How Film Openings Attract Audiences

Film openings attract audiences through the use of generic conventions that most of the audience would expect to see in the opening, and through some creativity, editing, sound and the aesthetics.

Producers like to classify audiences to make it easier to advertise to them. Demographic grouping can be used to classify people due to their income.

There are several groupings from A (being the top jobs) down to E (for the unemployed). Here is an example of the demographic groupings;

A - The top management position, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
B - Middle management, teachers and some creative jobs such as graphic designers
C1 - Office supervisors, junior managers and nurses
C2 - Skilled workers and trades-persons (White collar workers)
D - Semi-skilled and un-skilled manual workers (Blue collar workers)
E - Unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers

Although the use of categorising people is good as you know what each group is, it has become unfashionable to arrange people in this way. Therefore the media had to start thinking of audiences in other ways.

These next ways of classifying people are psychographical. Psychographics essentially segments a market, for marketing purposes, by classifying potential customers by their attitudes and values. It is an alternative to classification by social grade.

Mainstreamers

They make up 40% of the population and are the largest segment. They like the security, are concerned with stability and typically buy recognised brands and labels and consume mainstream texts.

Aspirers

Aspirers tend to seek to improve themselves. They tend to define themselves by the high status brand names which they own and consume. They want status and esteem of others and they like status symbols such as designer labels. They also tend to live off of cash and credit.

Reformers

Define themselves by their self-esteem. They actively consume environmentally friendly products and buy brands that are environmentally supportive (even though they can be quite expensive). They are generally caring and responsible.

Succeeders

These are people who already have status and control and feel secure. They tend to generally be in a position of power. They buy brands that reinforce their feelings of control and power.

Producers use these groups to identify which one they are going to target and therefore they can then create an opening sequence that is pinpointed at that specific audience and accommodate what the audience want.