Secondary Audience Research

(Taken from http://www.pearlanddean.com/)
I looked at drama films that were based around the theme of coming of age to see what the target audience was. Films like "Stoned", "Nowhere Boy" and "An Education" are films that are set in the past and "Stoned" and "Nowhere Boy" are based around the lives of famous musicians. Because of these elements, they appear to attract an older audience, especially in the case of "Nowhere Boy" and "An Education" as the bulk of their audience lies in the 45+ category. However, "Stoned", "Somers Town" and "This Is England" appealed most to the 15-24 age category. Because I am of this category I think it would be good to try and make a "coming of age" drama to appeal to this audience, as it has obviously done successfully before with these films that I would love to take inspiration from. All of the films as a whole seem to appeal to genders fairly evenly with the steepest drop being 62%/38%. This surprised me, as I thought a film such as "Stoned" would appeal to mainly men, but it in fact appealed to more women. I think I would like my film to appeal to both a male and female audience, perhaps with a slight leniency towards a female audience. From this research, I have dismissed the stereotypical view that a male audience is mainly attracted to Hollywood action thrillers, as I now can see that they are largely attracted to drama films as well. In addition to this, despite the decision to target mainly a 15-24 year old audience, I will keep in mind that an older audience is interested as well, especially when it comes to influences from the past, which is something I would like my film to contain as it's a large part of my own life. So when producing and planning my own film trailer, I will try to use elements that will appeal to this audience as well as the younger one I have specifically chosen.
I will also be targeting people of the C1 socio-economic group. Although the above research shows that the AB socio-economic group has sometimes been the main audience, I think this would be referring to the adults. The C1 socio-economic group is lower middle class. However, students, which fit in my age range, could be in any socio-economic group, because they are classed by the status/income of their parents.

I quite like the idea of making a trailer with a storyline that is based around nostalgia and the past, whilst being a coming of age drama, as I think the past is a thing that all people growing up can become fascinated with. So, I've tried to pick a 15-24 year old target audience to target. To add a label to these so that they can be more easily identifiable, I went onto http://www.uktribes.com/. I found a tribe called "Trendies" who I have picked as my target audience because they are interested in cult, not mainstream things and vintage things. This means that an independent film trailer and magazine might appeal to them, especially if it's linked to the past and nostalgia. I also picked this group because their consumption of cinema products is moderate, and I think there haven't been any films specifically targeted at this audience to capture it completely. I think this would therefore be an interesting and challenging group of people to try and appeal to. (This is demonstrated below). The tribe is also closely interlinked and has a majority crossover with indie scenesters - liking the same things and wanting the same difference to the mainstream in what they consume.

(Taken from www.uktribes.com )
This youtube video attempts to sum up the tribe and their characteristics/interests. In addition to this, http://www.uktribes.com/ describes them like this:

"The aesthetic awareness and thirst for new trends is blossoming across youth culture and drawing in new members. Accordingly, having the newest look or knowing about the newest trend is easier but means less than it did ten years ago. It's still important for the older section of Britain's youth though – Trendies tend to be in their early/mid 20s and are generally middle class. The Trendies Tribe is growing so significantly that fashionistas, a term once used solely to describe east London would-be stylists and fashion darlings, is growing in currency across the UK and is now used in more general terms to describe a more-trendy-than-average trendy."

The tribe's interests in aesthetics seem key to the tribe, so I hope this will give me an opportunity to try and do some nicely filmed and well framed footage. I would like my products to be quite cool, so that they could pass as something "trendies" would be interested in. They also seem to be of the correct age that I would like to target as the tribe is vastly appealing and opening up to a younger audience, now beginning at school-leavers.

This secondary research has inspired me to try and make my product as real to life as possible, so that people of this age and tribe can relate to it. It's also made me think about aesthetics, as this is what appeals to my audience. I would like my film to have proffessional looking/high quality cinematography, with effective make up and "trendy" costumes, as I think this is what will entice my audience. In addition to this, I will try to pick young actors to be in my film, so that my audience feels directly and immediately involved and integrated in the footage, which I think will appeal to them well. I will also try to keep a musical thread running through my narrative if possible, as films that contain this seem to appeal more to my audience as well. After this secondary research, I will follow it up with some primary research. This should be made simpler by the fact that I have now identified a specific audience that I wish to target with my products.