Film Trailer Primary Audience Research & Survey Monkey Results

Target Audience Profile
We will be aiming for a mass target audience as films of the genre often appeal to audiences that love films of other genres too like action, crime, and horror. From the results of my survey monkey and research into similar products, I can tell you that our target audience for the film trailer will be heterosexual males that are aged between 17-22. I chose this age range because like Stanley Hall said in 1904 'Youth seeks excitement' and I chose heterosexual males because my secondary research into existing products showed me that the main target audience is straight heterosexual males as these are the type of people who consume Thriller films. Because we are aiming at a mass audience, we will have a secondary target audience of straight females of a similar age. Analysing psychographics allowed me to conclude that my target audience are likely to be 'Explorers' (Young and Rubican). These type of people are thrill-seeking and like to take chances, much like the characters in a thriller film. I think that films provide an extent of discovery which is what 'explorers' desire the most. In terms of lifestyle categories I think my target audience are likely to be 'egoists' as people watch films for enjoyment and entertainment. People who are categorised as 'egoists' want to get the best out of their lives and get the most pleasure for themselves. I think that my target audience will be of the middle classes and have sufficient disposable income to spend on going to the cinema and watching films. As thriller films are typically low budget, anyone could make a film of this genre which I think makes the concepts and content more accessible to the audience.

The results from the first question in my survey showed that just over 58% of the people that took my survey were male and just under 42% of the people were female showing me that the results from my survey will be quite relevant as my target audience are males. When looking at gender there are a few representation theories that I can relate to, Mulvey's 1975 theory that 'females are erotic objects of desire for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic objects of desire for the spectator within the auditorium' and Mackinnon's 2003 theory that 'Men are increasingly and unapologetically objectified, both in terms of erotic spectacle and as targets of advertising for product beyond cars and beers, including many items once thought to be market for women alone'. 

The results from question 2 show me that out of the 24 people that took my survey 91.66% are between the ages of 0-24, these results compliment my target audience as my target audience is 17-22 year olds. This means that the results I get from the survey will be relevant as the age of the people taking it were between the correct ages for my primary target audience. When thinking about youths I need to look into representation theories such as Stanley Hall's 1904 theory that 'Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in sex or drink' and Hebdige's 1988 theory that The portrayal of youth is not entirely pessimistic as mixed metaphors appear that term “youth as fun” and “youth as trouble maker.”

The third question is asking what the people's sexuality is. The results show that 87.50% of them are Heterosexual, 8.33% of them were Homosexual and 4.17% was Bisexual. This means that my target audience will most likely be majorly Heterosexuals, but there will still be people with other sexualities. When thinking about sexuality I need to think about the representation theories such as Medhurst's 1998 theories that 'Homosexual males are represented as screaming queers and their female counterparts as butch dykes' and 'They are awful because they are not like us'.





The fourth question I asked is about the ethnicity of the 24 people that took my survey. The majority of the people were white/caucasian but there were two people that weren't.  This shows me that the majority of people that will watch the trailer will be white/caucasian so i will use actors that are white/caucasian in the trailer, where as if I has a group of people with a with a wider group of ethnicities I would have to use actors of other ethnicities to relate to the audience. When thinking about the ethnicity of my target audience, I need to think about representation theories such as Malik's 1998 theory that "The word ‘race’ in the cultural and political terrain has almost universally been aligned with Black and Asian people, as though they are the only racial groups that ‘own’ an ethnicity… Whiteness has been naturalized, as though it is an invisible ‘norm.’"  and Alvarado's 1987 theory that minorities are portrayed in four ways: Exotic, Dangerous, Humorous and Pitied. 

For the fifth question I asked how often they watched films and the majority of people that answered my survey watched films frequently at home and also watched them in cinema sometimes too. The people who chose the options that they didn't watch as many films could have been the older people that took the survey, this could relate to Stanley Hall's theory that Youths seek excitement as they could be seeking excitement through film. 

The sixth question asked what genre of film was their favourite and Horror/Thriller was the most chosen answer which is good because our film trailer is going to be a Thriller trailer.

This question asked what the main things people look for in a film, the top three were Storyline, Acting quality and Genre, this shows me that when people are looking for a film to watch and enjoy,  they will be looking into what the story is about (maybe through watching the trailer), who the actors are and if they're recognisable etc. and what the genre of the film is so they know if they will enjoy it or not.

The eighth question I asked was how much about the film should the trailer tell the audience, 62.50 percent of the people chose the option of 'Know something about characters and plot' which shows that we should only explain some of the storyline briefly so we don't tell the audience too much of the film.

This question asked if the people prefer cinematic or teaser trailers. Teaser trailers are trailers that are normally released whilst the film is still being produced and are quite short. The trailer normally just consists of some clips from the film and little information about the film and release date with not a lot of explanation towards the storyline. The cinematic trailer is longer and well edited usually after the film has finished being produced. It usually contains a bit more of a narrative so explains the storyline or characters more than the teaser trailer but doesn't reveal the whole film. It also usually has more information about institutions and dates on it. The results on the survey showed that 83.33% prefer cinematic trailers.

The last question I asked was 'What is the most important quality of a film trailer' and the most popular answers were that the genre is shown well, the camera work is adequate and acting and sound came joint third, showing that in our trailer we need to make sure we meet the views of the audience.