Secondary Audience Research Part 2

Audience research refers to the preferences that the audience seeks when it comes to media consumption. There are many audiences so there are many different methods to appeal to different ones.

An audience appeals from many different things, from demographic, psychographic and geographic factors which will decide and relate to an audience more.

            Demographic: age, gender, sexual orientation, family size, occupation, income, education, religion, nationality, socio-economic status.

Psychographic – attitudes, beliefs, interests

Geographic – where the audience is from, in terms of nationality, city, town, etc.

Which one will be most useful to me?

Psychographic:

Attitudes: Sportsmen tend to have more of an attitude of consistency, which is boosted within each time they successfully challenge an obstacle in sport. This effects my idea of my production by highlighting the trials that the protagonist will face in the production rather than showing just straight success straight-away.  It makes things a lot more relatable.

Beliefs: What keeps most sportsmen going in their conquest for success is the belief that they are able to achieve so much by focusing and applying themselves on a consistent basis, but can be discouraged when they find out that they are not the only ones who do this, and others have physical advantages. This effects my ideas of what speech will be like in voice-overs, and response towards it by the protagonist. For example.

“What makes you so different? It is a big world out there.”

To be responded with,

“I will find a way to stand out.”

This seems like a line which will be very inspiring and pleasing to my audience.

Demographic – Age. In the perspective of age, this will be very useful to me. Sport is a wide range which stretches to even above 50+ years of age. Most people in the genre doing sport are more frequent around the ages of 12-26. This shows that my audience will typically be around the young age- still in education or just out of it. This gives me an idea of what kind of content which should be included within my product to make it look more relatable. Such as adding a scene which shows how the character was just an average teen at one point. This keeps my ideas neutral due to the fact I already had the idea that the protagonist would be in his late teenage.

Geographic – where my audience is from, if a large recent sporting event was held in a city, or a town, this film serves as a boost to the populations captured interests, or just a city where athletics is extremely popular – Birchfield, London, Birmingham for example. This does not affect my ideas very much – only would give me an idea of where my audience would be in terms of location.

As the concept of class become less fashionable, advertises started thinking about audiences in different ways.

In terms of classifying an audience…

Mainstreamers, who make up 40% of the audience population.  Mainstreamers are ones who are familiar with being in a group.

Aspirers, who desire status and esteem from others.

Succeeders, referring to the people who already have obtained status and control.

Reformers, who define themselves by their self-esteem and self-fulfilment.

Which one will be most useful to me?

Succeeders – the character in my film will once start at the bottom of a hierarchy, eventually reaching the top, and the sport genre is great for showing progress and achievement, relating to the ‘Succeeders’ by experience of previous of experience of the work of getting to that position in the first place.

Reformers – This film production will serve as an inspirational kind of film, to strike at the audiences feelings and arouse their motivation – this film suits this classification by showing character who has a relatable self-esteem and self-fulfilment level as they do, instead of always trying to please others. 

Classifying an audience – Class & Income. An audience may be based on their wealth & success hierarchy in society.

A)     Upper middle class: Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals.

B)     Middle class- Middle management, teachers, and many ‘creatives’.

C1) Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff.

C2) Skilled working class, trade persons.

D) Working class. Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.

E) unemployed students, pensioners, casual workers. This is referred to as the bottom of the hierarchy, literally named “people at the lowest income level.”

Which one will be most useful to me?

-Really any. Sport does not exactly reach out to a specific class. However, the specific sport may call for specification. Athletics is not a very ‘expensive’ sport, so it may not appeal and relate so much with the upper middle class, as that class suits more expensive and less accessible sports, such as golf and horse-riding, stereotypically speaking. Athletics, on the other hand, is easy access to even the lower class, and is more commonly performed of the working class and ‘E)’, because of not only availability, but the time as well.

Classifying an audience…

Tribe wired – Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles

Fun/antics – Aspirational, fun-seeking, active young people

Dynamic duos – Hard-driving, high-involvement couples

Priority Parents – Family values, activities, media strongly dominate

Home Soldiers – home-centric, family orientated, materially ambitious

Renaissance Women – active, caring, affluent, influential mums

Rugged Traditionalists – Traditional male values, love of outdoors

Struggling Singles – High aspirations, low economic status

Settled elders – Devour, older, sedentary lifestyles

Free Birds – Vital, active, altruistic seniors

Which one will be most useful to me?

“Home Soldiers” – seems like a classification that could be the audience of my film. Sports genre usually involve a character who strives and has materialistic goals (such as winning medals and trophies, or scoring points or goals. It is also used to bring pride and ‘good vibes’ back home, raising the level of happiness at home through achievement. This will affect my ideas by making me think of how much passion and determination that the overall production will portray.

“Struggling singles” – High aspirations and low economic status – this is exactly and 100% relatable towards the main character of the film – of low birth, but shows high quality skill that outstrips by the average person, as well as ambition and goals that few can truly reach. The image between both the character and this classification is perseverance through struggles and refusing to give in to a self-fulfilling prophecy given from society, reaching through greater heights, ultimately proving expectations wrong.

A typical audience member for sport:

17 y/o male

Passionate and supportive for a particular athlete/team

Seems to be quite going and open when it comes to the subject, competitive as well

Priorities are within the spectating of the sport on the television and competing in it itself, mostly done in groups

Owns merchandise/ a considerable amount of sports equipment/clothing

Above-average knowledge of the sport, an excited mentality

1)      How will this affect my ideas? It will effect by my ideas in term of actors (the character and his behaviour himself). I need to make it obvious within speech/actions that he suits the typical audience member for sport.

2)      In terms of the ‘life cycle’ my product goes more towards to the ‘dependent’ (still at home, returning after university).classification, as well as pre-family. (No children, still working, young couple, etc.) This gives me a reminder of how serious the trailer should be, and that it targets an older younger audience, rather than an actual children’s audience.