Creative Media Production 2012 1

Defining an Audience

Haris Shaikh

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Defining an AudienceQuantitative Audience Research:

Quantitative research is research regarding numbers.

In the UK there is 2 major companies carrying out quantitative research relating to the print industry.

Firstly is the NRS.

Second is the ABC.

Quantitative research is useful because it allows companies to see how many people are consuming their product.

Creative Media Production 2012

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Defining an AudienceQualitative Audience Research

Qualitative research is about the audience rather than numbers. The aim of qualitative research is to get a better understanding of your audience.

There are many methods of qualitative research:

• Focus groups

• Face-to-face interviews

• Questionnaires

Creative Media Production 2012

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Profiling an AudienceSocio-economic status:

Socio-economic status is a way of measuring a family’s or individuals economic and social position in relation to others.

It is based of occupation, income and education.

It can tell you a lot about an audience.

It is useful to know as it allows you to better target your audience.

The National Readership Survey (NRS) use six categories to define readers of magazines and newspapers within the UK

Creative Media Production 2012

AS Media Studies 2009 5

Grade Social class Chief Income Earner's Occupation (% of Pop. 2008)

A upper middle class Higher managerial, administrative or professional. (4%)

B middle class Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional (23%)

C1 lower middle class Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional (29%)

C2 skilled working class Skilled manual workers (21%)

D working class Semi and unskilled manual workers (15%)

E Those at the lowest levels of subsistence

Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners and others who depend on the welfare state for their income (8%)

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Profiling an AudiencePsychographics:

Psychographics is the study of attitudes, interests, personality and values.

The primary method of information gathering for psychographics is through the use of questionnaires.

The idea behind psychographics is that if you understand what type of person is buying your product you can better suit your product to them.

Grey Advertising company were the people to develop psychographics.

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Profiling an AudienceGeodemographics:

Geodemographics is about location.

The idea behind it is that people living in the same neighbourhoods have similar lifestyles and spending tendencies.

This allows advertisers to make sure they are targeting the right kind of people.

It can highlight important information such as how much money the people in that area are likely to have.

It can also show you what kind of people are living in that particular area.

This is most useful to direct mail advertisers

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Profiling an AudienceAge:

Age is an important part of audience.

A lot of the time, people of similar ages have similar interests and disinterests.

Although this is generalization and what you are stating may not apply to everyone, they normally apply to the majority.

An example of such statements would be ‘people in their 40’s are more likely to have a secure job than people in their 20’s’

The vast majority of media products have a target age that they aim for. Different media product will have different average consumer ages.

Obviously age is a very important thing as something that appeals to a 10 year old will probably not appeal to a 60 year old.Creative Media Production 2012

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Profiling an AudienceGender:

Gender is one of the more basic ways to define an audience.

A lot of products are targeted at a specific gender.

The reason behind this is because menand women have different interests and values.

It is good for a company to know what gender their audience is so they can make a more effective piece of media.

Often products that are clearly aimed at a specific gender tend to push away the other

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Profiling an AudienceMainstream:

Mainstream is the word used to describe the majority, things like chart music and blockbuster films are mainstream.

Products that are aimed at the mainstream are targeting a large audience. It is somethingthat the majority of people will be aware of.

An example of a magazine aimed at the Mainstream market would be vogue.

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Profiling an AudienceNiche:

Niche is basically the opposite of mainstream.A niche audience is a lot smaller and very specific. A media producer may target a niche market in the hope of being able to dominate the market and capturing a large portion of it.

An example of a magazine aimed at a niche market would me mixmag. It is aimed at DJ’s and people who like Electronic Dance Music.

Creative Media Production 2012