Audience Research Summation

I asked my target audience the following questions:
1. How often do you watch documentaries?
2. Are you interested in any particular genre when watching documentaries?
3. Do you have a favourite documentary?
4. Do you have any suggestions for where I could shoot some of my own footage?

These were their responses:
Sky
1. I watch documentaries maybe twice a month
2. I like true crime and missing people cases
3. Abducted in plain sight and black fish
4. Find a grimy old pub down the seafront!

James, 17
1. Quite often – I find them really interesting. They are quite intriguing with everything from it relating to real life occurrences
2. Definitely music based because I find the culture of it interesting and appealing to watch
3. Reincarnated
4. N/A

Hazel
1. Occasionally
2. Serial killer documentaries
3. Probably inside the criminal mind
4. Shots of the city/town, teenage bedroom

James, 31
1. Whenever I have any time – about a few times a month
2. Serial killer documentaries, natural disaster documentaries
3. I don’t really have a favourite – I just watch whatever I can find
4. Urban areas – maybe places in London towns

From this, I have gathered that there a wide range of consumption in terms of documentaries – ranging from weeks to months. As a result, I need to make my documentary a unique thrilling edge to catch the audience’s attention and continue to engage them. From my focus group’s range of documentary interests, I think there is running theme of documentaries depicting some kind of danger or mystery. This has given me the idea to touch on multiple crimes that occur through social media and I may even conduct experiments to show the audience just how easy it is to access dangerous content. I am hoping that this will engage the audience as their need for danger/thrill will be satisfied. Most were a bit hesitant when asked about their favourite documentary. From this, I can gather that they are not fussy in terms of which industries from which they consume. Should I fully utilise the use of cross media convergence and create a sense of brand identity, then I think the documentary will be engaging to a wide range of audiences, including my own. I believe that I need to establish a strong linear narrative, considering that serial killer documentaries were the most popular type of documentary in my focus group, which have clear and easy-to-follow narratives. I do not want to overload my audience with too much information all over the place. I want my documentary to be clear, structured and linked. It is a common theme that mature content is consumed heavily. For example, the most common documentary genre was crime/murder. Before, my pitch was originally focused around the app TikTok but I have now revised my pitch to change this. By focusing on social media sites as a whole and including specific apps that are used heavily by my target audience, I will be tending more to the audience’s wants and needs. I will utilise multiple visual and auditory codes in order to create an increased sense of realism, not to offer my audience a sense of escapism, but to offer them important information an educating them so they are more knowledgeable. Gaming was quite a heavy part of my focus group’s leisure activities, so I do not think that offering them a sense of escapism is as important as informing and educating them.