Targeting an Audience

Targeting an audience, is one of the key aspects to planning our thriller. We must establish a specific market, as this would enable us to make our film as effective as it can be. I looked at several different theories to help gage more of an understanding about how to target the correct audience.

In 1974 two theorists, Bulmer and Katz developed the theory that audiences watch media forms for many different reasons. These are:

• Diversion - to escape from everyday life
• Personal Relationships - to use media for emotional and other interaction.
• Personal Identity - to create their own identity from characters in media
• Entertainment - as a mean of relaxation and enjoyment.
• Surveillance - to gain information.

Another theory on audiences and how to best target them is the LifeMatrix tool, which defines audience categories around values and beliefs. These are categorized into:

• Tribe Wired - Free spirited, creative young singles.
• Fun - Aspirational, fun seeking young people.
• Dynamic Duos - Hard-driving, high-involvement couples.
• Priority Parents - Family values, active
• Home Soldiers - Family orientated, ambitious.
• Renaissance Women - Active, caring, influential mums.
• Rugged Traditionalists - Traditional male values.
• Struggling Singles - High aspirations, low status.
• Settled Elders - Older lifestyles.
• Free Birds - Vital, activists.

The two-step flow theory is a hypothesis introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, Hazal Guadet. The two steps are:

1. Opinion Leaders get information from a media source.
2. Opinion Leaders then pass on information, along with their interpretation to other people.

Opinion Leaders - pay close attention to media, are influential and are similar to those they inspire.

By gaining this information, its helped me realise how the audience will react to the media thriller that i am in the midst of planning.