The big event movies are generally aimed at teenagers. Many adults are willing to watch movies, yet Hollywood rarely puts effort into serious films for older folks. We might suspect that there’s simply less of an audience for more serious filmmaking, but The Hollywood Economist has a different explanation: food. Teenagers eat more food.
In others words, the adults who are going to see Scoop actually enjoy watching the movie, so they stay in their seats. The teenagers watching Snakes on a Plane, quite the other way, grow bored with the movie and return to the lobby to buy candy, popcorn, and soda. Hence if the two theatres seat the same number of customers, there’s still far more profit in the teen movie.
Similar things play out in other forms of entertainment. On television, ratings are broken down by demographic, and advertisers will pay far more for a younger audience. Shows like Charmed can make more money than The Practice, even when the latter has a larger audience. It’s not a difference in spending money, since the average adult has more to spend than the average teen. It’s rather a difference in intelligence; the teen is more likely to be swayed by a thirty-second ad, or so the advertisers believe.
This phenomenon has also played out in FM radio. Recently we’ve seen a decline in classic rock and oldies stations across the country. In their place, we get modern rock, hip hop, and top 40 stations. Again it’s the advertisers driving the change; they want the gullible fools.
So in all cases, the demographic that’s smarter gets screwed because they’re smarter. If your group has brains, people can’t make money off you. It’s therefore not profitable to make media items aimed at you. Stupid demographics are more likely to get what they want.
I disagree. I think what the article is saying (and what I agree with) is that teenagers are more likely to buy food and drink before going in to see the film, rather than getting bored halfway through and going to get something. If a teenager is bored with the film, then we’re more likely to just leave and not come back at all.
I agree, but I don’t think it’s a case of stupidity, but lack of confidence, something most teenagers suffer from. Adverts for the cool clothes, hair products, etc are much more likely to be followed by kids because they’re more likely to think they need those things as they aren’t “good enough” on their own.
No, they want the money. What’s the point in advertising classic rock and oldies, when the people who you’re targeting them at likely already bought them years ago? That’s why the only widespread adverts for older music is in compilation albums or “greatest hits”; things the older listeners might not have. On the other hand, newer music hasn’t been bought yet, if that makes sense. There’s a larger scope for profitiability. Not something to do with teenagers being especially gullible, at least not to the scale you’re suggesting.
You’re missing the point of advertising; it’s about telling people what they want, not giving them what they want. “Stupid” demographics are more likely to get advertised at, because they’re easier to convince that they need the product in question. Stupid demographics are more likely to get whatever it is that is advertised well, not what they want.
That hasn’t been true for about a quarter century. The big marketing revolution of the early 1980s was the idea that instead of trying to convince people that they should want to buy what you make, you should make what they want to buy.
Anyway, this book may be of interest to the OP. Mass distribution channels aren’t the only option nowadays.
I think big event movies are aimed at teenagers and young adults because they’re more likely to go see movies than older adults. Anecdotal evidence ahead. I’m only 30 and I see far fewer movies on a yearly basis then I did when I was 25, 20, or 15. It wasn’t a big deal to spend 3+ hours at the theater when I was 15 but now I’ve got other things I have to do. When a blockbuster comes out who is more likely to go see it multiple times? Jack from accounting who has a wife and kid or Jerry the college student who has few responsibilities aside from school?
More anecdotal evidence on my part. I buy far less food from the theater now then I did when I was a teen. As a teen I would buy some popcorn, a drink, and maybe some candy before planting my ass in the seat to watch the flick. Typcially I didn’t get up during the movie to get food or go to the restroom. Now, when I do go to the movies, I never buy drinks or popcorn because they’re obscenely overpriced. I don’t know if teens are more likely to buy popcorn out of boredom for a movie.
Because young people aren’t exactly set in their ways. I admit to being influenced by advertisers but in some areas I’m pretty set in my ways and won’t be changing my mind any time soon. I don’t care how often you flash Pepsi in my face there’s no way you’re going to get me to drink that swill. Since I already like Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola and will enjoy drinking them any advertisement spent on me is wasted.
Yes, that happened here in Little Rock a few years back, but it might not have happened if those classic rock stations would have actually played something different from time to time. I don’t expect anything “new” but they hardly ever changed their play list.
It’s a combination of the two. Certainly the idea is to start off with a good or useful product, but there’s still a very big emphasis on trying to convince people that they want or even need it. Plus “what people want to buy” is very vague; teenagers want to buy mp3 players, for example, but do they just buy any old player? They’re much more likely to buy an iPod. Advertising has moved from “you should buy this product!” to “you should buy our version of this product!”.
That’s where the big shift was. Instead of coming up with a product out of a vacuum and trying to sell it, companies moved towards using market research to design their products. I can’t find a good reference, but the introduction section of this page gives a little bit of information.
I should have made clear that I’m not talking about the advertising of the media items. In the TV and radio cases, it’s the advertising during the shows and programs that makes the difference. If the people who sell cheeseburgers, jeans, and gadgets think that it’s easier to lead a teenager than an adult, they’ll stick their ads in shows that skew towards teens. Thus the studios are pressured towards teen shows, with the end result that almost nobody makes TV shows for adults.
Fair enough. I still think though that merely having a product that people want doesn’t mean that trying to make people want that product (over all the other similar ones) is forgotten; quite the opposite.
Meh. This is just another version of the “irrational markets” thread you started recently. What’s good, from a consumer’s standpoint, is to be part of a big demographic that is willing to part with its money. Taste in art and entertainment is just that-- taste. No one is getting “screwed”, since the market isn’t there to create any specific product for any specific group. If you don’t like the movies being offered, and you think there is a market for different ones, then start a company to make them or invest in a company that does.
Hollywood and theater owners are so missing the mark on this one. I know where they are overlooking some bucks. They are the stupid demographic!
The crowd that has the money and the spare time and the desire to go to afternoon matinees all the time are the old biddies like myself who have retired but haven’t lost their driving abilities.
We go to see everything that is out! What choice did I have for my 63rd birthday? It was either Superman or Cars. Damn it! And the theater had other women of similar age sitting there generally bored. We had already seen The Devil Wears Prada and anything else of interest.
Women my age would like more movies about women. Real women. And we would like more movies about middle-aged people and older people. Or at least have them present in the movie. There is a fairly large crowd of aging Boomers out there. At least give us some matinees. We love suspense! Mystery! Humor! We like to laugh at ourselves!
But sell us box lunches, for crying out loud! How about a buttered roll, a small quiche, cheese, some stuffed celery, some smoked almonds and a cookie? I don’t mind paying more for that.
In the short term you are stuck with (effectively) stock that you want to shift, well you’ve got to, otherwise you are dead, in the long term you want to make what people want.
That turned up a bit earlier than the 1980’s
I’m looking at a 1979 edition of ‘Marketing Made Simple’
it was first published in 1972
Actually it is an astonishingly good book and should be compulsory reading for anyone remotely connected with the ‘discipline’, even if they just read the few pages describing where marketing came from - and why.
When I got into the main stream of the industry (I started in ‘Below the Line’), I was staggered how few people knew the basic principles, sure they were full of buzzwords and jargon, but they had no idea of when, where and why.
As for ‘how’ … one could weep.
I had a very interesting time sorting out something that everyone else had regarded as a dying product - effectively showing supposed ‘grandmothers’ how to suck eggs. Ludicrously one of my less talented colleagues went on to teach the subject.
I would be very interested if anyone knows the potted history of Marketing, it is quite an eye opener.
Uh, excuse me, but isn’t the title of your OP really disingenuous?
You call it the “stupid” demographic, but then:
Some other posters brought up vulnerability to peer pressure and whatnot, but you, on the other hand, basically just said “teenagers are stupid while adults are smart”. I think I’ve seen enough examples of smart teenagers and stupid adults just on this board that disproves that point.
You just come across as some bitter 40 something who’s mad that he’s not in the target audience for much anymore since he has a lot more responsibilities and has more financial concerns (and so a lower percentage of his income goes towards frivolity, compared to a teenager or young adult).
For some reason, I would think that this isn’t necessarily true. I certainly don’t have a cite, so disregard me as necessay, but I’d imagine that there are just as many Top 40 stations (in sum— from everything from rap to rock) as there were way back when. The only difference is that “classic rock” is now the music from the 60s, 70s, and even 80s (in some cases)- music that used to be played on the Top 40s. Same goes for the oldies.
Not exactly. Beginning in the 80s, more and more stations that had been following the Boomers until the Boomers began entering middle age decided to go back to the (squishier and less interesting) music from when the Boomers had been teens. Thus “soft rock” was introduced to the radio. As the Boomers continued to age (and as Clear Channel began to buy increasingly larger shares of every major market and insist on playing the same stuff from every station), “soft rock” was re-marketed as nostalgia radio with the name “classic rock.”
The claim to which you were responding (leaving off the silly denigration of groups of people by age) has some basis in fact as “Top 40” stations have actually begun playing music that is in the current Top 40, rather than the Top 40 of 1973 or 1962.
It is still a pretty sad affair for a listener. Everything is based on niche marketing where a station plays only one variety of music, reinforcing the limited attention spans of whichever group they happen to be trying to capture, but at least kids are getting a chance to hear their own music on three or four stations instead of on one station per city.
(“Classic rock” has always been a joke, anyway. If I were to compile a party tape (dating myself, here, of course) of hits I considered classic, I doubt that I would hear more than a handful of those same hits on “classic rock” stations. Anything that sounded edgy, anything with a beat, any of the old protest songs, and anything with drug references have all been banished from “classic rock” stations with maybe one song by the Lynyrd Skynyrd* or the Rolling Stones per day and the Doors or Jefferson Airplane reserved for monthly airplay, while ballads and pop are out swamping the airwaves.)
Pretty much always Sweet home Alabama with Free Bird reserved for “special” occasions and any of their album stuff lost in the station basement.
Well, I’m in my 30s so we’re pretty much used to not being the target demographic, being split between self indulgent Baby Boomers and vacuous Millennials as we are.
As you get older, one tends to realize just how stupid most pop culture is. Most of it is just manipulations by corporate America to sell people crap they don’t need. And it’s the same for every generation. “Oh that music really SPEAKS to me!” Great. I’m sure some record exec at Sony will be happy to hear that.
The science of demographic purchasing response is a fairly mature discipline. The larger the company, the easier the decision becomes. We try this ad campaign. No increase in sales. We drop it, and try another. Still no increase. Drop that one too. Start a third. Sales rise. Design a fourth much like the third. Sales increase yet again.
Micro campaigns in small areas, foreign comaigns in other markets. It’s not a conscious search for stupidity, or trend following. It is a straight forward empirical feedback system, and it is calculated in dollars.
Yes, but the reason this occurs is not because teenagers are “dumber”, it’s because their taste preferences haven’t fixed and they are more likely to try different brands of the same item than an adult. So you aim your advertising to those people willing to try your product and perhaps develop a long-term preference for it, you don’t aim your advertising to convince people to give up decades-old habits.
I’m 39. All of my food preferences, my clothing styles, the types of books I read and the music I listen to, all of that is pretty much “fixed” - You might invent the greatest peanut butter in the world, but I’m never going to even bother trying it at the expense of my Jif Creamy. Why bother advertising to me? It’s a complete waste of time and money: I’ve pretty much figured out what do I like and I don’t need advertising anymore to expose me to things I might like - I can do the research myself.