AUDREYEVALUATION 3:Target Audience

By Hiba Hassan

Our film is very unique in the sense that it is made to create an eerie, uncanny, freakish atmosphere for the audience. Audrey, is greatly influenced by mainstream/ renowned TV shows and films such as American Horror Story, The Purge and The Conjuring. Our film was made to keep audiences glued to their seats and to not want to miss a single aspect of the film. This is unusual for a horror film because these types of films are made to make the audience hide behind their hands which makes ours unconventional in the horror genre.

This is is the PSYCHOGRAPHIC segments that divides the target audience into seven groups based on class, personality and lifestyle. In terms of thriller/horror films, they can appeal to all seven segments as they are not specified like a animation film is. We have chosen our psychographic audience profiles to fit the mainstreamers and aspirers groups as they are typically 16-25 year olds who are up-to-date with current affairs.

DEMOGRAPHIC information is used to group an audience into age, gender race and other. Demographics are parted into groups depending on jobs and status. Our target audience falls into groups D and E. This is due to the fact that they are typically students and would be unemployed .Our genre of film can be aimed at anyone of these groups because it has a wide audience. Nevertheless, some horror do not appeal to all groups and it is conventional for horror films to leave out the last two groups as thriller/ horror films usually deal with psychological issues. This may not appeal to the E strand as they may be less educated if they are unemployed so would not seek appeal in psychological issues. However, we have decided to focus more on this group as they are more likely to be in full time education so are aware of these issues and this group is also the biggest consumer in the film industry.

Audrey is a film that is targeted to 16 to 25 years old. This is mainly due to the fact that the age rating of the film is 18. We chose this group due to them being the largest consumers in the film market and they have a greater amount of topics to which they can relate to. The BFI also released that ‘In 2014, 15-14 year olds made up the largest proportion of the UK cinema audience at 31%”(http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-audiences-2015-11.pdf). This figure presents to us that focusing on and around this age group will make Audrey a very successful film. The main value we wanted to achieve is to ignore all the social norms such as religion and gender in our film. Instead we wanted to put all people no matter what their appearance or gender may be on the same level, we wanted to get rid of all social stereotypes so our audience can watch our film with no prejudgments about our characters beforehand. Audrey does not focus on any political affiliations but it is set in a capitalist society, such as The Purge, as it is about a Self-indulging killer as is Audrey. Teens from a middle-class and upper lower-class are the main targets. But we have also focused on the working class but while generalizing them while we are focusing on the middle-class in detail. We have chosen our ethnic group to be largely white, however, due to our film being set in London, we are expecting a range of ethnic backgrounds.

Mainly, Audrey will be targeted to all sexualities however, throughout the film there is a clear reference to a straight male, which may appeal to our straight audience rather than other sexualities. Nevertheless, our film will be extremely successful with all sexual orientations that enjoy this genre as it is not a film that is only presented for straight males.

Even though religion plays a huge role is people’s lives throughout the UK, in recent years the country as a whole is becoming more secularized. However, our group believes that even though the film will not be ideal for many religions due to the content, it will still form a large fan base due to its eye-catching story. Audrey is not specifically aimed for anyone of any particular religion and can be viewed by people of all faiths or people with no faiths at all.

In terms of daily lifestyle, our target audience are very active in their day-to-day lives. Our target audience is in either some form of education or starting off in a low wage career. They would typically be in the last years of secondary/ sixth form and have just completed GCSE’S, A Levels or BTEC’s . This would mean that our audience our very intellectual and have strong opinions about current affairs. The issues raised in our film would be recognized by our audience and they would have some level of understanding which may not affect them emotionally. Due to the demanding hours of school they find very little time to relax or socialize. However, when they do relax it is behind a computer screen and spend at least 10 hours a week on social media or any other form of social networking such as Netflix.

Due to the age range of our audience (16-25 years old) they would not own their own car or any form of transport and very rarely they will know how to drive. As a result of this, our audience would be frequent users of transport and would spend a small amount of pocket money using public transport. Whatever money they may have may go on transport, as a result of this our audience would use free sites such as put locker to keep up to date with the latest films and Netflix series’ such as Orange Is The New Black and House Of Cards. Also, in their spare time they enjoy to go shopping for materialistic goods with friends or family.

Due to the low income of our target audience the food they consume would be cheap and fast to compliment their busy lifestyles. When they are not at home having a home cooked meal they often indulge in fast-food chains such as McDonalds and Five Guys. However, their family shops in supermarkets such as Waitrose, M&S and Sainsbury’s. This implies that they pay attention to quality and enjoy the finer things.

Their social lifestyles are filled with something different every weekend, our target audience have a true enjoyment of taking time out to spend with friends and family and often find this a new way to meet people. When they are participating in any social events they often find themselves in busy shopping centers such as Westfield or Selfridges. This is because they enjoy to have everything they enjoy in one place as they do not have money to travel around a lot. They often spend any spare money they have in shops like Adidas, Zara, Topshop, American Apparel and others. This is because these types of clothes are mainstream and wearing them will help them to fit in with the rest of society, this relates back to the psychographic of our audience who are ‘aspirers’.

Our audience are most likely to go to the cinema around six times a year which makes marketing for them ideal. During these six times they are more than likely to choose from two types of film genres; action and horror/thriller, this means that our film is at a huge advantage at becoming successful with this target audience. Even though, they physically go to the cinema around six times a year, they often consume in film and TV a lot more. Films and TV shows are often watched on Netflix and Sky Movies which means that releasing Audrey on this media platform would make our film highly successful. Our audience enjoy watching TV shows and films on this media platform as they can sit and watch months worth of footage in a few hours which shows that they prefer convenience over anything else. Their preferred genres are horror and action which shows that they like to be stimulated and intrigued by a film which separates them from their everyday lives at school or work.

They prefer mainstream shows and films that are stylish and that everyone around them are watching. However, they do not enjoy programs such as Doctor Who, as this is too sci-fi for them and does not keep them captivated. They highly enjoy shows like American Horror Story and Criminal Minds as this is largely plot based and they take pride in understanding and coming up with conclusions for themselves. When they are in search of a more visual effective thrill they would watch shows like the Walking Dead, which is why we have incorporated violence and psychology into Audrey. Film stars are not difficult to seek as they enjoy films from a range of actresses and actors such as Emma Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio and Idris Elba etc, they greatly enjoy Martin Scorese films which is why we used his films as a source of inspiration for Audrey.

The music they most relate to and enjoy the most would mainly be House and dance and sometimes rock and rap. The artists include :The Weeknd, Disclosure, Ministry of sound: house, The 1975, Drake, Duke Dumont, M.N.E.K, Calvin Harris and Ed Sheeran. Each week they spend around £10-£15 on entertainment as they do not have enough time to go out due to school and/or work. They also may be unemployed so if time is not an issue money might be.