CINEMA EXIT POLLS

STORIES NOT STARS SELL SPECIALISED

FILMS, BFI EXIT POLLS SHOW

Is it really the plot that attracts an

audience over its stars?
A statement made by the BFI to interpret
information that they collected to help
them when marketing films. Apparently,
its the plot that attracts the audience.
However, a lot of people admit to going
to see a film because their favourite
actor/actress is in it.

Polling problems
Cinema visitors are asked four basic
questions, based on the same topics:
Age
Gender
Baits to attendance
Source of information
However, regarding what film they are
watching, the format of the questions may
change.

The above chart shows the

correlation between gender
and the genre of film. As
transparent, a majority of the
genres is fairly split between
the two genres. In reference to
the thriller genre, the ratio of
males to female is 55:45. This
may come as surprising to
most because the thriller genre
is known to be of a great
interest to males, as females
are stereotypically scared of
thriller/horror films. However, it
could be balanced because of
another element of the film. For
example, Shutter Island has
Leonardo Dicaprio to attract
women. Therefore, a
distribution company knows for
future reference to market to
both men and women, because
it is a common interest
between the genders.

These specific film statistics correlate

with the ratio between the genders
between they are reasonably similar.
However, in the top graph, it implies
that more males watch thrillers than
females. However, more females had
been to the cinema to see the thriller
we need to speak about Kevin than

The bait to attendance refers to why people want to see the film.
Common knowledge of this is because of famous
actors/actresses, word of mouth, and promotional posters.
These statistics relate to We need to talk about
Kevin. The highest attraction is the audience
being interested on the book the film is based
upon. The two polls are similar in terms of people
being interested because of the plot of the story,
it is the 2nd highest bait for we need to talk about
Kevin, and the top bait overall for specialised
films. However, being asked by a friend of partner
to go and see the film in the top table is popularly
ranked at no.5, whereas in the specific film, in the
table to the left, it only was the bait for 16%;

Source of information is how the audience actually found out about the
film.
From the statistics on the left, we can
tell that cinema trailer is the main
source of attraction, which is known
to be common by the BFI for films.
This correlates well with the above
table, as cinema trailers are also
popular to educate people of the film.
Although, in general word of mouth is
the top source, whereas for we need
to talk about Kevin it is below cinema
trailer, TV ad, websites, and news
ads. So, it does not ply as big of role
in the marketing.

Effective marketing

A theory used by many distribution

companies:
If a low budget is available, then prioritise
advertising the film in the cinemas
because this attracts a majority of the
cinema viewers.
Free previews for selected viewers would
establish a word of mouth theory.
However, some theories do not work the
same for one movie, compare to another.
So there is always a risk with marketing.

The raid is another thriller movie. The

gender roles do not follow the overall
stats because there's is a 3:1 men to
women ratio; whereas, it is reordered
at being equal. In reference to the
sources of information. As expected,
the cinema trailers attracted most of
the viewers.
However, sources such as social
media( Facebook & twitter) did not
play a great role in attracting people,
as little as 2% found out through the
medias. The lowest source was
screening programmes, as people
probably didnt know about the film
before, so they wouldnt be interested.
The genre of the film does not typically
tend to attract people. However, in
terms of The Raid, the action film
genre is the root of bait for people. The
cast does not attract the audience,
because there are no generally
recognizable names to people who are

The girl with the dragon tattoo is also a thriller

film, typically splitting the male to female ratio.
However, the figure explaining the ages of
people had been to see the film was surprising;
over 35s were selected at 62%, whereas
thrillers are usually filled by youths, or under
25s.
As usual, the book has played a main part as a
source because it was extremely popular;
Which is why the film was such a prevalent
idea. Magazine reviews were also a common
source, moreover this lead to the over 35s
being a big ratio of the audience because they
stereotypically read newspapers, whereas
youths do not. Cinema trailers are usually one
of the main sources of information, however for
this film it is high but not significant because
word of mouth has a higher percentage.
Cinema trailers may not be as important
because there are not many films released
before it came out that are similar.
Similar to We need to talk about Kevin, and
the source of information for this film, the book
is a great bait to the audience because it was
so popular and read by so many people; the

The gender ratio is similar to all the

other thriller exit polls; the
percentages are relatively even.
However, it is unlikely that the
percentages of over 25 and under 25 is
not usually similar.
Word of mouth is typically a big source
of information, so it is not surprising to
see that family and friends is a main
source. Nevertheless, the social media
sites are pretty low compared to other
films and how they market on social
media.
Being a British film does usually attract
an audience because we have a good
reputation with the media/film industry.
Ben drew being the writer and director
of the film plays a large role in bait for
the audience because he was first
known as a music artist, it was