5) Who is the target audience and how have they been targeted in the UK?

Looking at the genre which Avatar falls into (fantasy/ adventure), the film's target audience would most likely be male teenagers and adults up to the age of around 30 as well as sci-fi enthusiasts. However, the film's huge, worldwide success shows us that it appeals to a much wider range of people.

In the UK, Avatar is rated as 12A. This means that people under the age of 12 can watch the film when accompanied by an adult, although most cinemas are lenient and let anyone in to a 12A rated film. By cutting the film so that it achieves this rating, Fox have made sure they are broadcasting to the audience as basically anyone can watch it.

Avatar has been sponsored by products such as LG Chocolate and Coke Zero. These products specifically target a younger market in the UK, especially those that would be more technologically aware. The link below is the television advert for LG Chocolate and Avatar. The advert was released in December 2009, prior and during the release of the film to gain maximum awareness as possible over it. The advert shows a young, smartly dressed man, which appeals to the main target audience of the film. It could also be said, that the young man being rather attractive, appeals to a secondary audience; women.

Reviews of the phone on the '3' website have also commented on its fit with Avatar, "when we reviewed the LG Chocolate BL40 here at http://www.3g.co.uk/ we said it was “A handsome looking multimedia powerhouse”, making it a natural for Avatar which is being billed as a breakthough in film technology." This shows evidence of cross media convergence, giving the target audience in the UK different methods of accessing the film. The Avatar iPhone app shows another example of cross media convergence with the game being available to download. The use of cross media convergence in marketing Avatar demonstrates how far digital media technology has progressed over these last couple of years.

Like the LG, Coke Zero also released a television advert, promoting the AVTR Coke cans and the film. Like LG, they have also used an attractive young male adult in the advert to appeal to the film's primary target audience, and possibly to a secondary target audience. As well as this, it also has the 3D theme of the film running through the advert. The link below leads you to the advert on youtube. In addition to the television advert, there is also an AVTR website, a Coke Zero AVTR Channel on youtube and a Coke Zero page on Facebook with a secondary Avatar page. The youtube channel and the Facebook page specifically target a younger audience, who are more technologically aware.

The premiere being held in London was also significant in targeting the UK audience. With many newspapers and magazines reporting on the event, in addition to the news stations (most notably BBC, where the premiere was reported on BBC News at 10) there was a guarentee that there would be a nationwide awareness of the film.

The unique way in which Avatar was produced accounts to much of the way it has been targeted to the UK audience. The new technology which was used to make the film 3D and create the computer generated Na'vi meant that almost everyone would be talking about it. Tabloids, broadsheets, magazines, film websites and sci-fi websites (http://www.scifi.co.uk/) would have all been talking about it, generating a maximum amount of awareness of the film in the UK. Additionally, the film being James Cameron's first in over a decade also sparked off a lot of interest and attracted those who may not necessarily enjoy a film from the fantasy/ sci-fi genre. James Cameron's name was expolited in the marketing of Avatar in the UK, attracting the fans outside of the fantasy genre, for instance romance (Titanic, True Lies).

Though the genre of the film may mean that the target audience in the UK is limited, it can be said that it appeals to many more people than was anticipated due to its success at the UK box office, where it has now grossed in excess of £32.8 million. Therefore, we could say that Avatar's UK target audience could be everyone (a broadcast), in response to its huge success in Britain. However, it can be said that they were mainly targeted through the internet and television, representing how Avatar has shown us the future technology plays in the film industry, as well as in our lives.