Secondary Audience Research: Audience Profiling

Current & Future Releases
Source: Pearl & Dean (http://www.business.pearlanddean.com/films_guide)

Imperium (23rd September 2016)

Imperium is a just-released crime, drama and thriller film starring Daniel Radcliffe. From the audience demographics provided by the Pearl & Dean website, we can see that the audience is already predominantly male despite its very recent release, with almost 70% of its viewership being made up of this gender; this reflects my previous speculations that my group's own target audience would be mainly male due to the film being in the crime genre and what our typical audience member is interested in. 

The audience for Imperium is also made up of a number of social classes: the highest being C1, the lower middle class, and the lowest being C2, the skilled working class ('white collar'). However, while C1 is in the highest proportion at 32%, AB, the upper to middle class, is not far behind, as it is at 2% less. Additionally, the lower middle class have occupations such as nurses, junior managers, etc, the upper to middle class are lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
I find it quite interesting that it is the higher classes who are interested in a narrative that revolves around crime, as I would have predicted the audience members to be of a younger age which would affect the band in which they are classed as (15-18 year olds would have little income due to being in full-time education and therefore be in the DE category). Although, upon seeing the film's plot synopsis where the protagonist seems to be an FBI agent who goes undercover, I think that a narrative that follows the 'good' and conventional side of the situation may be more attractive to the higher classes watching the film. 

Additionally, I find it quite telling that the audience is fairly young in age, as while the age certificate is 15, the age bracket of 15-24 holds the most members at almost 50%. Similarly, the 25-34 bracket is at just over a quarter, and the 45+ bracket is at 9%. This clearly shows that crime/drama/thriller films are much more appealing to the younger generation than the elder, likely due to an interest in high-concept action films. It may also appeal through the use of its main star, Daniel Radcliffe, who has shown himself to be quite diverse in terms of the roles he can play: from the protagonist of the widely popular Harry Potter franchise to playing a man accused of murder who goes through a strange, devilish transformation in Horns. Furthermore, the fact that the audience is quite young could influence how my group appeals to our target audience and how broad it is, depending on the age certificate: a certificate of 15+ may be more suitable as our trailer is unlikely to show a large amount of blood or gore, and it may be detrimental to our progress if we exclude teenagers who are fans of crime genre films from our audience. 


London Has Fallen (4th March 2016)

London Has Fallen is an action/crime/thriller that has similar demographics to Imperium in that its gender split is almost exactly the same at 70% male, 30% female. This data may also be slightly more reliable and accurate as this film was released many months ago, while Imperium's may fluctate as the opening weekend, which has not yet completely passed, can influence the data. However, it is still clear that crime films have a very large appeal to males. In terms of age, the film is similar in that the 15-24 bracket dominates at 40%, while the other brackets have a steady decrease as they increase in age, with the lowest being ages 45+. The classes have a fairly equal split of 20%+ each, with C1, the lower middle class, having the highest at 35%. DE has the lowest amount of members as it occupies 18% of the film's viewership, suggesting that people such as students, casual workers, the unemployed, etc, aren't very interested in such a film as this where the plot concerns a man who "discovers a plot to assassinate all attending world leaders" at the Prime Minister's funeral in London. Overall, this film's demographics are useful because they suggest that, through being very similar to Imperium's demographics, crime genre films, irrespective of plot, usually have very similar audiences in terms of age, gender and class and appeal mainly to males rather than females.

How will this research affect my ideas?

This research will affect my ideas through how I appeal to my target audience depending on their age, gender and social status, now that I have inferred through the research of current and past releases that our typical audience member will be a teenager or young adult (in the bracket of 15-24), likely male, and of the C1 class (meaning they are in sub-management roles such as junior managers, supervisors, nurses, etc). In order to appeal to our typical member, I think we should use actors that are of a similar age, although we shouldn't exclude females as actors because this might deter some of our target audience and reduce our potential reach. In terms of the content of our trailer, we should keep the levels of violence, gore, etc to an amount that isn't excessive or too extreme, in order to make it appropriate for an age certificate of 15 to broaden our audience to include teenagers. 

Further Audience Profiling Research 
Source: YouGov Profiles (https://yougov.co.uk/profileslite#/)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013):

From this more extensive data from YouGov Profiles, we can see that the audience for The Wolf of Wall Street, a crime film of 2013 are male, ages 18-24, of social classes A, B and C, and have general interests in film, politics and international news, and have professions in the media, business and civil society and charity. They are also interested in films and TV shows of similar themes such as American Hustle (2013) and Breaking Bad (2008-2013). Their opinions seem to represent the culture of the crime genre: for instance, "I like to go to trendy restaurants and bars" and "When I drink, I drink to get drunk", which to me reflects the tastes of some of the characters in crime films, such as the stereotypical 'gangster boss' or 'drug lord'. Although, this average member describes themselves as analytical, knowledgeable and confident, which I think is useful information because it suggests that my group's target audience may enjoy a trailer more if it gives them an element of mystery and keeps them guessing and doesn't employ a typical narrative. 

The Usual Suspects (1995):

The demographics given for people who are fans of the 1995 crime film The Usual Suspects are very different from those given for The Wolf of Wall Street, perhaps most noticeably through age and social status. Although both audiences share some general interests and opinions, the difference in age means that their 'likes' in terms of similar films, TV shows, etc are more dated and the Usual Suspects audience appears to prefer the classics. 

To conclude, upon comparison of this audience and the data given for The Usual Suspects, I think that new crime films tend to have demographics that are a lot younger, hence the earlier Pearl & Dean data implying that crime films appeal to the younger generations, while older or classic crime films tend to have an audience composed of the older generations, likely to a difference in interests. For example, while The Usual Suspects is fairly unconventional in that its narrative concerns the criminals rather than the authorities pursuing them, the older generation seems to prefer the classic crime narrative and they have more formal interests (such as believing newspapers should spark debates and challenge perspectives). The interests of the younger audience of The Wolf of Wall Street are a lot more informal in terms of their interests, hobbies and humour. Therefore, as aforementioned, modern crime films seem to focus more on a criminal vs. criminal narrative that will appeal more to younger people, which means that we could potentially fill a gap in the market and aim to appeal to more than just our typical young audience member and try to be more inclusive.

My Target Audience

To present my target audience I decided to take a similar approach to that of YouGov's profiles and created a collage of what I think my audience is interested in based on similarities between these interests and my film.

I created this moodboard/collage based on TV shows and films that have a theme of crime and are likely to be of interest to our target audience. From this collage, you can see that our target audience is interested in films such as Gone Girl, Imperium, The Departed, Pulp Fiction, Ghost in the Shell, Legend, American Psycho, The Usual Suspects, Prisoners, Zodiac and A Clockwork Orange, and are also interested in TV shows such as Breaking Bad, Fargo, Dexter, Sherlock and Hannibal. I am targeting this group because I believe that if they are interested in shows and films such as these that I find enjoyable myself, I can aspire to follow some of the same themes and iconographies that they display, which in turn will aid my group when we are trying to appeal to our audience. For example, in particular I find Breaking Bad and Prisoners' use of cinematography very inspiring (such as the cold blue hue Prisoners seems to use to convey mood) so I believe that if I aim to create my own defined style of cinematography then not only will my trailer appear to be more professional, it may attract a similar audience to the kind of viewership they have. To conclude, I think that observing what makes these shows and films' audiences attracted to them will help me to be more successful in creating my own appealing trailer that is suitable for both its genre and audience.