Audiences and Institutions: The Woman in Black

Primary target audience:
Those who enjoy films of the horror genre. In particular those who enjoy the supernatural kind, as this film is based on ghosts and supernatural activities (shown through their marketing campaign).The primary audience are the ones who are most likely to see the film and those it is most aimed at.


Secondary audience:
This is a nieche audience who the film may also appeal to. The secondary audience for the woman in black is for people who are a fan of Daniel Radcliffe as well as those who enjoyed Harry Potter. This intention of theirs is shown through their focus of him within their advertisement as well as his own attempts of promoting the film.





The woman in black was marketed in a strategic way so that sales are maximised and the movie had the best chance for high publicity. The marketing for this film consisted varied greatly due to the large target audience; there was the teaser campaign, the main campaign, the online marketing, the social marketing and the merchandise. In the woman in black teaser trailer- we learn a bit about the setting, and the fact it’s in an old house, in an past era, which helps to set the scene. We also learn that Daniel Radcliffe plays the main character, as he is the main focus of the teaser trailer. They also had adverts, trailers, posters, articles, social networking and radio which allowed their advertisement to reach a great variety of people that may be interested in different multimedia products. The use of social networking was used on a large scale because they know the age range of Harry Potter fans (teenagers) use it greatly. Danielle Radcliffe himself was very on board with the marketing of this film, with him personally tweeting and Facebooking about the film, and doing many interviews and online videos about the film.








I believe that the marketing of is critical for the success of a film. If the marketing is on a large and aimed at the appropriate audience then it will reach those who are interested and then encourage them in. Marketing helps to get a film talked about as well as creating a positive buzz before the film is even released. The woman in black was marketed on a huge scale with many methods being used to reach as many potential viewers as possible. Overall, I believe the way the woman in black was marketed played a very large part in the scale of its success as they had much coverage and many people ready and willing to go at see it.


The release of the film was on a large scale with the film being shown in 2,855 screens in America in its opening weekend. Earning $20,874,072 and 412 screens in the UK earning £3,153,020.







The budget for the woman in black was 15 million USD. The box office trends show that the woman in black was a high budget film. However, due to the large scale of the marketing this increased the budget further. The weekend that the film was first shown, it made $54,322,273 which is already close to creating a profit. The worldwide gross resulted in around $4128956290, which shows the large extent to how profitable this film as well as the overall success.

I believe the film was successful due to the large extent of marketing, in particular the fact it had incredible support from Daniele Radcliffe as he took a personal approach to the marketing and allowing the marketing campaign to use him on their different approached. Another reason for the success of the film, is the fact that it is based on a popular book that people may have read and then want to watch the film. It is also a west end production that may have influenced a higher class of people to watch the film.