Analysing and choosing a target audience for our short film

First of all what is a target audience? My understanding of a target audience is that it is a specific group of people that have been identified as an intended consumer of your product, advertisement or message.

There are many different ways that people within society are stereotypically categorized. The grouping of these people is a tool used by many corporations to gather basic information about this 'group' of people and the best way to make them aware of your product.
I am studying business studies so I would like to think that I am educated within this area.
There are two prominent ways to categorize your target audience. One is called, demographic; this describes the person's sex, age, family size, education, income, and social class. The audience's demographic can be learned through a populous or another survey.

The next category is the psycho graphics of a potential audience. This information is based upon lifestyle and/or personality. This may be more difficult to then deconstruct because the information is not black and white but this information is easier gauged in analysis of activities, interests and opinions.

After you retrieve the information needed regarding your audience, you will have a better idea who will want your product but equally important, who can afford it.
This then makes it easier to advertise your product or create a product that a specific target audience want due to a niche in the market. If you know your audience then it is easier to create your marketing strategy or product to cater for their direct needs.

We had to do extensive research into target audience for our 'film noir' production that we created last year. For our Short film we need more up to date analysis of peoples personal preferences as a target audience theory so we have looked at some updated theories that we will be using to categorise our target audience. The quantitative or demographic method will still be used as the acorn system is still a very effective way to group people based upon their income.

To view my A.s blog post for the Qualitative method of grouping a target follow the link bellow:

http://tompalmerasmedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/target-audience-qualitative-measurment.html

To view my A.s blog post for a Quantitative method follow the link bellow:

http://tompalmerasmedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/target-audience-acorn-system-research.html

Media analysts have developed several effects models which can be seen as 'theoretical explanations of how humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their behaviour.'

Effects models are still not a 'sure thing' because indisputable evidence that audiences will always react to media texts in the same way has not been found but the effects models are a new detailed categorization method that myself and Blaine can use to establish our type of potential consumer and the relationship between audience and text.

-The hypodermic needle model:
The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
-Two-step flow:
The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.
-Uses and gratification:
People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
-Reception theory:
The meaning of a “text” is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
-Obstinate audience theory:
This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to. The Zimmerman-Bauer study found that the audience also participate in the communication by influencing the message.

Both of these theories help myself and Blaine to then come to a conclusion about our type of target audience. The acorn system helping use work on the demographics and the effects model giving us an idea of our audiences psychological needs. We can then use this information to develop our understanding about our target audience and what they expect to see within a film and what would blow them away.

Blaine has found a great way we can acquire this information via
primary research, Google provides online questionnaire software called 'Google forms' which you can use to create,view and analyse your questionnaires for some more information on Google forms follow the link bellow:

http://ncmstech.pbworks.com/w/page/30753446/GForms

We can both now acquire relevant information that can be used to establish our target audience which is the next step to creating our short film.