Audience development

Of course, you may confound received wisdom and expectation by attracting pensioners to Star Wars and teenagers to an archive presentation on land army girls. Indeed, from time to time films are released that buck the trend and have genuinely wide appeal – Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon despite being subtitled did extremely well with younger audiences and Lord of the Rings was such a ‘must see’ movie that few people missed it, regardless of their age.

There is absolutely no reason why any audience segment should not enjoy any film. The fact that they tend not to attend and conform to type could be seen as an immense marketing challenge. However, you will have to work very hard at getting people to change their viewing habits and overcome their prejudices about certain kinds of film. In order to broaden audiences, you will need to invest in audience development activity. There is a range of tools and techniques but it can be costly and the effect difficult to measure. For example, young people notoriously avoid subtitled movies. You could lure them in to a Japanese film with a free bottle of Japanese beer. But will they come back next time when there is no beer on offer?

The concept of Audience Development has become more broadly defined during the past decade, and encompasses aspects of marketing and education. The main considerations for audience development can be summed up as follows:

Audience retention

Keeping existing audiences

Added value

Enhancing the experience of audiences; providing audiences with opportunities to develop knowledge and better understanding of film

Frequency

Making existing audiences attend more often

New audiences

Bringing to the programme/venue people who haven’t attended before

Cultural diversity

Increased take-up from minority ethnic and social groups;

Expanding audience knowledge and taste through programming of a broader range of cultural forms and traditions

Social inclusion

Increasing audiences from deprived areas and communities

Rural inclusion

Increasing audiences from isolated rural areas

Geographic reach

Achieve awareness of programme/venue across a particular geographic area

Watch our video interviews...