Target group research. Case: Operadagen.

Target group Resarch Oparation

Oscar Manfred

Demographics

Interviews

There are currently over 600.000 people living in Rotterdam, which makes it the second most populous city in the Netherlands (CBS, 2015). A large group of the population, 37%, are considered to be highly educated, which stands in contrast to the Dutch average, which is closer to (City of Rotterdam, 2013;Biering, 2013). The population of Rotterdam are quite young. In fact, Rotterdam is one of the few cities in Europe where the average age is actually decreasing (OECD, 2010).

To receive deeper insights regarding the target group, a few in-depth interviews were conducted. For these interviews, we picked interviewees based on the following criteria:

Rotterdam is the most culturally diverse city in the Netherlands, which is shown by the fact that nearly half of the current population are of non-Dutch origin. Out of these approximately 300.000 people, the largest ethnical groups are Surinamese, Turkish and Moroccan, composing of ~52.000, 48.000 and 42.000 people respectively.

As shown, the largest ethnical minorities are all of non-European descent (depending on whether or not one defines Turkey as Asian, European or Eurasian), but Rotterdam has quite a few minorities from other European countries as well. The most noteworthy are German and Serbian, which compose of over 9.000 people each (CBS, 2015). The multicultural composition of Rotterdamese people is further cemented by the fact that there are 80.000 expats living in the Rotterdam-Den Hague area (City of Rotterdam, 2013).

The fact that there is such a huge group of international people living and working in Rotterdam, and the fact that Operadagen has failed to reach them as of this date, shows that there is an immense opportunity to target these people. After all, there are no reason why people of non-Dutch origin would not be interested in attending cultural events such as Operadagen.

The interviewees need to:

• Be living or working in Rotterdam • Have an international background • Have a (at least moderate) cultural interest The questionnaire upon which these interviews were based (see appendix 2) is meant to give us insights as to who the people in our target group really are, and hosts questions regarding their demographic situation, their interests, their take on opera and which channels they usually get their information from.

As per standard research ethics, the interviewees identities will be held anonymous. Therefore, the interviewees will henceforth be known as interviewee1, interviewee2 and interviewee3.

Interviewee1 is currently working as a landscape architect in Rotterdam, while living outside of the city. She is 30 years old, currently in a relationship with separate housing. Interviewee2 is a 38-yearold male living within the city, currently working as a HR-manager.

He is single and living by himself in an apartment. Interviewee3 is a 27-year-old female audiovisual designer. She is single, living in Rotterdam together with a friend.

At a glance, the interviewees might seem very different. However, while they differed on many of the questions asked, they had quite a few things in common. They all believed that Rotterdam is quite unique in comparison to other big, Dutch cities. All three of the in-

terviewees stated that they feel Rotterdam is ”modern” or ”fresh”, and interviewee3 stated ”Rotterdam is, to me, a very creative place.

There is so much room for creative people here, and I love it”. All three interviewees also stated that they had a great interest in art and culture. Interviewee2 even went so far as to state that ”[he tries] to visit every minor festival or music event in town.” Regarding their values and lifestyles, the interviewees differed quite a bit in their answers. While they all stated that they are very outgoing people, always trying to find things to do in their free time, the choices of hobbies were different. Interviewee1 enjoys to travel and go clubbing, interviewee2 is mostly into music events and interviewee3 was mostly into art exhibitions.

When it comes to opera and Operadagen, the interviewees differ.

Only interviewee1 had a considerably positive approach to opera as an art from, saying how she thinks “opera is very nice”, and that she visited one recently. The other two were more hesitant. Interviewee3 saying ”I think it’s interesting, but not very exciting”, and interviewee2 going as far as to say ”[opera] seems very dull to me”.

Perhaps surprisingly, interviewee1 did not have any knowledge of Operadagen’s existence, despite her positive associations with opera. Interviewee2 and interviewee3 did, however. While interviewee2 never have visited the festival based on that ”[opera] seems so old, to me”, interviewee3 visited the festival ”two or three years ago” and thought it was ”kind of fun”.

Finally, on the matter of how the interviewees get tipped of about cultural events or festivals was unanimous. They all answered with variants of ”from friends” or ”word-of-mouth”, as well as getting invited to events on Facebook.

These interviews show what we already anticipated: that the international people of Rotterdam are basically not any different from

the Dutch population. The interviewees would properly fit in some of the current target audiences already researched by Operadagen, like the cosmopolitan, city-omnivore and post-materialist. Therefore, we conclude that the problem would not be solved by altering the marketing to fit a “international crowd”, but rather by showing the internationals (as well as the Dutch) that opera and Operadagen is way more exciting than they would assume. While it is important to make sure that the international crowd can be reached (in regards to language and channels), the problem lies more within the perception of the brand Operadagen and opera as an art form.

Lisa Schneider - 1588300 Oscar Manfred - 1685299 Raquel Palla Lorden - 1638085 Sora Woo - 1685211