Audience Research

Quantitative Research

Firstly, I decided to undertake some quantitative research. Quantitative research is when a producer asks for people's opinions in a organised manner and uses them to produce hard facts and statistics to guide them. However, to ensure the results from the survey are reliable, it's important to survey people in a large number to ensure they are representative sample of the target market.

Taking this advice, I decided to conduct a survey into the general public to begin with. I constructed the questions in a specific way so I could retrieve the information I needed. I also made the survey completely anonymous so no biased opinions could be given.

To begin with, I asked participants for their age and gender. As you can see, this has given me a better idea of the fact that there is a slight off-balance between males and females, but there was at least 8 of both who took part. It has also revealed that around 80% of the participants were between the age of 11-19, which is roughly the age range I am hoping to target with my video. This should give me a general overview of the opinions and interests of my audience.

For my next questions, I decided to ask some questions to distinguish both the demographics and geodemographics of my audience. Firstly, I asked participants about their general occupation. From this question I discovered that around 23% of them were still of school age and in primary/secondary education, and that 57% of them were in further education. This informs me that the opinions given in this survey will be from members of the audience I am hoping to target. As you can see from the varied responses received in my survey, my audience reside in various parts of the country. This means that I will have to take any social and economical factors from these locations into consideration. However, I'm not sure this will affect my project in any way as the cause is Nationwide nonetheless.

For my next question, I decided to ask my audience more about their personal interests. As you can see, there is a pretty even balance between all of the interests stated, however some are more prominent than others. The two most popular answers, TV & Film and Reading come in at around 80% each. This is promising for me as I am clearly creating a film about reading. This data has told me that I am targeting the correct range of people. It also displays that my audience do also have a wide range of other interests. I will utmost focus on reading whilst creating content for my video, however will also try and cater to other interests of my audience and include them in my video in some way.











For my next questions, I tested the participant's knowledge of World Book Day. 95% of participants were familiar with World Book Day, which is promising. It also means that I won't have to go into too much depth in terms of describing the background of the cause.










Next I asked if the audience was aware of the values and issues that World Book Day as a cause promotes. As you can see, there is a pretty even balance between yes and no. However, there are slightly more 'no' responses. From this I have learnt that in my video I should try and include some information on these values to inform the audience of what they are and why.

Next, I asked participants if they thought that video was an effective platform for promoting causes. 100% of them agreed, which goes to show that I am targeting the correct audience for the form of media I am creating.

Next, I asked participants if they thought a video to promote World book Day would be effective. 100% of them agreed that it would be, which is helpful as it means the my audience feel that my method of promotion is a suitable way of doing so. I was also given some advice on what they would like the whole aesthetic and visual quality of the video to look like.







From this quantitative research I have learnt a number of things -

• The participants of my audience were generally around the age of the audience I'm hoping to target - this means that the opinions expressed in the survey have given me a representative example of those of my target audience. 
• Participants are from a diverse range of backgrounds, working and education statuses which is another contributing factor to my representative example of my audience.
• My audience have a vast range of interests - mostly reading and film however, which is helpful as it means they should be interested and engaged in my video.
• My audience are familiar with World Book Day as a cause, but are however slightly unfamiliar with the values and issues it promotes. This has given me a basis to work on, and also hinted at the content I should try and include in my video to satisfy the needs of my audience.
• My audience believe that video is an effective platform to outreach to them. 
• Some of the visual qualities and aesthetic techniques they would like to see used in the video.

Qualitative Research

I then decided to undertake some qualitative research. Qualitative research investigates the concept of meaning, it's embedding in and orientation of social actions. It's the connection between meaning and action, that tells us how we are, how we think and act in a realistic context. 

As part of my survey,  I asked participants some more in depth questions to get a better insight into their thoughts. The ability to ask them more specific open questions which would give my closed questions more depth and the reason why participants gave the answers they did. 

For example:

These are answers to a question I asked regarding "Do you think using a video to promote World Book Day would be effective?" 

These are the answers to a question I asked regarding "What do you think the visual aesthetic/feel of a World Book Day video should be?"

As you can see, by using some open questions within my survey as well as closed ones, I managed to get more of an insight into my audience's personal opinions and attitudes rather than just 'Yes/No' from my quantitative research. The use of two types of questions really enhanced my survey and used both qualitative and quantitative research effectually.