Karl Shepherd conducted primary audience research in the form of an online survey to identify the interests of his target audience of 16-25 year old car enthusiasts. The majority of respondents were between 16-21 years old and interested in learning about electric cars. Secondary research found that around 80% of UK residents aged 17+ hold a driving license, and popular car brands like Ford and Volkswagen produce affordable, everyday vehicles. Analysis of existing car documentaries and websites revealed a focus on masculine imagery of speed and cars, as well as simple layouts for presenting articles and interviews.

1. Research
Karl Shepherd

2. Audience Research

3. Target Audience Profile
My primary target audience will be 16-25 year old petrol heads from both genders. It
is more common for males to be interested in cars but I aim to create a space for both
genders to love and explore the world of cars together. I have worked in a similar
market before as this is the same age range that I used in my last audience project. I
don’t want it to feel like my primary target audience is all I'm exclusively aiming at, so I
will also be tailoring it towards other people interested in this subject. I will be
conducting primary forms of research such as surveys from a wide variety of people,
including friends, family, peers and random people online to get a good mixed range of
results for my research. My psychographics would definitely be people heavily involved
in the motor industry or those looking to get involved. I don’t want to make the site
too complicated and bogged down with expert knowledge details but rather keep it
slightly basic so the nerds can enjoy it as well as new people who are maybe looking to
break into an interest of cars.

4. Primary Audience Research
I conducted a survey as part of my audience research, to gain an idea of what my
audience enjoy watching and there interest in the topic. I didn’t get loads of replies on
my work, I sent it out to peers and friends for a few replies, then attempted to post it
in a few subreddits to attempt to get a few responses from other people with a similar
interest in cars. Majority of the people who completed my survey, were aged between
16-21 which is the age range I wanted to target for my audience anyway, so this means
most of my results will prove useful. I asked the question, ‘which cars would you be
most interested to learn about’ and it seems most people were interested in learning
about electric cars. This tells me that they are more interested in the future of cars and
motoring and less interested in the detailing and the more in depth details about
them. I found the amount of car related content that is consumed by my survey
audience is quite mixed so this information isn’t entirely useful to me. About 80% of
the people who completed the survey said they were learning/able to drive which
shows that a lot of people are interested in driving and just normal cars, so I feel it will
be useful to possibly include part of the website as a section for your everyday
affordable cars, to appeal to these people. In terms of actually consuming the product,
most people have said they would most likely consume via YouTube, which is a huge
platform for video streaming, so I will create a channel in order to share content.

6. Secondary Audience Research
I decided to have a look at percentages of people who own a full driving license in the
UK to grasp how many people are on the road, I found that ‘in October 2021, the total
driving licenses registered with DVLA was 50,061,627’ this number isn’t 100% accurate
as they state that there are still people registered who have died, etc.. The National
Survey, estimates about 80% of people aged 17 and above held a full driving license in
2020. This is useful information as it shows me how many people were/are interested
in driving, showing they have at least a small interest in cars. I also looked at which car
brands were most popular, and Ford and Volkswagen, two companies that produce
mainly low-mid performance vehicles for everyday use, were far ahead in second and
first but then followed by BMW, Mercedes and Audi who tend to create more high
performance vehicles. This is good information as it shows me what kind of cars
people like to own and what type of cars I should cover in my site. The rest of the cars
on the list seem to be everyday cars so I have learnt that I should probably include
sections of the website dedicated to affordable cars.

8. After looking at some secondary research, I can work
out that the warm colours, such as reds, oranges and
pinks, are the most welcoming colours, which is what I
want my website to be. In the colour emotion guide, it
shows red to be excitement, which is what I want my
brand and website to be as well as warm and exciting.
Warm Colour Scheme

9. Market Research
Existing Products

10. Existing Product- Vice Documentary
In this Vice documentary, we are introduced to a group of car enthusiasts who own a
car wash shop in the day, then show off and race them at night. This documentary
shows all sides of the car community, and follows one particular member throughout
his day. It shows how they organise and approach the meets and races, showing the
meets themselves. There are lots of good camera angles and shots shown in this
documentary especially during the interview parts, instead of having a single camera
shot focused in on the interviewee, they show clips of relevant information that the
interviewee is talking about. The documentary isn’t biased at all and doesn’t portray
they people involved in a bad light even though some of their actions are illegal. The
documentary wasn’t made to show people that what they are doing is right, but rather
to show that they understand the danger of what they do and are aware of the risk. Its
also to give people who are possibly looking to get involved or that are just interested
in the subject, a good inside look as to what they people already involved get up to on
a day to day basis, they also talk about how and why they got into this community and
some of the stories are quite hard hitting. The lighting is all natural as the
documentary wants to show the reality of the situation rather than falsifying
everything with fake studio lights which is the kind of realism I want to incorporate
into my documentary.

12. Existing Product – UK Car Scene
Documentary
This documentary contains multiple interviews cut in-between shots of cars at meets, rallies and
races. The cinematic shots, mixed with the professional interviews, make for a fun and
entertaining documentary whilst also making it fun. This is important for the documentary as its
keeps the viewer engaged rather than just showing a full un-cut interview. This product showed
me what kind of questions I should ask to get the best out of the interview, and how I should
format the actual interview. Its important that I get the interview right first time as a second
time run through would look extremely unnatural and its important that I send my interviewee
the questions beforehand so that they can grasp an idea of the type of questions I will be asking
and they will be able to formulate a response so there aren’t stuttering and stumbling
throughout the entire interview. I also learnt that music is actually an extremely important part
of the documentary as it sets the tone for the entire thing, so I need to make sure that I choose
a song that suits the target primary audience. One way I could find this out would be to ask in a
questionnaire.

14. Existing Product
Aside from the video documentary side of production, I also wanted to make a website to
present the documentary as well as include different articles about cars, events, etc. that all
relate to the automotive culture. So I decided that I should look at a similar style website that
has different articles about different sections of the car world, whether that be reviews,
production, legal disputes, etc. The website I chose to analyse for my production is the Autocar
website which contains different articles and stories about the car world. I liked the simple
layout of the website which is something I am going to personally mimic as when people go
onto a website to look at news, they aren’t trying to be impressed or captivated by flashy
transitions or smooth page scrolls, they just want to read the articles in a simple layout so they
can get their news. The website has its home page and different categories where you can find
trending stories, car reviews, event articles, the list goes on, plus there is a search bar you can
use to find a specific article. The main article I analysed was one talking about ‘The best British
cars ever made’ which is a very well written article that discusses all the kinds of British cars
from 4x4’s, to sports, to coupe’s and why the British have done a good job, the article talks
about Brexit and other factors that may have affected this market. Again the article is very
simply laid out and has a slideshow feature where when you scroll on the slideshow, the article
changes to talk about the car shown on the slideshow.

16. Research Analysis
The general and overall theme of my research has a very masculine feel
towards the car community. The documentaries and montages have
multiple shots of cars speeding past but slowed down, still cars with
camera shots and angles that make them look interesting as well as
smoke effects sometimes. There isn’t really a common colour theme
through the products as cars can be all different colours. The interviews
all look very similar, they usually contain the person of interest sat in an
office or inside their car at their place of work etc. whilst they answer
questions, then there are usually clips that relate to the question they
have been asked are played over the top. I’ve also noticed they have a
very neutral view of the topic they are talking about, no matter whether
its positive, negative and legal or illegal.

17. Bibliography

18. Bibliography
1. Karl Shepherd (2022) Target Audience Research Survey (conducted on
03.04.2022)
2. N/A. (N/A). Mobility. Available: https://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-
faqs/mobility. Last accessed 11th March 2022.
3. n/a. (2021). Car Registrations. Available:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/300305/number-of-new-car-registrations-in-
the-united-kingdom/. Last accessed 11th March 2022.
4. VICE (2019) Street Gods: Inside NYC’s Underground Car Meets [online video]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eCX4C04_VE&t=295s
5. Thirteen Films (2018) The Enthusiasts - The True Story Of UK Car Culture [online
video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqNXV0o3W08