RESEARCH; HOW BRANDS TARGET AUDIENCES

I decided to research how brands target audiences in preparation for my opening film sequence. As i need to know who they are and the factors affecting their media needs such as age, gender etc.. I will be showing how my research affects my film planning.
I will be reaching out to my audience by using social media sites such as; Facebook, Twitter, My own website of my movie and P&A (film posters).

Who is my target audience: 

1. Who is my primary target audience? Male and Females 18-45, who love getting chills down their arms while watching thriller films, psychological films and TV crime drama.

2. What makes my film stand out from the competition? Unlike most films about a child kidnapped, my film focusing on the child's point of view and her struggle to escape. Rather than focusing on the parents trying to find their child.

3. Why should my audience watch my film? As our film is unique, unlike any film before as it focus on both the kidnapped and the kidnappers journey.

Audiences can be segmented and defined by their GEARS
Gender
Ethnicity
Age
Region / nationality 
Socio-economic group

My research shows that all products (including mass media products such as print magazines) have clearly segmented and distinct audiences based on gender, age and socio-economic group. These examples show this (source Bauer Media Advertising) :

 I used this to help me select my target audience, both male and women between 18 and 45. The following results then came up.

I looked at the radio station kiss as it is good at identify its target audience, along with NME magazine who made a reader profile.

Maslowe's Hierarchy of Needs
Shows how audience have different levels of needs, the needs at the top (such as media driven needs) can only be met when the needs in lower levels (such as food, water) have be met.

Another model of audience behaviour is the media effects model:

• sees the audience as passively led
• influenced and manipulated by everything around them as they are gullible and impressionable.

The model shows how audiences have a variety of needs. Blumler and Katz deciding these needs were:

• entertainment / escapism / distraction 
• seeking information (somethings called surveillance)
• personal identity (to support out world view)
• and social relationships (both on-screen and off)

The two-step flow model of audience behaviour: 

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processed during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. 

They thought that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. 

 The audience then The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm. (Source mediaknowall.com) 

Socio-Economic Bands