I was given an assignment to do which was to understand how producers define audiences for their products.
Audience categories are used to profile an audience and for media producers to target their products at audiences more efficiently. there are different types of audience categories; Demographics, Psychographics, Lifestyle, Regional identity, Mainstream/Niche, Sexual orientation.
Demographics consists of 4 groups, they are: Age, gender, ethnicity and social class.
The category of age is; children, teens, adults, and older people, but they can be more specific e.g. 15-18, 20-26, 30-36. A media producer would use age to target their audience, because the producer would want to attract different ages and by doing this the producer would get an actor the same age range to the age they are targeting, for example the haribo advert contains child actors and it is aimed at children, also age is used when making games, they would look at games that they want it to be like, and look at the age rating which they can put on their games, they can give questionnaires to the age range they are focusing on, also it is good to have a barrier between age groups, e.g. you wouldn’t want a child playing an 18 rated game.
The advantages of using age is that it works really well with gender and by using age the producers could cut down to the small youth area by getting rid of the others, e.g. the producers os only focusing on teenagers 14/15. The disadvantage of this is if young children are interested in a game or anything else their parents are older and would not be interested in the same thing as the child, and children are more reliable on their parents money, so if parents do not like the things the child likes then they tend not to get them.
The category of gender is: Male and female, and is often used to find the audience for a product, because there are only two possible answers. Knowing an audiences gender would give the producer an assumption of what they would like and not the details of their personal likes and dislikes based on stereotypes, things such as terminator are aimed for men because of the action and violence, and barbie is aimed for girls. Also the producer cannot just use gender to find out what their audience likes because of many other variables they have, e.g. Barbie is aimed for girls, but if the producers didn’t find out the age range of their audience then they could be designing something for girls aged 30+. Gender profiling is best used in movies because the stereotypes of what both genders like are true, men prefer action and violent films, and females like chick flicks and romantic films, by knowing this information it would help producers with making their own products for their target audience, for example if a show is watched by more men than women then the producers can start focusing on their target audience of males by putting more things on the show that they will like. An advantage of gender is The disadvantage of gender is that if producers target one gender they may alienate the other.
Sexual orientation and Ethnicity: By designing a product for someone with their Ethnicity and Sexual orientation in mind would be risky because a lot of people can easily get offended by what the producers make. The most common way to find this is in tv shows, the producers would relate a certain character to the audience, this can sometimes be a problem as it may get someone complaining because they don’t agree with gay people and don’t want to watch them in a TV show. An example of this could be Torchwood, a big amount of their audience is homosexual, but the developers may not have aimed for them but still it would help the developers. Another example could be Family guy, because they use stereotypes when they introduce ethnic characters, and a lot of people will find it offensive. The advantage of ethnicity is that, this has created a new market for producers and producers are able to create a product for the new market. however the disadvantage is that it starts to segregate the different cultures apart because of their beliefs, also if the product is targeted towards more on one type of person can be classed as racism. The advantage of sexual orientation is that producers can use this to show that they are accepting different orientations, and the audience can relate to the show. The disadvantage of sexual orientation is that producers may do it incorrectly, by being stereotypical or they can misrepresent gay and bisexual characters, and the audience that are gay or bisexual can be offended by the show and would complain.
Social class: Someone’s status is determined by their occupation, income/wealth, education and where they live, there are three classes upper class, middle class and lower class/working class. People use this method to sell cars, and other things.
Middle class people will usually get the standard games, and higher class people will get the platinum edition games because they have more money, they could also get statues, art books and other things related to the game. The lower class people will usually go and get free games. these type of audiences will get aimed at by producers to sell products to them, but magazines/newspapers might use this method to see what they put in their products. e.g. ‘The Times’ newspaper is aimed for upper class people because of the political interests inside the paper. however the Sun is aimed at middle/working class people as the content inside relates to them. ‘Runescape’ is a good example that associates with all the classes, lower class people can play the game for free, but are limited on what they can do and where they can go. Middle class people will pay for subscription, it is a monthly fee and doesn’t cost much, they are allowed to go around the whole map and can do all the abilities. Upper class people will be able to pay to get further in the game, they would buy ‘spins’, it costs £5 for 50 spins and they would have chances of winning a lot of money that would help them level up quickly. The advantage of social class is that suitable prices can be selected based on the financial wealth of each social class. The disadvantage of using social class is that social class segregates the rich from the poor on what they can buy, it also means that the poor are not benefiting from this because they cannot afford luxurious products.
Psychometrics: Psychometrics is the personality of a person e.g. Mainstreamer: Makes up 40% of all consumers, doesn’t want to stand out from the crowd, wants trustworthy and reliable products.
Aspirers: Personal status is very important, aspires to succeed, wants smart and fashionable products, all about image and designer brands. Succeeders: Has already ‘made it’ in life, has nothing to prove, looking for comfort and can pay for it, believe that they deserve the best. Reformers: Highly influential people, well educated, quality of life comes before material wealth and are less impressed by status. Explorer/Individualist: Won’t be part of the crowd, likes to discover new things, attracted by brands that offer new experiences. This method is usually used to find out why people buy a certain product, the producers can find out their opinions and what makes the customers want to keep buying the same product. The internet would help find the producers audience because there are communities that share the same interests, marketers can see what the customers like and strategise their products to suit the customers, e.g. if someone likes band merchandise then there will be specific websites which the customers can buy the merchandise. Media producers can look at the websites and use them to put up adverts or place their products on the website. An advantage of this could be conducting surveys on the audience that the producer is trying to approach by providing questionnaires or allowing the audience to to test the game and then obtain the results/opinions of the product and the producer can then improve the item until the ideal product is made and the target audience approve it. A disadvantage of using this type of method is that the product is limited to the audience it is created for, and may not appeal to people outside of the targeted audience, also by limiting the audience the sales will not be high.
Lifestyle: Lifestyle is a very useful way of placing people for a product, this method would closely target people from their age, occupation and children. Lifestyle consists of 6 subjects: the first one is (YAKS) Young, Adventurous, Keen and Single: 18-24, no heavy financial burdens, lives with parent or rents cheaply. (EWES) Experts, With, Expensive Styles: 25-33, No children, has a mortgage and possibly married so has a double income. (BATS) Babies Add The Sparkle: this is the same as EWES but has the financial responsibilities of raising a child. (CLAMS) Carefully Looks At Most Spending: 33-44, Heavy financial burdens, a mortgage, student loans to pay off and school fees for their children. (MICE) Money Is Coming Easier: 45-55, Near the peak of their careers and earnings, children is about to move out, mortgage almost paid off. (OWLS) Older With Less Stress: 55+, Peak earnings, children moved out, mortgage is paid. The advantage of using this method is that the product is targeted at a specific audience, which can be based on what music genre the audience like, e.g. a lot of teenagers like watching mainstream music videos,. up to 40% of people enjoy mainstream music, and because of this a lot of trends spread quickly, but mostly in music videos, and the audience love music videos that have a catchy beat and a catchy dance, e.g. gangnam style, this video spread worldwide because of the catchy dance and has been watched over 2 billion times on youtube. The disadvantage of this method is that some people prefer different products in different stages in their life, also because they enjoy having one product in a point in their life, it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t like to have it in the future, e.g. a person could be a OWL and still enjoy heavy rock or electronic dance music.
Regional identity: Regional identity is the area/location that the person lives, with this information producers can find out roughly what the person’s lifestyle, culture, and status. Marketers can find out people’s habits such as going to the bus/shop every morning, The Metro would take advantage of this and would put their newspapers on the bus for the public to read, and because they know the average age/race/religion in that area they would then know what to put in the newspaper, which would appeal to most of the people. The advantage of this method is that producers can specifically target advertising to an audience’s regional area as they can use phrases from the area to their advantage, but the disadvantage would be that the audience may not agree with, or appreciate being stereotyped in their area.
Mainstream/Niche: This is a good way of basing a person on their taste for a product, the purpose of this method is to see whether the person is into the same thing as the large majority of other people (this is mainstream) or whether you enjoy other things that are more specific to certain people’s taste for a product. By doing this, the product would either have to be good for a large group of people or for the small majority of people, an example of mainstream product could be the Glastonbury festival, as a mainstream product because a lot of famous singers and rock bands play at Glastonbury. Mainstream is a combination of a lot of genres of music, this is the reason why a large majority of people are categorised in this group, compared to Niche, producers target their audience specifically on an individual’s taste in a product. This might be a screamo band which would not be in a mainstream category, This is because the majority of people who listen to mainstream music would not listen to screamo music, an example of this can be the Download festival, Download festival target’s people who listen to rock, heavy metal, etc. The advantage of this is that it is a good way of dividing people into groups, it also means that producers are able to target an audience easily for a music event. A disadvantage would be a lot of people enjoy different types of music, and when the producers show their products between the two groups, it can be incorrect because the audience may like mainstream and niche music, so people may like mainstream hip hop and Niche screamo.
What are research agencies and how might media producers use the information gathered by them?
Research companies are companies that gather primary research and then turn it the data into results as statistics which they then use to sell as secondary research to companies that want the information, the information varies from previous TV shows to how many listeners a radio station has.
Media producers would use the information as a useful tool, that would help them get an idea of how successful a show is and to see if the show has reached their goal listeners, it would also be important to see the ratings on a pilot episode, this would help determine if the producers would want to carry on making another series of the programme if the rating is high. e.g. a programme called Smash which is an american drama show that was first aired in 2013 and was aimed at 18- 50 year olds, the first pilot episode had over 11.4 million viewers, so NBC created a second season, but it was until the first episode of season 3 when the programme dropped to 2.6 million viewers, so NBC realised that smash was no longer to continue.
A lot of TV channels would use this tool to see how many views their rival channels has, for example BBC and ITV were compete for viewers with their weekly live shows, from 6:30 to 8:30 the BBC broadcasted their live programme strictly come dancing, and ITV broadcasted the X- factor from 8:00 to 9:30. Majority of the people in the UK would watch either one of the shows, BARB collected research and it shows that X-factor received 8.79 million viewers and strictly come dancing received 8.49 million viewers, the metro revealed that if X- factor ratings did not improve then Simon Cowell would of ‘pulled the plug’, but weeks later, statistics showed that X- factor had received 300,000 more viewers.
So information on a shows ratings is an important and valuable tool for a producer and is need to determine if a show is good or bad, it would also allow producers to see where they are when they are in competition against other channels.
BARB stands for Broadcasters Audience Research board, they estimate how many people watch a certain programme on television. The producers can use BARB to broadcast adverts on television about their products they are selling. Using BARB the producers can find out the most popular time people watch a channel and depending on what is on a channel at the time depends on the age/gender of the audience. e.g. if they are trying to sell a game for children then it would be good for the producers to advertise it on a children’s channel and at the time children would be watching, which can be in the morning before school or between 3-6.
Pearl and Dean (audience profiling): Everyone has their own profile, people have things in common and things different, producers research peoples profiles before they go out and sell their products. Peoples profiles would contain their Social class, Psychometrics, Regional identity, age, gender, sexual orientation, and if they fit into mainstream or niche, depending on the most common thing that the audiences have in common depends on who the producers would aim their product to. Pearl and Dean is a cinema advertising contractor and is well know throughout the UK, they represent many cinemas, they also use various audience categories to classify their audience, these include: Age, class and gender.
RAJAR stands for Radio Joint Audience Research, they measure the radio audience in the UK. Producers can use RAJAR to hep them sell their products, e.g. if the producers are selling a variety of CD’s for the alternative people then the producers would be able to find the right channel to broadcast their advertisements.
Gurjeeven Gill 