D1-legal and ethical considerations.

Regulatory bodies:

ASA: Regulates all UK advertising to make sure it’s legal, decent, honest and truthful. This means that I will have to make sure that none of my advertisements exaggerate details or encourage the viewer to partake in illegal or dangerous activities.

CAP: Covers all non broadcast media and ensures they are up to code. When creating my print media, I will ensure that they all follow these codes closely.

BCAP: Ensures all broadcast media abides by the CAP codes, which i will have to follow when creating my radio video and social media trailers.

OFCOM: Dictates how much advertising is allowed to be shown, meaning I will have to be careful not to use too much advertising on any one specific channel. I will focus on this when creating my Radio and video advertising, as these are the only pieces of advertising which will be broadcast.

BBFC: Gives age ratings to films based on the content within them. I will try to reduce the amount of the shows adult content shown in my advertising, so that the trailer can receive a U or PG and be shown at any time of day, rather than after 9PM. This will be taken into consideration when creating my video trailer, as this is the type of aspersing that the BBFC covers.

Consumer Protections from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008:  This legislation ensures that no advertising can mislead or harass people. I will again have to make sure all advertising is truthful, and that advertising is more passive rather than aggressively advertising to anyone. This will apply to almost of my advertising, as any of my video, print or social media ads could easily be sent to specific people, and I will need to make sure that it doesn't.

Radio trailer.

Legal issues:

One possible legal issue in my radio trailer is the use of music and sound effects from outside sources, which may be under copyright, and so would infringe copyright laws if used without giving credit. I avoided this by making sure all audio was sourced from royalty free websites, ensuring that they all are free to use before including them in my campaign.

Ethical issues:

A legal issue which many regulatory boards, such as ASA, look at when reviewing advertising is whether the advertising in question is truthful or deceptive. This means that advertising cannot lie or exaggerate to the consumers, instead only sharing objective facts. I made sure to do this in my radio trailer by only saying where and when the show is premiering, making sure to check with the brief to ensure that all of the information I share is fully accurate.

Video trailer.

Legal issues:

One legal issue which comes up through the use of actors is whether they have consented to being part of the filming and whether substantial effort has been put into keeping them safe from harm. If this is not done, it could be considered a hostile work environment and the campaign may be taken down. In order to avoid this, I made sure an entire risk assessment was carried out, and that every actor in the production signed a consent form beforehand, in order to ensure that the actors were fully taken care of throughout the filming process.

Ethical issues:

One issue which could apply to my video trailer are issues raised by the representation theory, which states that how certain people or groups are portrayed in media influences how they end up being perceived in the real world by viewers. This is especially notable in this case which focuses on a plot of law enforcement vs criminals, which has a history of not only stereotyping which groups are criminals but also portraying all of these cases in a one sided light, providing no flaws of law enforcement and no empathy for why someone could become a criminal. However, i believe I have avoided this pitfall by using exaggerated archetypes of the genius private detective and the super-villainous master- criminal in my advertising, making it clear that they in no way relate to any present day groups or institutions. I also chose not to represent law enforcement through the use of police, which is obviously an institution which is still in use today and has multiple political debates surrounding it, and instead chose to use the private detective which is a more famous archetype whilst not being analogous to any modern day people or groups. When it came to casting these roles I cast myself as the detective role, with the representation of the male detective being maybe seen as stereotypical, however I also double cast the love interest and super-villain as female, which may be seen as subversive and non stereotypical to the conventions of detective fiction.

Social media.

Legal issues:

One issue with social media is that it can be hard to identify intellectual property rights, as a lot of social media follows trends which are difficult to trace back to the source. This can make advertising using social media difficult, as it is easy to accidentally infringe upon someone’s intellectual property. I counteracted this in my campaign by making sure all ideas were sourced originally, either by reusing already created assets or by using ideas so broad that it is impossible that they were created by one specific person.

Ethical issues:

An issue which is covered by the Consumer Protections from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 is that advertising is not allowed to harass anyone by repeatedly and unwontedly advertising to them. This is unfortunately easy to do on social media, as there are often multiple avenues to contacting someone and targeted ads mean that advertising can often focus on specific individuals. I avoided this by advertising publicly on accounts devoted solely to advertising the show, rather than finding individuals who may be interested and advertising solely to them.

Print media.

Legal issues:

A legal issue with may appear with my visual and print media is the images and fonts which I sourced in order to create my posters and overall house style. If not  properly credited these sources may be found to infringe copyright laws. In order to combat this I both ensured that all images where taken from royalty free websites, and created a full asset table of all non original assets used in the campaign, in order to make sure that every source was properly credited and can be easily found.

Ethical issues:

Finally, an ethical issue which often impacts physical media is whether that media is socially responsible. This means that the advertising doesn’t encourage any values which are seen as negative by society, and doesn’t encourage its viewers to partake in any illegal or immoral actions. I avoided these problems by focusing more on the product rather than the consumer when creating my advertising, only encouraging the reader to watch the show when it premieres, and hoping to show off the quality of the program rather than encouraging any behaviours or beliefs.

House style:

When creating my campaign, I made sure to create a consistent house style which would make my brand instantly recognisable to a passive audience through the use of a few repeated elements. When creating visual media, including my logo, I repeatedly used the Victorian Decade Demo font which both captured the era of my shows setting and also represented the more sophisticated and intelligent register which I aimed to reach with my writing. I chose to keep a dark but legible colour scheme for all of my real life media, in order to capture a dark tone, and also chose to have certain characters represented by different colours, with the conductor often surrounded by red whilst Dawson and Flynn are surrounded with blues and greens. For my poster I added the tacky tagline “time to go to elementary school”, which I felt attached the show to the famous yet public domain Sherlock Holmes brand, as well as adding some sense of levity to the show. Finally, my house style also consisted of some repeated auditory elements used in my radio and video trailer. With the use of orchestral music I tried to establish the show’s atmosphere and introduce new watchers to the world and setting. Whereas for the moment of Dawson gunshot, I also purposely repeated the same revolver click and shot sound effect in both trailers, which I felt would let the moment remain memorable and be seen to be important across multiple different platforms. Using all of these aspects, I feel that I was able to create a concrete house style, which was able to be built over multiple platforms and which was able to make my show appear original and interesting in the public consciousness.