Target Audience Profile

Today me and Sophie Tindall wrote out our Target Audience Profile. This is here on our group blog. The purpose of doing this was to work out who exactly we are aiming our soap opera at and where we have gained our influences from, namely Hollyoaks and Eastenders. We also looked into what social classes we're targeting, using both LifeMatrix and Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers. From this, we could work out whether our characters and story lines were suitable or whether we were targeting the wrong social groups. We also looked briefly into the kind of theories that tend to apply to soap operas, in particular the Hyperdermic Needle Theory.

Soap Opera Brief

Our new Soap Opera is based around a residential street in a village in Essex, following the lives of new family in town, The Hall's. Little do they know that by moving in, they'll be drawn right into the center of the local scandals, and with teenagers Deano and Courtney around, these are only going to escalate!

Our initial cast of characters comply with the stereotypical Essex characteristics; the father of sixteen year old Dannielle's baby is still unknown, and the subject of much gossip in the local pub St Annes, whereas cheeky chappy Aaron is hiding a big secret from everyone...

Family is the main focus in everyday life, and inevitably therefore is the root of most issues. Family loyalty is key, with Helen regulaly reminding her brood that "We're all we've got!" Being a single mother, her children are sometimes a little on the wild side, but tend to mean well. Our soap is to be shown three times a week in order to give away just enough butto keep the audience always wanting just that bit more.

With such a wide range of fiesty characters, can peace be kept or will all hell break loose?

Initial Ideas

We sat down as a group yesterday and started discussing the basic ideas we had for our soap operas. This included the overall storylines for the first two episodes and planning how we wanted our trailer to look. We also had to decide what kind of soap opera we wanted to make, be it inspired by things like Eastenders, Coronation Street or Hollyoaks. We decided that, due to our geographical location, that our soap will be based on a street in Essex and we will try to make it appeal to a younger audience. Because of this, we will have to use characters that appeal to our target audience.
The main characters we are thinking of introducing in the trailer are a



newly-wed couple (Eastenders)http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/east4802.jpg



A loud and likable family (Coronation street)http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01015/SNF3126B-682_1015577a.jpg



A teenage mum (Hollyoaks)http://www.virginmedia.com/images/slide-12-amy-barnes.jpg


A homosexual couple (Hollyoaks)


And a "jack the lad" character.



We're doing this because these characters follow many typical conventions of soap operas and are popular types of characters, so are likely to draw in audiences. However, we will aim to ensure that our soap opera does have something different about it, so it's not just the same as every other soap opera around.

I also created a mind map to outline our early ideas, which can be found here on the group blog.

Questionnaire results

After carrying out my questionnaire, I collected and analysed my results in order to find out what it was that attracts an audience to a soap opera and also to see who actually is watching these programs. These are my results.

Question 1 is regarding the length of story lines people prefer. Exactly half of the people who took the survey declared that they enjoyed story lines that last several months whereas the other half stated that they did not like this. In regards to my own soap opera, I would make sure that I never used just long story lines, nor short ones.

Question 2 is about the type of character that people most look forward to seeing in a soap opera. The most popular character was the arrogant/confident one, with 37.5% agreeing with this, followed by someone who is likable, amusing and funny both of which gained 25% of the votes. The least popular type of character is someone who is annoying, a character which only 12.5% of people stated to prefer. This information is in keeping with long standing soap opera characters - Eastenders Alfie Moon recently made a come back to the soap as a "cheeky chappie" who is very likable.

Question 3 considers the type of story lines people are most interested in seeing. Story lines based around relationships and which are shocking both took 37.5% of votes, with story lines that deal with current issues taking 25%. No one voted for a storyline that centres around friends or family which surprised me because of the longevity of established families in soap operas - The Mitchell family in Eastenders is very long standing, with new additions Ronnie and Roxy joining the soap in July 2007. Their popularity is obvious with the actress who plays Roxy winning the award for "Best Newcomer" at the Digital Spy Soap Awards in 2008. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxy_Mitchell)

Question 4 is about the timing of soap operas; my survey shows that over 60% of viewers would like a soap opera to be shown in the early evening, followed by 25% saying Prime Time (8pm) and 12.5% in the afternoon. Soap Opera "Hollyoaks" is shown in the early evening and has lasted since October 1995 (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Hollyoaks_start) and so proves that its viewing figures are still high.

Question 5 is about the times per week people watch a soap opera. 62.5% watch soap operas 2-3 times a week, which indicates that people prefer a soap opera which is aired frequently throughout the week as opposed to just once.

Question 6 is about whether soap opera trailers entice a viewer to watch the soap opera; interestingly 71.4% said that trailers aren't effective in making them watch the soap, which makes me wonder why. Regarding this, I would definitely aim to try and bring something new to my trailer so that it catches the audiences eye and offers them something different.

Question 7 is enquiring about what it is that attracts an audience to a soap opera. 37.5% of people said that interesting characters is what they look for in a soap. Typical characters include a 'jack-the-lad' type character, a nosy pensioner, a young teenage mum and a cheating husband. The reason I think these characters are so popular is because people can relate to their own lives; the use of verisimilitude forces them to draw comparisons or to emphasise with characters. Shocking story lines and attractive characters were next most important to those carrying out the survey. Examples of shocking story lines used in soap operas include a plane crash in Neighbours (2005) and a baby swap in Eastenders (2011)

Question 8 is about what peoples favourite soap opera is. The benefit of this question is that it gives us an insight as to which soap opera is the favourite and so we can then look into why it is so popular.

Question 9 and 10 looked into what type of audience watch soap operas. 62.5% of viewers are aged between 17 and 24, and so when making my own soap opera I will be concentrating heavily on that age group. We also found that more men than women watch soap operas, but I would still try to make a soap opera appealing to both genders.

Soap Opera Questionaire

In order to know exactly what it is about soap operas that attract people, I created and carried out a questionaire. This is a good way of me getting the opinions of my target audience, and therefore knowing what sort of things to feature in my trailer. I used the online quiz generator http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.