2. How I researched my target audience
All media products should be able to define their target
audience in order to know how to attract and address
them. I needed to plan how to reach my target
audience.Therefore, I needed to know who they are.
Like the big brands, relevant factors that I need to take
into consideration may include age, gender, ethnicity,
social class, psychographics, what their media needs are
(so that I could produce a product that they will want)
and how to reach them (to market my film). I will show
how my research has influenced my planning.
I started by investigating how other brands define
audiences in preparation for creating my own audience
profile for my AS Foundation Production.
3. How brands define audiences
I saw how Bauer Media, NME and Sky defined
audiences.This helped me profile my audience.
Mojo identified their target audience in a
concise, accurate way using traditional
methods like their age and gender.Whereas
Radio 1 used unconventional more ‘lifestyle’
psychographic profiling definitions such as
defining their audience with personality types
or interests.
Personally, I found that a more conventional
approach like Mojo’s and Sky Media were easier
to understand and allowed me to learn a good
template for my own target audience research.
4. AudienceTheory
There is a huge body of research to be taken into
account relating to audiences and it has evolved
over time as more complex and subtle attitudes
to audiences have developed, for instance, the
shift from media effects models to positioning
audiences as active consumers who use media to
gratify their needs (Blumler & Katz).
Equally, the debates surrounding how audiences
receive texts has moved from the concept that
there are specific meanings for an audience to
decode(Barthes) to the realization that audiences
‘receive’ meanings in different ways (Stuart Hall).
I have researched in detail how audiences are
defined and segmented, what audiences aspire to
and how they use media to gratify their needs. I
have considered how the notion of audience is
linked to theories about how audiences interpret
texts, such as reception theory. I have also looked
at current ideas about the notion of audience,
such as participatory culture.
https://mg1629.blogspot.com/2018/12/research-
media-audiences.html
5. My Audience questionnaire
Similarly, I devised an audience questionnaire and analyzed the results.
Google forms is a flexible and sophisticated tool that I used to create an interactive questionnaire. It
allowed me to conduct audience research that included film trailers, film posters and a variety of question
types that would yield both quantitative and qualitative data, with options for flexible answers with more
than one choice. It also enabled me to analyze my data bar charts and pie charts:
https://forms.gle/wKCXi9LNdo7kRQg6A
6. My Audience Profile
I analyzed my questionnaire data and I
created an audience profile similar to those
produced by brands like NME.
My primary target audience would be
British, male and female 15-45+ who love
thriller films,TV crime drama and
psychological thrillers.They would watch
my film at the cinema as a social event,
ideally at an Everyman cinema. Similarly,
they would have found out about the film
through social medias such as Snapchat,
Instagram and Facebook. My target
audience would trust big mainstream
brands like Costa, Nike andTesco. In
keeping with current trends, they are as
lightly to stream their media as to opt for
theatrical exhibition.
7. Our Film’s USP
■ In addition to profiling my audience, I worked out why they would enjoy our film.
Why would they want to watch my film?
■ My audience research told me that my target audience was interested in the thriller genre, a
mainstream genre. However, we knew that audiences like both the familiarity of a favorite genre and
the excitement of watching something innovative and topical.
■ What makes my film different from competing films ?
■ Currently, there is deep distrust in all political parties because of ‘Brexit’. Films that play on
fears about the Government should play well in theatres. Equally, the public turn to their political
leaders in the expectation that they will provide them with the latest information on healthcare.Their
worst nightmare would be the discovery that the government had a secret agenda that protected not
individuals but government stability.Our film goes into this nightmare territory when the Prime
Minister draws up plans to thwart a medical cure for a deadly disease because she intends to use the
disease as an underhand method of population control. Added to this is the current concern about
diseases like measles which first-world countries believed they had eradicated, only to find that anti-
vaccination campaigners were undoing all out herd immunity.
■ Our film not only shows what the Government has already planned, it has also hints to the audience
that there are more secret schemes that the Government is developing.
8. Our film’s USP
■ How will my film appeal to viewing needs of my target audience?
■ According to Blumler and Katz’s model of audience needs and gratifications, audiences enjoy
being entertained, diverted and escaping from reality. Our film opening offers nail-biting tension and
an authentic sense of real science behind the scenes at the highest government levels. Our Prime
Minister and her cabinet team generate convincing ruthlessness and strike fear; audiences like to be
frightened in safety.The production also taps into audience’s needs for surveillance: they need to feel
informed about how things work, such as Government and Big Pharma.Our film offers realistic
representations of these groups.
■ We have an eye-catching company ident which has shown the audience that our film is going to be
based on scientific and the ‘hero’ didn’t appear in our film opening sequence, this make the
audience curiour on the ‘hero’ (i.e. what does he look like and how it he going to help)
■ Why should my audience watch my film? For example: Total Film / Empire / Cinema Scope / Slant / Sight
and Sound says: Most
9. Our Marketing and Distribution
strategies:
■ For my critical evaluation for my own film
production I needed to consider how I would
distribute my film and what distribution company I
would use.
■ In order to gain a full understanding of what a
'successful screening' is I watched a 'brief overview
of the UK's theatrical film sector‘ delivered by Co-
head of Lionsgate UK, Matt Smith.
■ Matt Smith began by identifying the three key
elements to a successful screening.These are the
venue, film and audience. He also simplified the
idea that film distribution is best thought about as
a screening but on a much larger scale.
10. Our Marketing and Distribution
strategies:
As part of distributing my film, I have devised marketing
strategies, such as reaching out to my target audiences through
a film website,Twitter page, Instagram and P&A (a film poster).
Instagram: We chose Instagram as our first marketing strategy
due to our familiarity with the social platform. Once we
developed an account name, we moved onto our biography
content “Britain is gripped by an epidemic that threatens the
population. An effective antidote has been developed, but the
government has its own agenda”. Here we explained our film in a
topline like fashion in the hope of drawing our target audience in.
Once we attracted an audience we were able to maintain them
as followers, allowing us to remain in contact through our
feed/profile; keeping them informed.
I personally created theTwitter page and posted material that
related to our movie genre and our target markets interests.This
involved trailers from thriller films, re-tweets from well known
thriller directors and tweets that I wrote which give an insight
into our film’s plot.
12. Our Marketing and Distribution
strategies:
■ The first step in distribution is to publicize the film to the correct audience (and
consequently finding out how to reach them). Another essential element is deciding a correct
release date. For a family film, this would be targeted at a holiday in order to maximize their
box office.
■ Matt Smith informed us that Lionsgate has their own productions and get involved with it from
a very early stage unlike most independent productions.This makes their job of distribution
much easier as they have a say from the start about key elements such as the script and the
actors hired.
■ Lionsgate screens the film to audiences such as influencers (vloggers, celebs etc), critics and
listens to what they have to say about it such as where and when they should screen it for how
much money.This research is invaluable and allows the film to achieve a high level of appeal to
their target audience.
13. Our Marketing and
Distribution strategies:
In order to establish a release date, distribution companies must talk with exhibitors
which has to tie in the marketing and promotion for the film.There may be other
reasons for selecting release dates like festivals and talent (actors). A prime example
of this is Disney's Captain Marvel which was released on international women’s day.
Identifying the audience is one of the first steps of marketing. I personally designed
my own questionnaire to which I had 88 replies (as previously mentioned) The
second step is to decide what kind of film it is and display that in one or two images
on the posters. Similarly, I created my own poster which fits the genre of my film.
Matt Smith defines the difference between marketing and publicity as being
marketing you pay for, publicity you don't. For example, film influencers that have
direct contact with consumers are a key element to publicity for the film.The value
of film influencers is that they provide third party endorsement which is more
valuable than adverts and marketing because vloggers are trusted by their
audiences- their opinions matter. Similarly, this is mostly free!They introduce them
at an early stage with things like set visits which encourages an early buzz and
creates awareness of the film.
We experienced the benefit of publicity with Marc Zummit- a verified actor and film
maker- re-tweeted our film poster giving it 2,171 views.
14. Our Marketing and Distribution
strategies:
■ Matt smith asserts that the spend on digital has
increased enormously.This kind of marketing is now a
large chunk of the marketing budget and efforts. A
example of this is the research gone into certain clips
and trailers that are designed to be watched portrait
on a phone.A film is landscape, so they recut for
smaller digital devises.They also cut down trailers to
shorter lengths to keep the target market's attention.
Before the trailer is released there is an info panel on
the pop-up for a 5 second attention span until the skip
button comes into use, stating that a good trailer is
about to load, thereby preventing the target audience
skipping..
■ Matt Smith's over arching message that deeply
involves the distribution media is that 'the whole
world is moving online.'
