- The sample collected for the questionnaire was biased towards 20-30 year olds, so the results may be slightly skewed towards that age group. However, responses were fairly balanced between males and females.
- Most people surveyed eat sweets weekly, and over a quarter eat them daily, showing sweets are a regular part of people's diets now compared to occasional treats in the past.
- Based on responses, the documentary should air between 8:30-9:00 PM on ITV to reach the largest audience.
How sweets preferences and consumption habits reveal insights for documentary
1. Analysis: With the questionnaire taking samples from all ages within our target audience, we feel that it
represents those people well, and the results we have gathered through the other 19 questions reflect
all of these people accurately. However, it must be noted that half of our sample were 20-30 years of
age, roughly double that of the other age options. This shows that our results may be slightly bias
towards people of that age group and we must consider this when making choices, based on our
question results, that we believe will suit the whole target audience.
2. Analysis: The sample contains a fair average of both male and female participants and, so, we believe
that the results from the questionnaire accurately represents both genders within our target audience
age. This, again, will assist us when making balanced decisions of what to include in the documentary
based upon these results.
3. Analysis: It is clear from these results that most people within our sample eat sweets on a weekly basis.
This emphasises how eating sweets is now a regular occurrence in our target audience’s weekly life.
This statistic may be helpful to include in our documentary to suggest how reliant our target audience is
on sweets. Another notable statistic is that 27% of our sample eat sweets every day, showing that
sweets are a larger part of the target audience’s diet than it will have been in previous years when it
was a one off treat.
4. Analysis: Half of our sample claimed that they watched TV the most between 8:30 and 10:00 and so it
is important, to ensure the highest target audience viewing figures, that our programme is scheduled
within this time period. Our ‘initial ideas’ were to schedule the documentary between 7-8 but now we
believe it is important to listen to our target audience to boost the documentaries popularity and will
change the scheduling time to suit their needs. This time being 8:30-9:00.
5. Analysis: Conforming to our initial idea of scheduling of documentary on ITV, our target audience say
they watch this channel more often than any other. Due to the opportunity to inherit viewers from
previous programmes and to receive the benefits of pre-echoing, we think it is important to have our
programme scheduled here to attract the most viewers and boost the popularity of our show.
6. Analysis: These results suggest that there are a wide variety of preferences when it comes to
confectionary and that finding a favourite is a debatable subject. The choice that was most popular
within our target audience was nerds, produced by an American company. This links with one of our
final questions which seeks to find if American confectionary products are more attractive and
demonstrates this may be the case.This is something that we will choose to place some emphasis on in
our documentary.
7. Analysis: These results also depict large variations in preferences. Most notably, the most popular and
most hated confectionary item was nerds. This gives us the impression that it’s a product our target
audience loves or hates and so making us believe it may be a good product to include in the
documentary as it polarises opinions. It also brings the ‘attraction to American sweet’ idea, as
mentioned before, into doubt. This certainly seems a topic worth investigating further in our
documentary.
8. Analysis: 73% of our sample said that they would prefer a female voiceover. We believe it would be
wise to listen to our target audience and use a female voiceover. Perhaps it would be relevant to use an
old lady due to the fact that they are often associated with confectionary and are typically seen as
trustworthy, making our documentary exposition more believable.
9. Analysis: Despite blue and purple receiving over 20% of votes each, it was red which caught the
attention of our sample the most. This majority suggests it may be a good idea to use the colour red in
the title of the documentary to attract our target audience’s attention to it. Blue and purple could also be
used at various points as graphics to serve the same purpose.
10. Analysis: Pop music was by far the most popular genre of music with 51%. This allows us to realise
that this is the music we should use during the documentary. It can also be used as archive footage to
match a section of the documentary in which we will focus on previous decade’s confectionary.
11. Analysis: From our survey we can see that the packaging being attractive is a big influence on the
buyer with 57% of our sample being persuaded. Exploring what makes different packaging better
than others could be an interesting topic to discuss. Mascots and slogans seems to be the least
effective form of advertising whilst music isn't that much more efficient- we may chose to show
some of these mascots and slogans in the documentary but not place as much focus on them as
we will with packaging.
12. Analysis: 57% of people who took part in the sample said that they like pic and mix. from these
results, we can see that a question involving pic and mix will work well in our documentary, as it
would work better to focus on the positive rather than the negative. It also suggests how, despite
packaging being important to customers, the old methods are still attracting the majority of our
target audience- something we may also chose to focus on.
13. Analysis: Just over three quarters of our sample buy sweets from the supermarket, this shows us how
the traditional market stall is being almost forced out. Franchise stores still manage 17% of the
sample, however, the supermarket still dominates massively. This research can be used in the
documentary when exploring how confectionary has evolved from small market stalls to a large,
franchise dominated industry which relies on imports of American confectionary. We can use this
information in the documentaries stats.
14. Analysis: This question signifies that 47% of those who took part in the sample, go to the dentist once
a year. This will help us critique this if we do an interview with an expert, e.g a dentist, who may say
that you need to go more than once a year. This would then educate the 47% of our audience who go
once a year and the 28% who go less than once a year.
15. Analysis: By understanding that dib dabs are most associated with our target audience’s childhood, we
can ensure we use this product in our documentary when focusing on confectionary in the past. We
could also include a section on favourite old sweets. This will create a sense of reminiscence for the
audience and give them gratification, therefore, maintain our viewers to create the most popular
documentary possible.
16. Analysis: American imports seem to have a desirable effect with 70% of our sample saying they
would be more likely to buy sweets. This could be a topic that we can explore and question in our
documentary. We could also see if other countries sweets have the same effect as the USA and if
they are as popular.
17. Analysis: 57% of those who answered this question believe that the Haribo mascot is the most iconic,
compared to the 18% for M&M Man and 25% for the MilkyBar Kid, this encourages us to include this
mascot in our documentary as those who watch it will gain gratification as, they will notice the Haribo
mascot, and also we could actually introduce the audience to other lesser known and less “iconic”
mascots.
18. Analysis: The results from our sample suggest that the majority of our target audience are aware
sweets have a negative impact on their health. Despite this, 27% of those eat them daily. These results
help us to realise that, during our documentary, it would be of the audience's interest to make clear to
the 27% how sweets negatively affect people’s health and, for the remaining 77%, investigate why
people eat them despite their health impact. By understanding our target audiences preconceptions, we
can maintain viewers by disproving them or exploring the preconceptions themselves.
19. Analysis: The fact 77% of people have never had a diabetic sweet gives us the impression that not
many people in our target audience are aware of the healthy confectionary available. Therefore, it could
be a good idea to focus on these alternatives in the programme and due to the fact the target audience
may be interested in products that they have not yet tried. This would maintain the viewers of our
documentary due to the interest presented to them.
20. Analysis: All but 16% of our target audience don’t check the dietary information giving us the
impression that, even though they believe it is negatively affecting their health, they do not check to
what extent it is doing so, or simply do not care. To us, this seems interesting and we believe it would
be a good topic to use in our documentary. It may also be interesting for our target audience to
understand what the affects are on their health, increasing the popularity of our documentary.