emails do also have a down-side. We would need to find the email
addresses of the specific people that are associated with the target audience’s
age range, and we are aware that teachers are very time consumed and so we may
not get a reply back as soon as we would expect. Emails can still be considered
as a reliable method of advertising and marketing and so could play a major
role in our campaign.
If emails cannot be accessed by everyone, then we could send
out a letter instead so that those who do not have access to a computer can
also be reached. Letters are seen as a more personal form of communication and
because the topic of our performance can become quite hard-hitting at times, a
letter could portray the emotions that are behind the performance and can link
to the charity supporting the piece. Like emails, letters do have a negative
side; it takes time to write a letter, to look up an address and then find a
mailbox. Meaning, that writing letter would take us much longer than sending an
emails would but if a letter was needed, we would accommodate to that. Letters
also take longer to be delivered than emails, can be lost easier and rely on a
postman to deliver it meaning, that we are not responsible if the letter is
sent to the wrong person. Letter can still be considered in our campaign as the
majority of teachers/schools, our target audience for advertising, have
computers and email addresses so a letter can be considered as a secondary
response after the emails are sent out.
Phone calls
could also be regarded as a primary method of sharing our campaign as they are
direct and specific, the conversations are relatively private between us and
the recipient and calls can be made at any time in the day so if we miss one
call at a specific time, we can proceed to ring again when they are available.
Also, majority of schools are equipped with phones that are specific to people
and so we can contact them directly. Although many things can be said in a
phone call, not everything is always remembered, and sometimes small sections
of information can be lost due to signal or interference and therefore key
details could be lost or misheard. I think that including phone calls in our
campaign would be crucial as they play such a huge part in the modern society
and, it is a quick and easy method in which we can fully explain our piece and
find out directly whether that school is initially interested. We could use
phone calls as our first step in our campaign and see where the advertising
audience are interested by our product and we can then proceed to send them
more information about the piece through emails, and/or more phone calls if
necessary, which allows them to gain full knowledge about the piece and about
the message of communicating efficiently that we want them to take from it.
Another
specific technique using in advertising can be to send written letters to the
schools of interest as this would give them all the information that they need
to know in one area and we could also include our contact details so that if
they do need any extra information or would like to book a performance, they
still have those options as well. With letters, you can include photos as well
as writing so that the advertising audience can see what we have done, in terms
of the rehearsal process, and how we've gotten to our end product. It is more
of a formal way of approaching the schools instead of sending an email which
may add to our overall impression on the teachers whom we are targeting as we
come across more professional. Although, writing letters can be very time
consuming and so might not be the most efficient way to advertise our piece and
we would have to wait for the letters to reach the schools and wait for a
reply. This would take up an excessive amount of time and so sending emails
might be the better option in terms of speed in relation to our rehearsal
period.
N2C Theatre,
is the theatre company that all members of the cast are a part of and is
involved with the school and the production of this piece, has their own
website that we have access to which they use to advertise performances[1].
We are planning on using this to help advertise the piece and it will not only
benefit the marketing audience when they are looking at it, but also the
theatre company as they will get recognition as well. Using a website or a
webpage is another specific type of advertising as it is focused on our piece
and is directly linked to the theatre company that we are a part of. A website
is also an easy way to see the full product as well because all the information
is on the screen in front of you and you can get instant information from the
website along with pictures to help them visualise what the end product would
potentially look like. It is also very easy to change a website to help with
the understanding about the meaning of the piece and what Theatre In Education
pieces are normally used for. A website is online twenty-four hours a day so
there is no time in which the ad will be up for, meaning that the audience can
view the information about the piece whenever it is convenient for them and
there isn't a limit on how many times they can view the website. This means
that they can access our website as many times as they want, and they are
therefore looking at the section advertising our piece when we look through the
website.
Like all
other advertising methods, websites do have their disadvantages. Sometimes
there can be too much information on the site and so our marketing audience may
lose our piece in the extremity of all the other performances and their
descriptions. To prevent this from occurring, we need to ensure that the layout
of the website makes the information about our TIE piece easily accessible and
the information that is included isn't overwhelming. We also need to take into
consideration the fact that websites are a very modern advertising technique
and we don't know the exact experience that our marketing audience have with
websites. We need to make sure that our website does not only appeal to those
interested in joining the theatre company but to those, like our target
audience, who are looking at performances that they are interested in bringing
to their schools. Although our website is very specific to the work that N2C
Theatre does and therefore it won't get lost in all the other drama company
websites as our TIE is specific to this drama company and so I think that using
the website will be beneficial to our campaign as it is specific to our theatre
company.
A marketing
technique that may add to our advertising campaign could be marketing products
such as t-shirts and mugs with the piece, and the companies' logo that are involved,
on the sides. Having actual objects such as cups that have the piece on them
whilst out in public may catch people's eye and if we do have the website on
there as well then, they will be able to access more information from that as
well. Because this piece is what we are focused on in drama at this particular
time then we can use that focus to our advantage and make certain products that
would advertise our product both as a reminder of the piece to those that have
seen it and also as an advertising method to those, specifically teachers, who
may want to see it. The more people that see the logo on various items such as
t-shirts and/or cups then it may spark their interest and they may proceed to
ask questions about the piece. We can be very specific and selective of what we
put on the marketing products meaning that it will be relative to the piece and
we control what goes on them, so we would make sure that it wasn't excessive
and overwhelming to the audience. We can therefore develop a reputation for
both SToRMS and N2C meaning that they can both benefit from this method of
advertising and the piece can get recognised from these companies as well.
Regarding
marketing products, it is difficult to create a product that will interest a
wide group of people without knowing what techniques our marketing target
audience are interested by. If we make it a certain way that may not appeal to
the correct audience or may not advertise the piece in the best way meaning,
that we would have to conduct an experiment on which presentation on the
marketing products appeals to our target audience the most. It would also be
difficult to get the products to more than one school as our theatre company is
based in King Ecgbert School and so we would have to ask teachers whom work in
more than just our school to carry our advertising products with them and this
could potentially not work as we are asking them to advertise for our product
without them knowing anything about it.
Like
marketing products, other techniques such as publicity stunts are also time
consuming. Publicity stunts are planned events that are designed to attract the
public's attention to a specific organizer or cause. Previously, we have
created flash mobs in relation to another charity and so have experience in
creating these which we could use to our advantage and create one to advertise
this piece. Publicity stunts can reach a large quantity of people in a
concentration location and the awareness generated by these stunts leads to the
audience seeking out more information and therefore becoming interested in the
piece that we want to show them. If the stunt makes people stop and think about
what is happening, then perhaps they will begin to talk about it with their
colleagues and maybe the will try and find out more information which would be
on our website. Stunts like this also have a time limit of how effective they
are, for example someone who watches the flash mob first-hand will be impacted
more than someone who saw in on a video or just heard about it When creating
publicity stunts, we need to consider the professional image that it would be
sending to the audience about our company and about the piece. If we create the
wrong atmosphere surrounding the piece, then our audience may not take the
piece seriously and therefore become uninterested. To use a publicity stunt in
our marketing campaign, we would need to study the reflection that it would
have on both the theatre company and the charity and so taking this into
consideration, I think that it would send out the wrong message to the audience
about the piece.
A
non-specific technique that could also be included is posters in town so that
if our marketing target audience and other possible influences that are
associated with our target audience for the piece are in public, they are still
seeing an advert for the piece regardless of whether they had existing
knowledge of the piece. An advantage of using posters in public area is that if
we put all the needed information on the poster design, then they are still
giving a substantial amount of knowledge about the piece without someone
informing them. These means that the information regarding the piece can reach
a broader audience than, for example, a flash-mob as we can put them in
multiple locations so that our piece is being advertised in more areas and
therefore reaching more people. We would still include the website and phone
numbers associated with the directors of the piece so that if more information
was needed it was easily accessible. Also, multiple designs of a poster can be
made so that we are still advertising the same product but in different ways
using different techniques to intrigue an audience to read the poster.
If an error
was to occur for example, a spelling mistake, then it would be very difficult
to readjust and reprint the posters which means that we would need to look over
the final draft off the posters, in fine detail, to make sure that it was ready
to be part of our campaign and making sure that it gave the right impression of
both the piece and the companies involved. It is very difficult to make a
poster that will stand out when compared to others that will also be in the
public spaces and there needs to be a substantial amount of time put into the
creation of these posters as they could be an essential part of the campaign.
During the process of creating a poster you need to identify the key
information that you want as the focal point of the design and this needs to be
carefully picked out and placed in a way that is informative and professional
yet intriguing.
A similar
non-specific method of advertising is newspaper articles as our marketing
target audience are older adults and so they are more likely to read the paper
and ask for more information about the piece through the contact information
that we would have to include in the advert. If we were to use a newspaper
advert to gain publicity for the piece, then one of the positive aspects is
that there is a variety of display options that we could use to advertise the
piece. There are smaller adverts and then there are pages that are specifically
about schools which could be the best way to advertise the piece as there is
more chance that our target audience would potentially look at this page as
they are teachers. Newspaper are also a form of targeted advertising as if we
use "The Star" newspaper as an example, then that would be sent out
to just Sheffield and we could have an audience across all of Sheffield interested
in the piece. There are obviously going to be some disadvantages to using a
newspaper article and the main one is the fact that we cannot guarantee that
our marketing target audience read the paper as it quite old-fashioned in
relation to modern society's ways of communicating. Having an advert in the
newspaper is only there for a limited time and if you want it in for longer
then you must pay for it meaning, that we would be taking money out of the
budget to use a method of advertising that is diminishing in society. Also, it
would take time to create the article in the correct format and language that
would advertise the piece in the correct way towards our target audience and
wait for it to be edited and published.
Another,
less common, form of non-specific advertising is word of mouth, which involves
the product being advertised through people talking about the piece and
hopefully the product would reach our target audience. Word of mouth is a
potential way of quick advertising as word can spread very quickly but it does
put a lot of trust on those that are discussing it in terms of giving the
correct information out. A downside to word of mouth is the amount of control
that we have over the information that is being given out and the time scheme
in which it could possibly reach our target audience. We can also not control
the overall impression that is given about the piece and the opinions that
people give out could therefore affect the overall impression of both the
theatre company and SToRMS as a charity. Although word of mouth is a free
method of advertising, it is quite difficult to evaluate the concluding result
that it had as we are unable to control who the information is passed to. In
terms of our piece, I feel that word of mouth could be useful especially
between teachers, perhaps in different schools. We only have a limited time to
advertise the piece before it is being performed and because we cannot control
the speed at which the information will reach our target audience it may be
hard to guarantee that other people will find out about it.
After
looking at the range of advertising methods that are available, Emails, phone
calls and the N2C Theatre website and social media, seem to be both the
quickest methods of advertising and the most effective. As an advertising plan,
I think that phone calls should be the first point of advertising as we can
make phone calls to specific year group managers and we can then follow up with
emails containing information about the piece and the theatre company. Alongside
this, we could use the N2C Theatre account on many different social media
platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter, to advertise the piece as
well. We could include pictures of the rehearsal process and pictures of other
schools watching the performances. All the aspects of advertising that have
been discussed could be used in our marketing and advertising plan but there
are clear methods that will enable our piece to be widely known in a short
space of time.
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