For local cinemas a ‘Friends’ scheme may offer useful benefits for both the cinema (loyalty) and the customer (discounts and special events).
Planning a cinema development, like any other leisure or retail development, involves estimation of the catchment area that the new cinema will serve and from which it can expect to draw audiences. The most common way of defining a cinema’s catchment is a drive-time boundary (based on the fact that the majority of people use cars to get to the cinema). The boundary takes into account the type and quality of road links as well as distance. If public transport is particularly important then a ‘travel time’ boundary is more appropriate.
Typically, several catchments are examined at the planning stage for a new cinema – for example a 10 or 15-minute inner catchment where the majority of the regular cinemagoers live, and a 20 or 30-minute outer catchment where infrequent cinemagoers live. In order to obtain a good understanding of the potential audience for a new cinema it is usually worth looking at these catchments independently. Other relevant catchment boundaries can be derived from travel to work data and from retail catchment information.
Demographic and lifestyle data
A wide range of population, economic and lifestyle data is available from local authorities, fromNational Statistics, and from commercial companies such asCACI LtdandExperian. Much of this data can be analysed at ward or postcode sector level that allows a detailed picture of the population’s characteristics to be established. Google searches can also lead to very useful, and invariably free, data.
A popular scheme such asCACI’s ACORN geo-demographic systemclassifies neighbourhoods into six categories, subdivided into 17 groups and 54 types. Each category has established consumer, lifestyle and economic behaviour patterns and these can be used to investigate the potential strength of cinema going in any defined catchment. Cinema going is generally more popular with prosperous and educated audiences, ACORN categories B and C being particularly important. However the audience characteristics for individual films vary widely and demographic analysis should be treated with caution.
The demographic characteristics for specialist cinema audiences differ in important respects from commercial cinemas audiences. Thereare a noticeably higher proportion of people in education or with higher educational qualifications. Older audiences tend to predominate but teenage audiences (14-20 years) rarely attend.
In addition to assessing potential audience through demographic data, market researchers have increasingly used psychographic research as a tool for understanding audiences. Where demographic data looks at purely social classifications, psychographics looks at broadly psychological factors that impel audiences to respond to certain kinds of offer – key factors such as values, attitudes, personality, interests, lifestyle.
The diversity represented by specialised cinema in particular, has been seen increasingly as a lifestyle choice for a range of audiences with shared values and attitudes, rather than simply a cultural choice for a particular social class.
Market research companies such asMinteland theKantar Media, Customproduce regular reports on audience characteristics and cinema-going behaviour. (SeeAppendix 4 for a list of market research resources). If public funding is sought for a new cinema project – refurbishment, conversion or new build – it is likely that a competent analysis of the relevant catchment population will be required.Arts Council Englandmakes demographic and lifestyle information available to Arts Lottery supported projects, or contact theCreative Scotland, theArts Council of Wales, and theArts Council of Northern Irelandas appropriate.
Field research
Apart from conducting desk research (i.e. gathering data from existing published sources) as outlined above in the sectionDemographic and lifestyle data, you may be required to conduct research specific to your audience or potential audience. For example, you might wish to test out your ideas by asking local residents what they think (consultation) or to test your assumptions about cinema going habits of your actual audience.
There are a number of ways of doing this – focus groups or questionnaires administered online, by post, telephone or in person. Social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook are increasingly being used to conduct market research. A detailed discussion of research methodologies, quantitative analysis and questionnaire design is beyond the scope of this guide. For anything large scale, it is probably best to appoint a professional market research company. Field research can be a minefield in terms of establishing meaningful data. However, for small-scale projects (consultation, focus groups etc.) the ‘DIY’ approach may be adequate.
Audience development
Of course, you may confound received wisdom and expectation by attracting pensioners toStar Warsand 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.
There is absolutely no reason why any audience segment should not enjoy any film. The fact that a certain type of audience tends not to attend foreign language films for example and conform to type could be seen as an immense marketing challenge. Filmmakers and marketers are becoming increasingly savvy at blurring traditional boundaries and appealing to broader audiences through both film content and marketing. However, you will stillhave 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
Summary of key points from Chapter 4
- Different types of film appeal to different types of audience
- You need to identify an appropriate catchment area for your cinema and then find out everything you can about who lives there
- There are lots of published data available about UK populations, their lifestyle and demographics
- Research suggests that lifestage and attitude may provide a more useful way of categorising audiences than simply using age bands
- If you need to conduct field research, employ a professional or keep it very simple
- If you want to change an audience’s viewing habits you will need to employ audience development strategies – this can be an expensive marketing tool and the results are often hard to quantify
