5) How did you attract/address your audience?

We needed to really think about our target audience when considering how to attract them. Our core teenage-female were particularly taken into account, and most of the appeal in genre, characters, settings, narrative and enigma were focused towards them.

Genre

The genre we chose, chick-flick, targets a very specific girly, female audience. We are clearly putting their needs first and conform to many of the expectations. The opening sequence is very bubbly and upbeat, predominantly carried by the music, Full of Mesh. The titling is pink, and we have heavily imposed this colour in the mise-en-scene of Lauren's shots. The editing is fast-paced to keep the audience enticed, it mirrors the action on screen and the pace at which we would want the film to continue. The montage is not in real time, requiring our audience to suspend their disbelief briefly, but the reflection of what would be a normal routine allows the every day person to fill in the gaps.

Characters and their appeal

Lauren is definitely an aspirational character, and therefore this would be attractive for our audience. Although Scarlett is the 'bad-girl', she is a challenge to the recognisable 'bitchy blonde' and would therefore intrigue an audience.  

Settings & Narrative

The whole idea behind the opening sequence is very relateable for both our core audience of teenage girls, and wider audience of adult women. The morning routine is a simplistic yet effective idea, it is recognisable and memorable. The settings we chose looked warm and lived-in, we thought this was important, as it created a very homely environment for the characters to really develop. We chose to include Lauren and her friends getting on an iconic red London bus, to increase the British feel and further attract our audience.

Enigma

We ensured that our opening sequence raised questions for the audience, as this would be a main factor in them wanting to watch the rest of the film. Who are these girls? How are they related? What will become of this 'bad' girl? Why do they bump each other at the end?

We used Katz and Bulmer's Uses and Gratifications Theory to highly satisfy our chosen audience:

Information: Learn about how character traits affect what would be a normal recognisable routine

Entertainment: Upbeat girly genre, entering the private morning routine of someone else

Identification: Relatable characters, settings and events

Audience Feedback
I held a screening for our opening sequence, and invited some people along to answer a few questions afterwards. It proved to be very insightful, as I was able to see what an actual audience thought about our film from the final product we had created.

Video Summary
- Identified title, genre, themes and style easily
- Liked the way Scarlett wasn't sexualised too overtly, it was nicely subtle
- Liked the split screens and professional title animations
- Thought the target audience was younger than we had intended
- Only identified the audience as teenage girls

Things that came up that weren't intended
- They thought Zenia missed the bus, we didn't intend for this to be the case but this could be another addition to her 'bad girl' character
- They thought smoking would be a big theme in the film. After them identifying this, it seems we may have overplayed this in the opening sequence as it was only meant to be a small addition to her character.

How could we have furthered audience attraction:
- There isn't much of a plot twist to create further enigma

- We could have shown Scarlett to have more of a relateable side
- Lauren could have been a bit more flawed so she was not completely fake and unrealistic

Marketing

When deciding on our marketing plan, we decided to study Fast Girls, a Studio Canal film with a similar audience to ours. Fast girls covered both the main forms or over the line and under the line marketing.

The poster covers a lot of ground. We can see the rivalry between the two protagonists and the big, bold title and setting allows us to guess at the film's narrative. We are also introduced to some of the other characters. The reviews are prominent on the poster to further attract the audience.



The Fast girls website is quite limited. You are greeted with a trailer at the top of the page. There are two options to click, 'trailer' and 'cast'. Their website is more informative than interactive, we would want our website to be the best of both.


The Facebook page provides the interaction the the website does not. There are more trailers linked to the page, as well as pictures of the cast, posters and stills from the film. There are many wall posts from the fans talking about their enjoyment of the film, and the page also covers all the information needed about the film's release.

All the elements have a sense of synergy between them.
The same image is used throughout and therefore similar colour schemes are maintained. This makes the Fast Girls brand more recognisable and appealing to the audience  If anything, this is one feature we would want to replicate in our marketing.


We would advertise Pretty Popular with posters both in female magazines and on buses and bus stops. These posters would have a link to our website which will contain interviews and teaser clips to further audience attraction. We would also aim to base a viral campaign around the website. We would have a TV-spot trailer shown during breaks of TV programmes targeted at a similar audience. Social Media would play a heavy part in our marketing campaign due to our 16-24 audience, for example Facebook and Twitter. We would centre competitions around these pages and will hopefully build up the word of mouth.