Demographics of The Conjuring's target audience

Investigate how your chosen media product reaches its intended audience:

The Conjuring when initially released on August 3rd 2013, was featured in multiplex cinemas, “A multiplex is a movie theatre complex with multiple screens, typically more than one screen within a single complex”. However was not shown in independent cinemas for example “Side Cinemas”, as these films mostly cater to the older upper class audience, as many films they show are foreign, unique and unusual films. This differs from multiplex cinemas that show a variety of films for all audiences, but they mostly show Hollywood blockbusters, which The Conjuring is, as in its first weekend of release it earned $41.5 million dollars. By it being shown in multiplex cinemas, it reached its intended audience as students are much more likely to go to a multiplex cinema such as ODEON rather than an independent one, as these types of cinemas appeal to teenagers through their teen and student ticket offers, as shown on ODEONS website (http://www.odeon.co.uk/students-and-teens/).

 It also appeals to students more as the actors in blockbusters are linked to teen pop culture so they will be interesting in the movie if it has these types of actors. By the film being shown in the cinemas, it does not reach its social class that its intended to; as shown in the statistics below the lower middle class are in between the second and third least social class to go to the cinema.

 In contrast to this, MPAA data shows females are more likely to go to the cinema than males; which is The Conjuring’s target audience; (http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/mpaa-data-shows-that-women-are-still-the-majority-of-moviegoers). The Conjuring is available on DVD from websites such as Amazon and shops such as HMV.

Its DVD sales were very successful is shown in he graph below.

However it is not available through streaming websites such as Netflix and Amazon prime or the internet, therefore in this way it does not reach its intended target audience as the highest percentage of people who watch Netflix (49%) is 18 year olds. (http://www.factbrowser.com/tags/netflix/). This also makes it not as widely accessible as some other movies, which target this age range. The Conjuring is also not accessible, as in the UK it is rated certificate 15, therefore anyone wanting to see the movie under this age is not eligible. A counter argument to this however, The conjuring was released in 57 countries these include, America, Australia, Canada, Spain and the UK, therefore is was accessible to many people all over the world and all cross sections of society; The Conjuring is a motion picture it is not available on radio stations. 

The Conjuring is advertised on Warner Bros. website which is a production company known world wide; this reaches its intended audience as Warner Bros. makes films, with a similar target audience for example “Annabelle” (2014), which also targets people from the lower middle class. Therefore people who are interested in that film may research it on the Warner Bros. Website and come across The Conjuring therefore reaching its audience. 




The trailer for The Conjuring, is available on YouTube  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k10ETZ41q5o). Which is available in 87 countries world wide with 1 billion users, this enables it to reach all cross sections or society and its intended target audience because of the vast population it is accessible to. The poster for the film, was available on public transport when it was released, for example buses and bus shelters, this means its intended target audience is met as the majority of people who use public transport, are people who are not old enough to drive (teenagers) which is one of The Conjuring’s key demographics. However this does not make it available to the lower middle class, as they are associated with owning their own vehicles so they will not use public transport. It was also available on billboards in the USA and Canada reaching the middle class as the places the billboards were, were middle class locations, such as Big Spring Texas. 

Also because of the sinister poster this made it spread online through social networking as shown in the example below, in which it has its own Facebook page. This reaches women, which is the films target audience as 76% of all social networkers are female (http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/) and 89% are in the age range bracket of 18-29, which is closely related to the films target audience. 78% of people who use Facebook in the USA earn around £79,000 yearly this makes them the middle class and the films targeted audience. The Conjuring not only had a Facebook page but a twitter page to, therefore promoting the film even further.

The Conjuring’s $20 million dollar marketing budget was also used in the following ways; they first released promotional pictures in November 2012 of stills of the characters and the sinister poster. They also released the official trailer in this month at New York comic con 2012 where cast interviews were also held. In the films marketing, conventional horror techniques were used such as “based on a true story”, in their trailers and teaser trailers, they also used real Pictures of the Perron family such as this one; the family in which the actual events centered around.