I went to a really interesting summit from Film Vic about audiences which was pretty unique as it hasn’t really been discussed in such a way before. Usually media producers just talk projects we want to do. at yum we often talk audiences to our clients but don’t often get the chance to talk about audience s to our peers.
Prior to the forum Film Vic commissioned a report and you can request a copy from them and they have a fabulous resources page so check out the Film Vic website with all manner of info – and as they say info is power…
here is a precis of stuff I learnt day one…
Mark McCrindle 7 Trends redefining Australian Audiences:
- Booming – we have doubled our population from 11mill to 22mill since 1963 due to baby boom of 2007 and migration boom
- Changing – smaller households, median age increasing (35-40), people living and working longer
- Generations – global generations of digital natives (if FB was a country it would be 3rd largest)
- New Lifestages – understanding the nuances of each – kids|tweens|teens|kippers|adults|elders
- Infuences – watching what we want when we want & how we want, from tradition to innovation; reputation to recommendation; sit & listen to try & see; long-term to short-term; content to process; authority to authenticity
- Post-Structural – flat structures and sharing leadership and convergence
- Post-Rational – we are connecting via emotion, the visual, the feel, the vibe
So the overwhelming message was – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, you can’t afford not to, with so much content out there you need to narrowcast for sure….
Dan Gregory from Kindred and The Gruen Transfer…. hilarious presentation, I love this guy
his quote for the session? Experience is something you get just after you need it… he talked about marketing being about engagement…
- Accessible – audiences are harder to reach (water cooler conversations now happen in real time), need to create ‘pull’ and gravity, don’t compete where you can’t, go around the outside eg Nando’s billboard of four different coloured chickens with title “we’re all the same in the inside” placed opposite Pauline Hanson’s electorate office – created huge media buzz that they couldn’t afford as bought advertising
- Unique – audience exist now in multiple demographics, geographics and psychological profiling, the tribes we belong to, we can (read should?) offend people
- Identifiable – we can identify the others in our tribe, it’s what we want to believe about ourselves eg Nike stopped talking about shoes and starting talking about champion… (god love ’em)
- Emotional – every decision is based on how it makes us feel eg TAC ads (blood gore and death aimed at young men who think they are invincible) versus speeding ridicule ads (speedy drivers ridiculed by young women and men as having small dicks) apparently way more effective)
- Numerous – don’t confuse numbers with dollars eg movie poster for film that wanted to engage an intellectual audience, the poster looked like a magazine article – VERY different from classic movie posters with large image…
- Connected – be more open about what motivates people and get people to evangelise on your behalf eg ‘mother’ drink that was initially a dud, was reworked and re-advertised in a campaign that had original creators being beaten up by a swat squad from the new drink – honest, open and used graphics that connected with their audience (graffiti, action and graphic novel style). the ad was then banned, so they reproduced it as stick figures which got through the censors…
- Engaged – predictability is great but we still like to be surprised eg ads for apples usually talk about how good apples are for you. there is an example of a new one which featured doctors saying DON’T eat an apple a day because they liked to keep the money rolling in…. surprising reworking of an old common truth
- Sold – we need to comfortable with marketing and can leverage off the aussie brand – a challenger, bit smartarse eg brand NZ is well known
The message? KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, surprise them and tap into their motivations and vanity to be identified with their tribe…
Apparently Australian production are overwhelmingly in the drama genre (survey said its sitting about 45%) however audience surveys list drama as 9% of what we are viewing (its a bit more complicated than that obviously – and you can’t quote me on any figures…
Then final speaker for the day was Jane Espenson writer from Buffy and other shows – she talked about writing (obviously) and her major message was to BE AUTHENTIC, lay clear the soul and recognise yourself in the writing. She said the desk drawer plus time equals wisdom. I’d have to agree, it takes me some time to complete an edit after a shoot, but as a friend said you have to take the time to fall in love with it again…
All in all it was a great day and would have loved to stay for the second day but the Grand Final parade called me away…. and then it was on for young and old…
Cheers Erin
Interesting thoughts – have we become more creative as a nation? Or does the increasingly ubiquity of connected spaces reflect our hunger to consume the creativity of others?