3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The most important views in the whole media campaign are that of the audience. They are the ones who will pay to watch the film, but merchandise or even use one of the best marketing tools in the industry – “word of mouth”. So it is because of this that I conducted many focus groups and questionnaires in order to find out what the audience expect and want in the three media products I were creating. That research is in the blog, it is what they thought of the final products and how I met their needs (from the previous questionnaires) that are important.

Teaser Trailer

Having found out that most people expected guns, suits and cars to be part of the mise-en-scene in a thriller through the pre-release questionnaire, I asked if the same sample of people if they felt my trailer conveyed the mise-en-scene of this type (thriller). The results were brilliant, 88.3% answered with ‘Yes’, 5% with ‘Sometimes’ and only 4.7% with ‘No’. They also commented by saying guns, car and weapons were particularly portrayed.

The next task for the trailer was to find out how well I had stuck to conventions of a teaser trailer (e.g. taglines). Giving the people a list of the conventions that they had given me and I had researched myself, they were asked how well those conventions were used. 83%answered with ‘A lot’, 10.5% answered with ‘Mostly’, therefore only6.5% answered with ‘Not much’ or ‘Not at all’.

The next task was to find out how well i stuck to the conventions of a thriller teaser trailer. Giving them the conventions (e.g. fight scenes), they answered. 85.7% of the people answered with ‘A lot’, 4.3% answered with ‘Mostly’, 6% said ‘Not Much’ and only 4% said ‘Not at all’. From this I know that I did well in sticking to the conventions of a teaser trailer in the thriller genre.

The last question I asked about the trailer was which film they felt the trailer was most like. The top three answers were ‘The Adjustment Bureau’, The Manchurian Candidate’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’- between them they took 32.7%. This meant I had achieved my goal of trying to make my film a political, on the run thriller.

Magazine Cover

When asked what people expect in a magazine, they answered with features, interviews, reviews, previews and posters/adverts. When I asked them if they felt I had achieved all of these in my content of my magazine, the only bit of content they felt I missed was the Adverts or Posters. I felt this was the lowest, in priority, to put on my magazine cover so I put everything else on the cover instead with a view to adding this convention but found I did not have the space. Now instead of making space, I referred back to another question on the questionnaire that stated people do not like it to be ‘cluttered’ so decided against putting the advert/poster on the cover.

Another question I asked was what things you expect on the front cover of a magazine. Their results returned things like Masthead, barcode, images etc. Having finished my product, on the post-production questionnaire I asked if they felt I had used all of the conventions sufficiently asking if they could rate how well I had done. I got an average of 4.5 out of 5. I was extremely satisfied with how well I had stuck to the conventions of a magazine cover in this sense, and I could not have found out how successful this was without the questionnaire.

I then asked, ‘Having looked at my magazine cover, what is it that would most likely persuade you to buy the product?’ This is important as all magazines are created to be sold and to create profit. The general comments were; the bold title, big image of star and banners were overall described as the most persuasive. However, there were several comments that stated some 'eye candy' would have persuaded them even more. Even though in this case I have been criticized for something, I am glad for these comments, as now I know that if I am to pursue a project like this again I would include ‘Eye Candy’.

They next question was asking how the layout persuaded them to buy the magazine. The majority of people said the masthead being the biggest text was the reason behind them buying it. The majority of people said it they did not take bother from overlapping. Comparing this to my pre-release questionnaire, I can see that I have pleased the people and met most of their needs in a magazine cover. Apart from a few things (e.g. lack of eye candy) I feel I have successfully used their first comment on the pre-magazine questionnaire to my advantage.

Poster

Like the other media products, I had to conduct market research so I could get my project as authentic possible. I firstly asked what they feel are the conventions of posters (in general not just thrillers). Having already done some research into it myself, it was pleasing to know that nearly all the conventions I found they mentioned, however they helped me by adding certificate and sound logos which I had missed in my analysis. This is an example where the audience helped me figure out something I had missed and if it was not for them, these results could have been very different. When asked if I had used these conventions well, 91.1% said ‘Yes’, 6.7% said ‘Sometimes and only 2.2% of the people said ‘No’. I am very happy with this result as it shows nearly everyone felt I used the conventions.

I then asked the same question, but only talking about thriller posters. These included things like tagline addressing the audience or canted framing.  When asked if I did well in achieving these conventions in my poster, 88.9% said ‘Yes’, 7.9% said ‘Sometimes’ and only 4% said ‘No’. From this I knew that I had used the conventions of a thriller poster well.