This document discusses the process of defining a target audience for a film production. It begins by explaining the importance of researching the target audience's demographics like age, gender, and interests in order to effectively promote and market the film. It then analyzes how other brands like radio stations Kiss and NME profile their audiences. The document also discusses creating and analyzing the results of an audience questionnaire to help identify the target audience. Finally, it outlines the marketing strategies used to promote the film on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and through a film poster.

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

12. • My audience pics

13. Matt
Smith
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.

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 therefore want to watch it.

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 line.

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.