Exam Question

B3. How effectively were your three main texts marketed?

The Great British Bake Off (2010-present) is specifically constructed to attract a wide audience, this is done by having the structure of a competition, the use of Paul Hollywood the brutal judge and the humorous hosts Mel and Sue, contestants crying over failed show-stoppers and the imagery of delicious cakes. Even Mary Berry herself sells the text simply due to the older generation finding her familiar as they're likely to own at least one of her cook books since she's been releasing them since the 1970s. Not to mention the very colourful and well presented imagery of the many different foods in which the contestants have to bake have an impact on the audience as it's pleasing to the eye therefore they choose to watch the show. 46 percent of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies and researchers found that coloured visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80 percent. This shows us that the images used to advertise GBBO are specifically chosen to attract the audience to the text. I'm a Celebrity (2002-present) similarly does this every year when choosing which celebrities enter the jungle, they have to be ones which the audience can relate to or are familiar with to keep them engaged. For example, in Series 16 (2016) they included a variety of celebrities of different age groups ranging from Larry Lamb (age 69) and Scarlett Moffatt (Age 26), this is to make sure the viewers have someone they find relatable and to attract a wider audience. Additionally, there is always further buzz created for the show through magazines and newspapers as they publish articles on "line-up rumours" each year, further encouraging audiences to keep up with the show. Gogglebox (2013-present) the British observational documentary also used a wide range of families in order to relate to a large audience, by creating a show based around real people, Channel 4 have made viewers feel they can relate to the various cast members lives and opinions.

The use of social media is a great way to further marketise texts. Twitter is a good example for this as it has over 320 million users, therefore shows are now advertising their hashtags to get more people talking about the show. At the moment The Great British Bake Off (#GBBO) has 558k followers on twitter, Gogglebox (#Gogglebox) has 237k followers, while I'm A Celebrity (#ImACeleb) has 1.13m. Makes sense that I'm a celebrity has the most followers as it's the longest running show out of the texts. The feeds are often updated in real time during the programme to encourage a 'tweet along' with the viewers, which creates a buzz about the show especially when drama unfolds. It then appears on many other people's timelines and therefore might encourage them to watch the show in order to keep up with what people are watching. This links back to the uses and gratifications theory, which suggests that people would watch the shows for social interaction, which means the media texts produce a topic of conversation between peers and colleagues. 

Social media accounts also regularly use clips and quotes from the shows to create memes and gifs. This is more engaging than a normal post and by doing so the shows are entertaining their viewers both on and off screen. Furthermore, Gogglebox go the extra step of each of the cast members their own Twitter profile, which makes it easy for them to interact with their fans. Even some of the eldest couples on the show are regular users of their Twitter accounts.

It seems that these marketing techniques have been very effective as the finale of the most recent series (7) of GBBO "gave the show its highest overnight audience ever" (BBC) with an average of 14 million people watching. I'm a Celebrity Series 16 jungle launch was "ITV's most watched programme of the year as 12.7m viewers tune in" (Daily Mail). And finally Gogglebox started with just 732,000 viewers in 2013, but eventually got moved to prime Friday night time, which captured the public's attention. Series 5 (2015) Episode 1 had 4 million people tuning in; "Gogglebox rules Friday night with biggest audience ever" (Radio Times). From this we can see that the marketisation for The Great British Bake Off is the most effective out of the three main texts I studied.

Music Industry Essay

Explore the mechanics of the modern music industry

The music industry is one of the longest running industries which has massive impact on the society we live in. Our access to music used to be quite limited as you'd have to go out and physically search for the album you're after. Whereas now it's all literally at our finger tips, you're just a couple of clicks away from accessing millions of songs. We've got the constantly developing technology to thank for that. At first it seemed like the music industry was struggling to adapt to all the rapid changes from mp3 to iTunes and now the wonderful world of streaming.

The value of the recording industry was $15 billion in 2015, this was also the year that digital (45 percent) became the primary revenue stream for recorded music, overtaking sales of physical formats (39 percent). 
The graph on the right clearly shows the decline in physical revenues from roughly $18b in 2005 to just above $5b in 2015. Whilst this was happening, the digital revenues were slowly increasing more and more each year, till 2015 where it managed to overtake physical revenues. 

Streaming remains the industry's fastest growing revenue source - jumping from just 8 million users in 2010 to 68 million in 2015. People like the idea of having pretty much any music available on their smartphone/tablet/laptop, as it's much easier than going out to physically buy the album. However, downloads remain a significant source in accessing music. It also allows you to explore and find new music very easily and quickly by giving you 'suggestions' or showing what others are listening to.

This is due to the music industry's success at being able to adapt to the rapidly changing digital age through services such as Spotify (2008), Apple Music (2015), Deezer (2009), Tidal (2015) being some of the most popular ways to listen to music.
Streaming is bringing significant changes to the way countries run their music charts, as many are now incorporating streaming into their charts to try to better reflect how music is consumed today.

Live music is the one area in the industry's revenue that remains reliable as a guaranteed source of cash. People still value the experience of physically going to see their favourite artists perform. For example, Adele's live tour in 2017 at Wembley Stadium in June/July is already all sold out - including the VIP tickets!

Adele who is currently with working with Sony through Columbia Records "with biggest ever record deal for British Musician" according to The Guardian. Her album "25" was number 1 in the global top 10 albums of 2015. Adele is clearly doing very well for herself, unfortunately that is not the case with all musicians.

After watching the documentary about the life and death of singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, directed by Asif Kapadia; "Amy" (2015). It opened my eyes to how the music industry will stop at nothing to exploit their artists. Although everyone seemed to had noticed Amy's drug problems and eating disorder, not even her own father thought she needed help. If the music industry took better care of her, maybe she'd still be alive today, rather than exploiting her till she could no longer handle the weight on her shoulders. The same could be said for many other amazing artists such as Kurt Cobain. This shows how toxic the music industry can be.

Weekly News

"I hoped I'd DIE on operating table to en my anguish over face birthmark"

Rory McGuire (22) has suffered years of cruel taunts due to the birthmark on his face. It has deprived him from living a normal life as he'd always get stared at on the street and bullied in school. He told the daily record "I haven't had it easy over the past few years, juggling lots of operations with having to deal with ignorance and prejudice due to the fact I looked a little different". He felt so low at one point that he thought dying on the operating table would end this anguish.

Fortunately, his latest operation has Rory on the road to recovery, with the birthmark gradually shrinking after each operation.

Rory also mentions the members of Ayr Belleisle Golf Club as they treated him with kindness and respect over the years, which helped him a lot through his tough times. Additionally, social media posts triggered major support from around the world.

News like this highlights the massive impact the media has over what people think about their appearance. It advertises the act that people have to look a certain way, which means that in cases like this where someone might have a deformity, they are mocked and bullied for it instead of being provided with support. Therefore it is no surprise that Rory was thinking such dark thoughts about his life.