9/10/14 | PLANNING |
Audience Research
I started by investigating how brands target audiences in preparation for creating my own audience profile for my GCSE Production. I need to plan to reach my target audience. As part of distributing any film, distributors prepare marketing stratergies such as reaching out to their target audiences through film websites and social media sites.
Whilst profiling my audience, I will also work out why they enjoy the genre. Why would they want to watch my film? What makes my film different from competing films ? How will my film appeal to viewing needs of my target audience?
Who Is My Target Audience: Action Steps
1. Who is my primary target audience?
In my film opening my primary target audience is: British/ American, male and female 15-40+,
who love thriller films, TV crime drama and psychological thrillers.
2. What makes my film stand out from the competition?
Our film is about a man trying to infect a female companion/girlfriend with a disease but then actually infects himself. The girl in the film then finds out he has infected others as she finds another person in a cupboard.
3. Why should my audience watch my film?
Empire says: A seeringly scary look into an infected mind!
I found that my research has helped me create a profile of my ideal audience member.
This information will then help me create my marketing research.
Audiences can be segmented and defined by their GEARS
Gender
Ethnicity
Age
Region / nationality
Socio-economic group
Gender
Ethnicity
Age
Region / nationality
Socio-economic group
My researched showed that all of the products (including mass media products such as magazines) have clearly divided and distinct audiences based on the GEARS. These examples illustrate these (source Bauer Media Advertising):
My target audience uses mass media platforms such as radio, so I looked into the target audience for Kiss, which is an example of a large niche audience (young, London, pop music). To use radio, I could create a trailer that could be featured on the radio to promote my film:
My target audience goes to the internet to learn about film releases. for example, my ffriends and I, who form the target audience of my film, find out about new films on: Facebook, IMDB, Twitter, Tumblr, iTunes and through mailing lists.
For example: I looked at iTunes Movie Trailers to find out what audiences were currently offered and how audiences access new films:
There are several models of audience behaviour, two of which construct audiences in contrasting ways (passive or active):
The Media Effects model, or 'hypodermic syringe' model, is how media can affect society and how society affects media. Some negative indications of this theory are when people do "copycat murders". An udience that tends to see the audience as passive and sees how exposure to particular aspects of media content can influence the behanviour of the reader or viewer.
The Uses and Gratifications model presents audience behaviour as active choices (uses) that are pursued to meet (gratify) a range of needs. For Blumler and Katz, these four needs are for:
The Media Effects model, or 'hypodermic syringe' model, is how media can affect society and how society affects media. Some negative indications of this theory are when people do "copycat murders". An udience that tends to see the audience as passive and sees how exposure to particular aspects of media content can influence the behanviour of the reader or viewer.
The Uses and Gratifications model presents audience behaviour as active choices (uses) that are pursued to meet (gratify) a range of needs. For Blumler and Katz, these four needs are for:
- entertainment/ escapism/ distraction,
- seeking information (sometimes called surveillance),
- personal identity (to support our world view) and
- social relationships (bonding 'water cooler' moments with friends or family as well as on-screen relationships with favourite performers).
The two-step flow model of audience behaviour.
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm. (Source: Mediaknowall.com)
Socio-economic bands:
I learned how brands segment audiences.
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm. (Source: Mediaknowall.com)Socio-economic bands:
I learned how brands segment audiences.
