Market Research: Movie Teaser Poster Results Analysis - Focus Group

In my focus group I had a cross section of participants from 20-60 years of age of men and women. During this discussion I raised four areas for discussion I felt would give me insight to what I would need to change and to enable me to develop alternative ideas in creating a movie poster towards a different audience I have already attempted to target. These four areas were:

Explain how this poster may or may not appeal to you.
Describe the elements of the poster you would change and how this change would make a difference.
Discuss the type of genre you feel this movie falls into.
What do you think the storyline is?

During this discussion some points were raised that I had not put forward for discussion. For instance, on participant said: “This poster gives the strong impression that it is aimed at a male teenage audience.” Another added: “Young men would do an internet search on her name [of the actress] to see who she is.”

I did discover many people in the focus group were drawn towards the image of the masked man. However, the image of the young woman in her underwear with her hands tied behind her back seemed to put women off and felt that this would cause an issue with a female audience.  A response was from a woman in her late 50s was: “Why would any woman want to see a film about young women being attacked? This is purely for male voyeurism!”

The title raised some interesting theories. A change of font and the use of different colours could suggest that the film is a “slasher horror”, one said.

A few people thought that the film could be a “werewolf film” due to the tied up woman looking up at the full moon and thought that somehow the full moon “plays a part in the story”.

The key suggestions of what could be changed on the poster were that the woman could still feature in the middle, but for the masked man to be enlarged, and centralised in the background. There was also a suggestion that there should be some eyes looking through the mask “because without the eyes it suggests a play rather than a film.”

There was a mixed opinion of whether the film was a horror, slasher or a thriller. A participant in their late 20s said; “It could be between the two – between a slasher and a thriller.” There was one person who added: “if the text was red and there was some blood then it would suggest a full horror.”

In regards to the storyline many of the female participants were in favour of the woman coming out on top at the end of the movie. The men had a different opinion: “She’ll die at the end. They always do.” But to find out what does happen – you’ll just have to watch the movie!