Coursework Research : Target audience

What is a target audience?
This is the group of people at which a product, such as a film or advertisement, is aimed. Within the film industry it would be the demographic the fiilm is targeted at; for example young adults or 20-30 year old females.

What is the target audience for each of the following genres?

Comedy:
The target audience for comedy can vary dependant on the content of the film. For example films with a rating of  U or PG, such as pixar films, could have comedy within them for young children but also parents; as they are generally family orientated films, in comparison to those rated 12 or 15 as they would contain perharps more explicit content to create comedy so thus the target audience would be different as it would be aimed at older people.

Horror:
The stereotypical target audience for horror is between the ages if 15-25; as during young adulthood people tend to seek out for more of a rush or thrill, so can look to horror films for entertainment that will supply them with this. Futrhermore, a younger audience is more easy to excite and scare than an older, and they are less likely to be put off by the violence and unnatural images that horrow films contain than an older audience. It would not be aimed at people of a younger age due to the fact that a lot of the content would be deemed inapporiate for an audience of a younger demographic. Horror's are also usually aimed at men, as the stereotypical content of violence, blood guts and gore is associated with the male gender.

Action:
Action films are perhaps the most widley popular of all the genres, so they can be aimed at a much wider demographic of people from all ages, however I would say the majoity of people that view them would be from the ages of 12 to 40. It is defintiley more geared towards males as the content is generally what is percieved to be 'masucline', e.g violence, guns, car chases, sex, drugs etc.

Drama:
This is another genre that can be aimed at a large group of people as it is very dependant on its content. Due to this there are lots of sub-genres such as romatic drama, period drama or crime which would all be aimed at different target audiences. Drama films are usually aimed at the young mature, or an older audience, of both genders, due to the strong scripts drama films offer and how they can vary drastically dependant on the characters within them.

Romance:
Romance films can have an age range from about 13 to 55  as they are quite easy to watch so can appeal to a large range of ages. They are typically aimed at females as women are seen to be as more in touch with their emotions and more sentimental, so therefore romance films would appeal to that sentiment so they are more likely to choose to watch them. People who are in couples can also be a target audience as they are more likely to be able to relate to the content of the film and thus are more likely to enjoy watching them.


What would be the target audience for my 'idea so far' and how would I go about attracting these people to watch my film?
The target audience for my idea so far would be people form the ages of 14-25 as it is a kind of surrealist idea of a boy getting stuck in a computer screen, and it is the younger ages that are more assocaited with technology thus it is more likely to intrigue people of these ages. I would say that is is evenly geared to both genders as it is quite a neutral idea that doesn't contain any particular content that would make it preferable to one gender more than another, such as gun violence.

I would use social media as a platform to try and appeal to my target audience as stereotypically that demographic is always on social medias such as facebook or twitter, so it would be easy to use these to try and advertise  my film as it would be accessible to a large range of people. Furthermore, having the trailer play as an advert on youtube vidoes would also be a good way to gain publicity as a lot of people use youtube as a platform for enterainment. Having the trailer played before similar films would also be effective as it would present the film to people who are already interested in films like it, so my film would have a better chance of appealing to them.