RESEARCH- Blog Post 12 (TASK1) - What is a Target Audience

Target Audience Research

An audience is range of people that watch a film because they like the genre, or even because they like a specific actor. However, a target audience is different. A target audience is a group of people that have something in common that a type of media (film, music or advertisement) aims to show their content to this specific audience.There are atleast 6 things you have to think about to know a target audience.

1. Age
2.Gender
3.Location
4. Interests
5. Class/Employment
6. Brands they consume
7. Entertainment they enjoy to watch
8. Ethnicity

I think that different genres appeal to different audiences, for example: Romance-Comedy films may appeal more to 19 year old females. So the target audience of rom-coms would be females aged 16-23. This isn't exactly specific as anyone at a different age and genre may enjoy rom-coms. But the would be only a small fraction of that age/gender.

 It is useful for a film to have a target audience so the film editors and marketing can have something to work with. Target audience prefer a specific theme or genre so the marketing of the film (billboards, buses etc) has to suit what they prefer, which appeals to them and gets their attention.

1st film-  Seven (1995)

As it says below, 40-54 ages males were the audience of this film. This isn't surprising as this film is quite old however I didn't expect anyone over 30 years old to enjoy horror films. This audience were usually from the south coast in England.  They also liked sports such as football and boxing. Some of the brands that this audience consume are Sony, Vodafone, Sports Direct and Heathrow Express.

Demographics:

 Lifestyle:

Personality:

Brands they consume:

Entertainment:

2nd film: The Shining (1980)

This film also has a male audience ages 40-54. The differences between 'The Shining' and 'Seven' are the entertainment that they're interested in and the brands they consume. The Shining audience would use the words original and lazy to describe themselves. They like watching TV and shop in Lidl. 

Demographics:

Lifestyle:

Personality:

Brands they consume:

Entertainment:

3rd film: The Exorcist (1973) 

The audience for this film are also males aged 40-54. They like watching movies and if they had a pet they would have a fish.   They would use the words reliable and withdrawn to describe themselves. 'The shows that they enjoy watching are 'The Walking Dead' and 'Psycho'.The audience for The Shining also likes watching 'The Walking Dead.

Demographic:

Lifestyle:

Personality:

Brands: 

Entertainment:

Conclusion

Between the three films, the obvious similarities between the audiences are that they are all males ages 40-54. I think they are older than what anyone would expect to be the audience of horror films because these films are from 1973-1995. Personally, I thought that a lot of young adults were the audience of horror films however this website shows that I was wrong. 

Audiences of The Shining and The Exorcist both like the show called The Walking Dead and both shop in Lidl.