Target Audience Research Survey

Now that my genre has been firmly selected the next stage in my research and planning is trying to determine my target audience, this is a critical step as my work will have to reflect their interests. The conventions I use will determine whether I have been successful with my audience at the end of my coursework.

Additionally, once this survey has taken place I plan to send out another questionnaire or conduct an interview with my chosen group to then find out what conventions them alone want to witness in a thriller trailer, this way I can see what the differences are between all the suggested conventions of different age groups and whether age determines what they expect to see. For example, younger audiences might expect too much from a trailer because they want to see something immediately exciting or not give valid answers due to them not understanding the entire concepts of trailers to start with. Furthermore, another issue with the answers that I might get from a younger audience is that they may not fully understand what the thriller genre entails and can easily expect conventions of action films and horrors to make an appearance.
For this particular survey I received 21 responses which I will analyse below in this post.


 Results for Question 1 - 'How old are you?'

As seen from the picture above, I received a relatively varied response from this question. This question was important for me to ask when looking at establishing my target audience because different ages have different perceptions and expectations of thrillers and what they should be/look like.

2 of the respondents were aged 12-15. I made this a category as nobody under the age of 12 should watch thriller as they are mostly certificated as 15's - it is rather rare for a thriller to be a 12A as most of these tend to just be action genres. I have to constantly refer to thriller films as well as the idea of a trailer because my trailer is essentially a thriller film broken down to specific parts to make the film look enticing in a short amount of time and I have to make it look authentic. I would not be able to produce a trailer if I were not looking into thriller films at the same time. Therefore, I will not be aiming my trailer at under 15's although I shall carry on analysing their responses in this post to show why my final decision is best.
Moreover, for the 15-18 category there were 8 answers, the 19-22 group had 6 responses and the over 22 category also got 6 responses.
Something I am taking into consideration is that the ages 18-22 are similar ages in that the respondents are all young adults and they tend to act similar and have similar lifestyle habits and in the context of films and trailer, they are open to all genres and thrillers are appropriate for them to watch.
Also, I made an over 22 category as people over the age of 22 obviously watch thriller and films, although they have a minimum age rating they don't have a maximum which means that older people would watch my film if I appealed to them and their personal interests.


 Results for Question 2 - 'Are you male or female?'

My results aren't gender biased as the results were equal given that 10 of the participants were male and 11 were female. The 2 younger partakers, between the ages of 12-15 were both males and answered in the third question as thrillers not being their first choice of film genre which furthers my decision as appropriate that they are not my primary audience. Stereotypically, you could say that females are more likely to watch romantic comedy films whereas males are the primary audience for horror and action films but in fact, gender is not a main factor in films as much anymore, especially for an older audience, as both males and females watch a variety of different film genres - they usually decide what to watch based on how good the trailer for the film is.


 Results for Question 3 - 'Do you enjoy watching thriller films?'

Out of all participants, only 1 said that they did not enjoy watching thriller films. This figure isn't big enough to be concerning at all and therefore it does not affect my results.
15 said that they did enjoy watching thriller films and 5 said they did but it wasn't there first choice. The 5 that answered that thrillers weren't their first choice also doesn't concern me as they clearly do like watching thrillers and so are still an audience to target.



Results for Question 4 - 'Do you watch a film's trailer before going to see the movie at the cinema?'

The results for this question were extremely helpful; 19 out of the 21 respondents said that they watch a films trailer before they go and see it at the cinema. None of the participants said that they do not watch a films trailer meaning that trailers are obviously an important element in peoples decisions to go see a film at the cinema. Only 2 people answered with 'sometimes' and these were both in the 12-15 category - this supports my idea that younger audiences don't fully understand the concept of trailers and usually go see a film just for fun and therefore pick any without any previous knowledge on it.

Results for Question 5 - 'Do you judge a film based on its trailer?'

17 people answered yes for this question, 1 no and 3 sometimes. This is a varied response although clearly the most popular answer is yes. The age of the respondents that answered 'yes' were all between the ages of 15-22 and over. This supports my idea of having a slightly older audience as they are more mature and will more than likely understand the  narrative that I present in my trailer unlike younger people.


Results for Question 6 - 'In terms of a thriller, what do you expect to see in the trailer?'


There were a variety of answers for this question and all of them were in text format so I have listed all the answers in separate screenshots below.

From looking at all the comments I have concluded that I am going to make my trailer an age certificate 15 - this will give my trailer the best chance at being successful as older audiences will be able to follow the narrative and I will have the opportunity to include more mature themes within. I am not going to put a maximum age on my target audience specification because when it comes to films age is not a problem in terms of older age, not like it is with younger people. Therefore I will be targeting my trailer and ancillary products at males and females aged 15 upwards.