Radio Advertisement Draft Focus Group

A focus group was held so that the radio advertisement draft could be assessed by an audience who can give an impartial view and feedback on the radio advert.

The members of the focus group had the radio advert draft played about three or times at the start so they knew exactly what the advert was and then was played whenever they needed to point something out to me or remind themselves a particular section.

Three points were made that the entire group agreed upon needed to be changed or improved so that the radio advert could be better for a listener.

1) The sound levels need to be altered so the all the sounds and the voice of the radio host are not too quite or too loud. The focus group commented that the intro is very loud which would want to make the listener turn down the radio volume whilst the voice is quite. the listener would have to turn the volume down and up which is not the intended effect.

Based on this, Stuart Hall's preferred readings theory would make the listeners have a negative reading with the radio advert because they will be too busy altering the sound level so they'll annoyed at the advert so therefore on some level feel discouraged to look further into the Shropshire Staffer.

2) The second improvement suggested to make to the radio advert was too have a better look at the effect placed on the voice. An equalization of the voices effect was added which was used to create the more radio voice effect because when listening to a radio, some muffle is expected because they are speaking into a mike, the equalization effect was used to add such an effect. on what the focus group have said the effect will have to be lightened rather than removed because it was a good effect just over used.

This leads me to the conclusion that the effect will have to be lightened but not removed because of Stuart Hall's Uses and Gratification theory. the theory suggests that the radio listener will a non-active listener because of the format of the radio which means the radio advert will have to be clear. A voice muffled too much will be unclear so the listener will not get any of the information thus rendering the radio advert practically useless.

3) The third point made by the focus group was that towards the end of the radio advert a thud can be heard then the last sentence to be spoke suddenly occurs without any sign of continuity because it sounds interrupted. they said this may be a editing error, which appears so, but it needs to be fixed because the last part of the advert seems has a thud then suddenly starts again thus giving the impression that the radio advert doesn't seem natural but purely fabricated. They said this effect created is very bad because the radio advert then seems unnatural or at least not well done which would put the regional newspaper down as well. This is because if the newspaper radio advertisement is poor, then why would they purchase the newspaper itself?

With the final point made, it is clear that the problem needs fixing because otherwise the entire radio advertisement and the other products such as the regional newspaper will fall in quality in terms of how effective they are.

Overall, the focus group went very well because some great suggestions were made and will be implemented in the future to ensure that the radio advert is better in quality and far more effective.