In order to ensure I was categorising my audience effectively I researched into

the Pearl and Dean Website to get some examples of how a professional
regulatory body works and take inspiration. Pearl and Dean have been
categorising audiences for film advertisements since the 1920s and continue
to successfully profile audiences for a range of cinema viewings.
There are many ways Pearl and Dean profile their audiences. One way they
define their audiences is through age groups. A film trailer released before a
feature film in the cinema must have been regulated for the age class of the
film being shown. This means that if the cinema audience have paid to watch a
feature film rated 12A, all trailers shown before the film must comply with the
appropriate conventions of a 12A film. If trailers do not comply with these
regulations they will be refused for viewing and have to target a more
appropriate feature film to advertise their product with. This is logical as the
audience of a 12A feature film would be disturbed by the content of a trailer for
a film rated 18. As a result age has become a significant factor in defining
audiences as the age of my target audience can limit the content I am hoping
to produce. It can also limit representations, themes, language and narrative.

Another way in which Pearl and Dean categorise their

audiences would be through gender. They offer both a
GAP targeting Males and another targeting females. This
means that a producing institution could be assured that
their feature will be shown to a majority male or female
audience. As a result a producing institution can be
reassured that their trailer is being shown to their targeted
audience and therefore making it more likely that they
achieve increased viewing numbers.

I also found that Pearl and Dean offer a Family Focus package for
institutions looking to promote their films. This package would
guarantee that their trailers are shown to family audiences and
therefore categorised through lifestyle. This discovery interested me as
familys are harder to define individually considering the stereotypical
preferences of each family member. Categorising them all under one
group therefore means that content appealing to parents is quite limited
due to the presence of their children. For my own production however I
am not looking at targeting family audiences but rather individuals like
University/Apprenticeship leavers going into the world of work.