Research: Target audience research

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a particular group at which a product such as a film or advertisement is aimed. An example for this could be horror movies as they are generally aimed at older viewers over the age of 18.

Target audience is very important as this gives the audience certainly that they will most likely enjoy the film. This is because the film was generally made to suit that specific kind of audience. This is a reason why no media product can be successful without a target audience to consume the media. Knowing your target audience is always the start of any advertising campaign. If making a film and your not considering what type of groups of people would be interested in your film, economically ,you may be in risk of low viewers as films can't appeal to everyone, therefor target audience are very important. 

Different  types of target audience:

Primary audience:  Primary audience is the "main body" of viewers and the average viewers. This is who the creators think of when creating the film, and base many decisions in the film on what would appeal to this audience. 

Secondary audience: Secondary audience is viewers who fall outside the primary demographic, but make up a large enough percentage of the test audience to skew the statistics if not accounted for. An example for secondary audiences is parents to the genre animation. They will eventually end up watching the film as they will take their children to see it, although it is not a film they would choose to watch on their own, nor is the film made for them but they watch it for the pleasure of their children.

Tertiary: Involved due to curiosity or the knowing of a certain product. They are an audience who will become somewhat interested in the film because of something familiar in it.

Different genres appeal to different genres. For example, age and gender is very important in the case that chick flicks often are associated with teenage girl drama as a lot of gossip is associated. There also tends to be a house colour theme and in this case the colour pink is often shown. Pink is a feminine colour according to the media production which connotes that chick flicks appeal to the female gender. The producers of chick flicks do this on purpose to attract their specific target audience which they try to appeal to which is teenage girls from the ages 13 to 24. Also it appeals to teenagers as it is usually set in high school with relatable plots.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND PSYCHOGRAPHICS:

Demographics: can be defined as the parameters which are used in segmenting the targeted audience into more specific groups. Some commonly used demographics include gender , age , location , languages known , annual income , parental status etc .

Psychographic: a way of dividing the audience in terms of social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics.