Firstly I looked at Gossip Girl and analysed how images were being used. As soon as you click on the web page there is immediately in the centre of the homepage a large photo of one of the characters, this was effective as it stood out drastically and is the first thing you see instantly making you familiar with the character faces. As you scroll further down the page lots more imagery is used. There are smaller photographs with captions and links beside them, the images here help to attract and draw the viewers to click and view these. The photographs used on the site come across as very flirtatious reflecting all of what the soap/drama is about: appearance, gossip and status. The images on the website are not just of the characters, as the soap is based all around gossip, there are uploaded photographs of celebrity gossip specifically targeting the audience in a different way - if they watch our soap which revolves around gossip they will definately also be interested in real life celebrity gossip. Additional features on the site include photographs of the cast - though this only included the main seven. The photos are small head shots nevertheless still very appealing. Whilst all of these characters come across as fresh faced and attractive this is done to attract the teenage targeted age group where appearance is an important factor. We too could include some of these elements, for example Character profiles will be effective as our group have already taken these head shots of the main five characters. These profiles will help to introduce the new characters to the viewers in giving them a sneak insight to their roles and personalities.
The Eastenders website uses slightly different approaches. again the first thing you see as the home page is uploaded is a photograph, though this is of the "Albert Square" street sign used as a sort of establishing shot to locate the setting of exactly where you are. Towards the bottom of the page there are strips of photographs of the different characters with added captions and links. These extra added features include: family tree and a gallery of the cast. Likewise to the character profiles the gallery shows photographs of the characters although these are recent pictures whilst the characters are acting in action packed moments and could give away the forthcoming storylines to be featured in this week working to draw in the audience to watch the soap. Below these photographs captions include the date of when these will appear on TV and catchy give away lines, I thought that this was a good method of attracting more viewers to watch the show and this could be a potential idea for our own soap especially as ours will be a brand new soap this will help to attract the audience further. The gallery does not only feature the recent week photographs but also photographs from dramatic occasions "Gary and Dawn's Wedding exit" as well as "Family" photographs.
The main difference of the Eastenders website from the Gossip Girl one in terms of imagery was that you could immediately tell that both are attempting to attract different target audiences. Gossip Girls site felt much more airbrushed and seemed like it strived for perfection. As the soap is targeted towards teenage girls appearance was a very important element and this could be observed. All the pictures were very presentable and the characters were all very youthful and attractive. As in contrast the Eastenders website was much more family oriented including images of the family tree and gallery photographs where all the characters were included. Eastenders target audience is much more varied which makes it harder as you are not just specifying to target one particular age group, you need to suit the needs of everyone. These two sites were very useful to look at as our soap will need to fit in the middle of both these categories which needs to be reflected on our website to market our new soap. Therefore we will be mixing and matching different yet successful elements.
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