Proposal

Promotional material comes from things like videos. I researched previous college videos to see how they promoted the courses and the college itself. Virally the college sent out many videos to try and promote the college in a positive way for others to consider joining. Viral marketing actually works very well these days too because the internet is everywhere and on everything. Computers are now a part of everyday life and it’s on the go too. Mobile phones and handheld devices, 3G etc. etc., everyone has heard of things like these, so it’s not hard to hear about something being promoted over the internet. The videos the college promoted all contained interviews too with teachers and students of the college so this adds to the promoting of the college. The advantage of this is it doesn’t cost much to make unlike advertising.

The disadvantage.

Advertising is everywhere too. For advertising you need to follow a specific set of rules to make it work. First, you need to advertise where an audience will see the advertisement most like on billboards or on signs. Everyone is out and about at some point during a day so it’s noticeable to get advertising there. Another is through television and on the internet which is where I did most of my research. An advertisement can go one of two ways as I’ve seen in my research. One; the advertisement can do really well and get the attention of many people and sell. Or two; the advertisement can completely flop and fail. Several reasons are behind this though. Sometimes when someone promotes an advertisement it can be seen as spam. This means the advertisement is trying too hard to be noticed, rather than giving it time to be noticed by people. For things like promoting a college or a course, you would promote the course in that chosen subject area. For example, with creative media you would promote the course around things media, like video, TV, internet and magazines. For a college, you would choose something like a school to advertise it to, because high school children would be leaving that year.

Viral marketing is when you virally advertise or market something to an audience of people. Viral means when something is spread like a virus over the World Wide Web. For example if someone sends you an email to share the latest new clothing line, that is viral marketing. The problem with viral marketing is it could be seen as spam because it is usually seen as spam. The reason for this is because the internet is full of unnecessary things that aren’t really important.

Platforms are things which the promotional material will be on, like DVD’s, the WWW, and in a presentation.

A DVD for example is something which everyone knows about, if not, it would seem technology has not hit them properly. With a DVD, it’s a small tiny disc which fits into a DVD player (which only specifically plays DVD’s and CD’s). The advantage of DVD’s is it’s a compact device and just about everyone has a DVD player. It’s something which most people have in their homes so it wouldn’t be hard to sell it through this method. The disadvantage is if people don’t have it in their home. Some people of course do that not have a DVD player in their home and that makes it less of a chance to sell it to this market.

Another format is putting the video onto the World Wide Web. The internet is something which is everywhere these days; you can’t really escape it anywhere. So putting the promotional material on the internet would be a good idea right? Well yes, sort of. The internet is full of ways to upload and share things with anybody of your choice. For example, websites like YouTube are ways to upload the video so people can watch what you have made. It’s simple enough because people can see what you have made and comment on it too. The problem with putting it on the internet is the same with people with DVD’s; some people don’t have the internet. Not everyone has the internet. Also, not many people use the internet just to watch videos; the internet is for a knowledge purposes and most use it for this method.

When doing something like a Presentation it’s quite a good choice because a presentation gets straight to the point. When pitching the idea of promotional material its good because the people you are pitching it to can ask you any questions they have straight away instead of waiting like through DVD’s and the internet. The presentation means you can pitch the idea and everyone has more trust because you are pitching it right in front of them. The down side to doing a presentation is the fact it’s not something which is using much multimedia. It’s all done with you presenting the idea, not the DVD or internet, so it’s all in control by you.

Technology

With technology, it’s quite easy to promote digital promotional material because it’s a simple and easy concept because of how far technology has gone over the last 100 years.

Digital file formats are the things that we save our things on, like videos and computer files. This means things like MP3 and MP4 for music formats. These sorts of formats can be compressed onto things like CD’s and DVD’s so that you can play them on devices. These formats can also be used for streaming through the internet. They can become available these days with things like iTunes and other stores like this because things like this are everywhere. Digital formats are everywhere these days because of how far technology has come.

Streaming methods and media players

Streaming methods are everywhere like I’ve said. The internet has taken over just about everything and it’s really quite amazing. Websites like YouTube are the kind of sites that stream things like videos and music all day long. This is the sort of thing which is perfect to upload our college videos. Well, we did our research and we know there are already college videos. It’s a very simple way of creating and showing the information that we want to show to a wider audience. The video needs to be compressed though because otherwise it wouldn’t buffer and play through a website like YouTube.

Compression

If a file is too big to do anything with it, it needs to be compressed. Compressing the file is basically reducing the size of a file to save space and time. This can be described with things like lossy and lossless compression. When a lossy image is compressed and it’s reduced so it can be a webpage, the image can’t be restored to its natural state. It says like that permanently. Whereas a lossless image, can be compressed and restored back to its normal state. That’s the difference.

Data transfer rate

The data transfer rate is the rate that data transfers from one place to another. The greater bandwidth of a given path, the higher the data transfer rate. The higher the rate, the less time it takes for a larger file to be transferred to another place. Say someone sends you a digital video file and the client has a small bandwidth, the file with take some time to download and the file will buffer. This means the file will take time to download. So to stop this, the file will need to be compressed so it’s not that big to download.

Digital right management systems

The digital file will either be on a DVD or MOV. Platform and will be copyrighted by the owners, which will be Cheadle and Marple Sixth form college. This will contain all college copyright including the watermark. It will not slander the college or contain any inappropriate material.