Audience Research

Define a 16-25-year-old middle-up market media-literate audience:

Class Demographic: I have selected the class demographic AB-ABC1 to correspond with the brief's guidance of a middle-up market audience with a reading age of 16. This will enable them to have more intellectual consciousness of the world around them and thus further their cultural competency. Because of this, it is more likely they will be able to pick out film references relevant to the magazine. Their middle-up market class will also lengthen their attention span; this is why I intend to include features on films with detailed plotlines and deeper moral undertones to keep this audience thinking and intellectually satisfied.

Hobbies: To fulfil the 'media-literate' aspect of the brief, my audience will be interacting and engaged with film fandoms and upcoming cinematic releases; because of this, the magazine will offer them not only chances to engage with their favourite movie stars but include other intertextual references to other media products throughout the decades. 

Psychographic: I decided to go with the Explore Psychographic for my NEA as I believe this personality type is often more eager to widen their cultural competency than an 'Aspirer' or a 'Resigned.' During my research into the psychographics, I also noticed that they value individualism and difference; which my film magazine intends to do. While offering new and unique films to the audience, the characters and actors featured on the front covers and the inside will be represented as independent strong role models to my readers; for example a woman going against typical female stereotypes; or a woman affirming those stereotypes and giving them a new meaning, while still remaining strong and confident in herself. With the differing representations of gender, an eclectic taste should be satisfied. 

My magazine will cover genres mostly in the action genre, thriller genre, and crime YA genre to appeal to an Explorer audience which seeks energy and experience. 

Age: To cater for the young age demographic of 16-25 I will include competitions and links to social media channels (as well as the website) to keep them interactive and engaged. As well as this, the magazine would include exclusive interviews with actors to keep them up to date with the latest celebrity gossip, as teenagers, especially film-geeks, especially want to do. To also cater for their curiosity to find out more about film, there will be sneak peaks to upcoming movies and also direction for what classics they should watch: such as top ten romance movies or rankings for television shows. Bold, eye-capturing pictures will also be included to capture the attention of teenagers who are used to spending a lot of time on social media and fast news websites.

Gender: I wanted my magazine to be gender neutral. To cater to both female and male, there will be a different gender on each front cover, and near to equal representation within. However, despite representing both groups female and male, as already noted they will go against stereotypes even if only implicitly. My female model will be the star of an action movie, wearing typically boyish clothes. My male model will, while wearing a conventionally masculine suit, have longer hair and softer eyes, and, contradictory to the action and crime genre, he will be smiling so that more young men can identify with him. On the inside there may be typical representations of gender; such as another model wearing a long dress; this is so all groups feel incorporated, thus extending the scope of my target audience.

Location: I have decided to place my audience in the South of England to East of England as these are the most dominantly populated middle-income to high-income regions in the country. Atop of this, more Conservative party support is concentrated in the South, valuing nuclear family set-ups and high earning industry. While being likely to have more money in their pocket from their family, young people in this area may value quality over quantity in a magazine; and this is what Flix intends to do with each edition being priced at £4.99. As the films featured in the magazine will have been set in the South such as London or Greater Anglia, it may be easier for my audience to identify with different themes within; proximity is an important factor to media products including television especially. 

Background: As the brief guides, I am creating a product for a middle-up market audience. I expect my target audience will be buying from a financially secure place with the magazine being priced at roughly five pounds monthly. With a reading age of 16+ and a grammar school/private tuition background, I believe they will be able to understand the wider range of vocabulary I employ through the website articles. University students who have been introduced to literature and critical articles will be able to enjoy equally traditional movie content and new hybrid genres. They should prefer film-based entertainment to short, snappy, videos online, although I understand with the young adult age range they are more inclined to use social media; and this fact will be incorporated into the magazine.

Focus Group:

I decided to conduct my research with students attending selective sixth forms in the area of Southend as I believed this to be the closest profile to my defined target audience: within the required age range and also a similar demographic. The results are as follows below:

Ross Marks:

Favourite Movie: Hot Fuzz. Bridget Jones. 

Favourite TV show: Doctor Who; Sherlock Holmes.

Favourite Book: Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Been to any film events: No

Fandoms: Interacts with online Doctor Who and Sherlock fandoms/parodies.

Favourite genre: Action. Mystery. Crime. Thriller.

Favourite Film: Ready or Not

Favourite TV show: Killing Eve

Favourite book: The Unhoneymooners

Fandoms: Marvel

Favourite genre: Young Adult. Action/ Super Hero.

 

 

What I found interesting about this personalised research was that there was a correlation between favourite book and favourite TV show with one of my candidates. I believe that this can be incorporated into my magazine through making the feature front cover film a book adaptation. The combination of literature and film is a common theme within the young adult genre and would work nicely with my magazine. As well as this I found it interesting the love for the action genre with sagas such as Marvel being favoured over other media products. I also appreciated that both candidates had a vested engagement in the fandoms of their favourite movies; this element of engagement and escapism will be embedded within my own media magazine. 

Further research into my audience: 

 

The most popular genres within my defined audience group were crime and genre, with an even split between action and thriller. Because of this, I will revolve my film articles, although making them new and irreverent, around romance and action themes.

Strangely enough, only a small portion of those who answered the form actually attended live media events. I think this might be because of the sparse nature of these events; so my magazine will offer more opportunities to these audiences for tickets to live events.

None of my target audience watched films every day. Because the majority watched them once a month, I thought I would make the editions of each magazine monthly rather than weekly; Bauer Media's Empire Magazine is monthly too which helps to reaffirm industry background.

Interestingly, for those who had a particular favourite magazine, upper mid-market prints were favoured such as the politically conscious Private Eye, Premier Christian magazine, and upper market fashion magazine Vogue. This is understandable for the market it is designed for.

To further research into genres my target audience enjoy, I researched trends popular among middle class teenagers. These included aesthetics such as 'royalcore' and 'cottagecore', whereby elegant fashion and scenic classical/regal views are photographed. I thought I could combine this style with Gothic, thriller movies teased at in the magazine. This will allow my Explorer audience to identify with characters and also yearn to try out their different but trending style.