Defining my target audience

1. DEFINING MY
TARGET
AUDIENCE

2. RESEARCHING
INTO MY
TARGET
AUDIENCE
In order to reach my target audience,
I needed to identify who my target
audience are, for example, their age,
ethnicity, social class, gender as well
as their media needs.
My target audience’s media needs
are the most vital element in
enabling me to produce a film they
will want as well as finding out how I
can reach them to promote and
market my film Surplus.
In this PowerPoint I will be
presenting how my research into my
target audience has influenced my
planning.

3. HOW BRANDS
PROFILE
AUDIENCES
Before creating my own audience profile for
my AS foundation production, I had to
research how other brands defined their own
audiences. For that reason I investigated
many brands owned by Bauer Media, and
here present my analysis on how Kiss, NME
and Sky defined their audiences. In doing
this, I was able to begin to profile my
audience.

4. KISS
KISS is a UK radio station which broadcasts
nationally on several different radios such as DAB
digital radio and FM in London, for example.
KISS profiles its audience along traditional lines of
age and gender: it has identified its audiences as
being between the age of 15-34 with a 60/40
female to male divide.
KISS identifies that their audience loves technology
and it really excites them as they are the
generation where technology predominantly
advanced. This has been proven by the amount of
Kiss Kube App downloads onto digital devices (1.3
million).
KISS notices one particularly interesting aspect of
its audience: it used to be predominantly urban
but as it has grown up and moved out of London,
it has now become increasingly national with 65%
living outside of London.

5. NME
NME stands for New Musical Express and it is a British music
journalism website and former magazine.
NME profile its target audience along traditional lines using
age, gender, sociographics. On average, NME’s target audience
is predominantly male (69%) with the remaining 31% being
female, 52% of these people are working full time and 7% are
part-time workers (they are well educated), on average these
people are around 24 years old.
Moreover, NME’s audience enjoy spending their high
disposable income on their passion for music, so they tend to
spend money on concert tickets, they are enthusiasts for the
newest technology and entertainment. NME’s audience is
mostly contemporary and they have an interest in video games
and music. 73% belong to the social grade ABC1.
Additionally, NME’s relationship with its audience is strong ‘I
can trust it’; they completely trust NME’s brand, this aids in
promoting other brands within the magazine as NME
audiences trust these brands.
What struck me about this profile was its high level of detail,
with NME knowing so much about how its audience spent its
money and time. NME’s audience may be similar to mine.

6. SKY
SKY profiles its audience along conventional
lines using age, gender and sociographics.
‘Sky UK is a British telecommunications company
which serves the United Kingdom. Sky provides
television and broadband Internet services’.
Sky media presents its audience data in a pie
chart format, which I plan to do.
This includes male to female ratio and
sociographic profiling which explains below what
W16-34 means (An index which shows the
likeliness that a particular audience is watching
that channel). On average of Sky's 8 million
average monthly reach more men (57%) are
watching SKY in comparison to women (43%). -
this is shown on sky's main page.

7. AUDIENCE
THEORY
As part of my research, I have looked into
various aspects of audience theory. I have
considered whether an audience is active
or passive, defined or segmented and
finally, what audiences aspire to and how
they use the media to gratify their needs,
and how audiences interpret texts in
varying ways: reception theory.
It was important I had researched into
audiences so that I could identify my own
and create my own audience profile
based on both this and my audience
questionnaire (which I go onto explain in
my next slide)

8. MY
AUDIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE I devised an audience questionnaire using
google forms and analysed the results.
The results really helped in helping me identify
my own audience.
To begin with the most popular trailer from
my questionnaire ended up being ‘Split’, the
results from my questionnaire explained that
the reasoning behind this behind their
favourite trailer included reasons such as: ‘The
trailer sets out the plot and the lead actor
plays the different roles very well. It makes me
want to see if and how the girl gets away.’

9. MY
AUDIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
Out of the film trailers the least liked was ‘The
Widowmaker’ for reasons such as: ‘Whilst I
think I would enjoy this film I did find the
trailer a bit confusing. I couldn’t make out if
the “cure” was causing people to die. I did like
the documentary style of the trailer.’
Overall the results from my questionnaire
concerning the trailers really helped in giving
me an insight into what audiences both like
and dislike about the films with a similar genre
to mine.

10. MY
AUDIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE Out of the film posters the most likeable one
ended up being the ‘Shutter Island’ for reasons
such as ‘The poster portrays a sinister island
and the shading on the actor also shows this.
It makes me want to watch this film as you can
tell it’s a thriller.’.
The least liked one was ‘28 weeks later’ and
this was due to people finding it didn’t ‘Give
any hints of what the films gonna be about’.
Overall this was helpful when it came to
creating our own film poster and the
information it included.

11. MY
AUDIENCE
PROFILE
I analysed my questionnaire data and I created an audience
profile from that:
My primary target audience for our thriller is from the age of
15+. As a thriller, it contains adult content such as death, which is
the reasoning behind my decision on age classification of 15.
They are likely to prefer watching films in the cinema such as the
Everyman because they want to get the full atmosphere of the
Adobe surround sound speakers and the large screen. However,
they do also like watching films (mostly thrillers, horrors and
comedies) at home on Netflix. They are likely to find out about
upcoming films through media platforms such as Snapchat and
Instagram and because the audiences also include older
generations they may also find out about upcoming films on
Facebook and Twitter.
My audience’s ideal clothing brands may differ from JD Sports to
brands like H&M. They may wear rather modern clothes which are
rather casual and relaxed, as those are the types of people my
audience are like. They also may eat at places like Wagamama's,
Nando's and Pizza Express.

12. • My audience pics

13. I watched Matt Smith’s interview on the FDA website, in this
interview Matt Smith defines the difference between
marketing and publicity.
Marketing you pay for, whereas publicity you do not.
Publicity:
Matt Smith explains how social media has become a large
chunk of marketing and advertising and effort of publicity can
now be online and digital. Now digital platforms have become
increasingly popular, when promoting the film they have to
ensure the film has been formatted to make thing specifically
for digital platforms such as iPads, for that reason certain clips
or trailers have been re-cut and designed to be watched
portrait on a smaller digital device as a normal film is
landscape. Additionally, they have also managed to cut down
trailers to shorter lengths as Matt Smith explains audiences
have a 5 second tolerance and in that time their attention
must be hooked. For that reason, often on digital trailers there
is a 5 second information panel which informs the audience
that there is a trailer coming up and it is worth watching, this
is in order to prevent audiences from switching off and going
to visit a different site. Distributors are changing the elements
to better serve the digital world.
MATT
SMITH

14. MATT
SMITH
Marketing:
Film influences have now become vital in raising
awareness for a film. The value of film influences is that
they provide third party endorsement. There are many
websites which are particular for a certain audience
(niche market) such as mum vloggers, this will help in
promoting specific films which may target a particular
audience. If an influence has recommended something
(a film) then their audience listens and they go and do
what they say as vloggers are severely trusted by their
audience and their opinion matters deeply to them.
Distributors can involve influences from a very early
stage, they occasionally invite an influence on a set visit
for example in order to include them. By doing this, it
brings and creates early awareness to help plant that
seed to produce early buzz as a film can take up to a
year to make.

15. OUR
MARKETING
AND
DISTRIBUTION
STRATEGIES
From watching Matt Smith’s interview
and becoming well aware of the
increasing promotion of films on
media platforms I have devised
marketing strategies. Our production
team has created an Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter account along
with a film poster so that I am able to
reach my target audience.
Out of my production team I have
created the Facebook page which I
will go onto explaining further in my
next slide.

16. FACEBOOK PAGE
Out of my production team I made the
Facebook page, I named the page ‘Film
Surplus’ as I wanted it to be clear as to
what the Facebook page includes.
In the making of this Facebook page I
posted an image of our poster, this helps in
conveying to our audience that this
Facebook page is for our newly released
thriller film: Surplus.
Our film is a 15-rated film, Facebook is a
media platform which is used by
predominantly older generations, this
means that by creating our ‘Film Surplus’
Facebook page our target audience are
going to be intrigued by our film and will

17. FILM POSTER This film poster I believe conveys the genre of our
film ‘Surplus’ to our audience very well.
The monochromatic red used throughout this
poster is enigmatic as it has connotations of blood,
death and jeopardy. Our film being a thriller, and
containing a vast amount of death from the
epidemic itself killing off a large amount of the
population to the prime minister herself ordering
the hitman to kill the scientists to prevent the cure
from being leaked, this enigmatic colour of red is
suitable. Moreover, throughout our film there is
suggestions of red, such as the prime ministers
dress and the hitman's red tie.
The image in the centre is of a man wearing a suit
with a red tie, in our opening sequence the hit man
wears a red tie, this helps in creating a link between
the film opening sequence and the film poster.

18. TWITTER ACCOUNT
Our Twitter page ended up being the most successful.
In the creation of this page that we entitled ‘Surplus
Film’ we used a photograph of cells as the pages
profile picture this is so our audience had a clear
understanding that this page consists of a film about
some type of disease. After posting an image of our
film poster, Marc Zammit with 238 k followers
retweeted, this was extremely pleasing to see that
someone at such a high level of media found our
poster thrilling.
Similarly to Facebook the majority of twitter users are
aged 25 and above, this is correspondent to our
target audience (aged 15+), this means that they are
being informed about the newly released film and
becoming intrigued by the film poster and the story

19. INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT We chose Instagram as our first
marketing strategy due 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 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.

20. OUR
FILM’S
USP
Our film clearly signals its thriller genre through
visual and sound codes such as the serious subject
matter, the sense of danger and intrigue, the realistic
sets and editing, and the sense of suspense.
However, our film has a unique twist which will
persuade a thriller film lover that our particular film
has something novel to offer them: a political twist.
Our narrative builds on the current sense of unease
and suspicion in the country towards the government
during a very unsettled political period of Brexit. In
our film, the government is depicted as self-serving
and determined to exercise power even at
considerable human cost. Equally, the annual fear of
catching the flu virus which wipes out so many
people is another element that we build on in order
to engage our audience.

21. HOW WOULD
MY FILM BE
DISTRIBUTED
AS A REAL
MEDIA TEXT
Matt Smith from the FDA website explains that
distribution is the process of getting the film into the hands
of the theatre chains, broadcasters, video stores and video
on demand (VoD) operators. The companies that do this are
called distributors. In general a producer uses a sales agent
to license a film to distributors outside the producer’s own
country.
An independent distributor would distribute my film. I have
chosen the independent distributor (Warp). I have come to
the conclusion that this is the best independent distributor
for my film Surplus because I researched thoroughly into
Warp and I found out that the films warp had
previously distributed had a similar genre to that of mine.
My film focused on how a new epidemic wipes out a large
proportion of the population and the Prime Minister
attempts to prevent the cure being leaked into the public,
from this synopsis, my film would be deemed a thriller. If my
film had been fully produced then I believe it could possibly
be considered a prestige film.