Audience

What is the Audience?

The audience is a gathering of spectators that participate in the show or work of art. In the case of film, the audience is the group of people that sit in the cinema, watching the movie, or sit at home having bought it on DVD.

What is the Target Audience?

In order to gather the largest audience possible for the film, the best strategy is to target a group of people. This group is the group that you want to see or hear about your film. They have to be the most likely people to buy the film. By targeting the marketing message at this group, you will maximise the income for the film, which essentially is the main aim of the large distribution companies.

There is always a certain group of people that are ‘more likely’ to watch the film. To find that group, the first step is to segment the market.

Demographics are ‘the most recent statistical characteristics of a population’.

These following consumer demographic examples are used to help identify the target audience:

• Age
• Gender
• Occupation
• Household Income
• Marital Status
• Presence of children in household
• Home value
• Geographic region

Yet only some of these will have a part in deciphering the target audience for a film. The main ones are Age and Gender.

I will include these demographical statistics in my questionnaires to help me identify my target audience.

Other elements that contribute to the target audience are examples such as the Psychographics (the attitude) of the audience. These include:

• Need for status
• Role of Money
• Ethics/morals
• Risk-taker vs. conservative
• Spendthrift vs. hoarder of money

These play less of a role in working out the film target audience as they are not characteristics that effect choice in film.

I will design a series of questionnaires that will help me work out my target audience and also what they like about Horror Films.

Source of information: Wikipedia.org and Tappernet.com