Target audience evaluation

Target audience evaluation

• 2.
  Older Teenagers (16+) Tobe able to incorporate more mature content into our thriller opening, we set our target audience to the more mature audience age of 16+. We believe that they are able to handle more mature themes (such as mental health), and they also have a longer concentration span and are able to handle complex storylines; thus, making a better film. Our age range will cover from 16+ to around 40, however there will obviously be no age limit, because of the diversity of different ages within the genre thriller, they have the ability to attract females, but mainly men of all ages.
• 3.
  Interests of ourTarget Audience The interests of our target audience will vary considerably depending on their age. However, we expect our male audience to have an interest in more violent themes (such as war, death, murder, explosions). Also, some of our target audience will have experienced mental illnesses which will enable them to relate and see similarities within our opening. We predict our female audience to show more of an interest in the wellbeing and emotional side of our thriller, as stereotypically they are the more caring gender. This will work well as they will feel more involved naturally, and thus concentrate and become emotionally involved. The majority of our target audience has fairly high media consumption, this helped us to carry out numerous audience feedback tasks (such as SurveyMonkey). Teenagers check social media hourly and are constantly being updated with what is going on in the world. Mental health is a topic largely discussed on social media, especially Twitter, as many people are trying to lower the stigma around it. Therefore, having mental health play a big part within our thriller and it being rife on social media currently, it makes it relatable and relevant to today.
• 4.
  Why did wepick our target audience? We chose this particular target audience because it allowed us to explore more complex and mature themes. We also are this age ourselves, and thus are able to relate and understand the feelings and emotions of characters this age. We also know what appeals to our target audience, because we combined and used our own personal preferences to create an opening which would hopefully specifically target and meet the needs of our audience. We decided to use a young female actress, and this led to our decision of a young target audience as they are able to relate to a young teenage girl (whether they are one themselves, or are friends with one a such). Its also the typical audience of a thriller, and therefore already appeals to them as they have an interest in thriller films already. Teenagers tend to love tense films which make them think and feature plot twists and shocks which are not expected. Therefore, because we wanted our opening to be tense, full of mystery, uncertainty about what had occurred and who was guilty. This meant for us, our target audience was obvious.
• 5.
  Research In order togain more knowledge about our target audience and their preferences, we carried out research as a group and individually. We created a survey using the programme: SurveyMonkey (https://www.surveymonkey.com). Within this survey we asked specific questions about their preferences for weapons, thriller sub-genre, location, editing techniques, Mise-en-Scene techniques, Sound, time of day to set the thriller. Many of these questions were multiple choice which enabled them to pick more than one option, and us to gage an idea by combining all the answers. Some were also open ended questions, where people could write in more detail. We published this survey first on our blogs, so people with a direct interest in thrillers and media could easily see (through use of labeling on our blog), and also our classmates could easily answer it. This is the survey on one of our blogs (Ellie’s). We embedded it and the format made it very easy and accessible for people to answer.
• 6.
  Research After publishing iton our blogs, we all shared it on our social media sites because that will directly target our target audience. This way we can ensure that our feedback mostly comes from people our age, and therefore we will be able to gage a really accurate idea of what our target audience enjoys to watch and wants within a thriller. For efficiency and consistency, Libby wrote all the posts and then Sam and I shared them on our profiles, so our friends/followers could all see it and answer. We also targeted our audience directly with our draft film on Twitter, Blogger and Facebook. After creating and producing our thriller film, Truth, we uploaded it to Youtube and Vimeo and shared it on sites such as Facebook, Blogger and Twitter, this was to establish a link between us and our target audience; this is because our audience is modern and young and participate in sites such as Youtube, Vimeo and social networking sites to watch videos and search for other media group student examples of their thriller films for inspiration, so they are likely to stumble across it. Also by using theses sites we would appeal to a larger audience as our film would be more accessible, whilst bypassing the major production companies. Also, by posting it on Youtube, Vimeo, and social networking sites we have dealt with the problem of money as by targeting a younger audience they are less likely to have masses amounts of money. Therefore, we have made it free for them to watch and download. By using social networking sites such as Facebook, Blogger and Twitter, it was possible to cover a wide range of audience bases appealing to lower and middle classes who would most commonly use these and other social networking sites and also the upper and middle class who are more likely to see it whilst browsing through blogs - which are free for the public to access.