Defining an audience

Beth Geldard

AgeAge is an important part of advertising, it verifies you on how you are going to sell the product. When targeting the audience you are basing it on the age, so you are either deciding whether it is aimed for a baby, child, Teenager and a adult. You are having to keep the audience engaged, so to do this you need to pick their interest like the right colors, language form and the type of product you are selling to them. Within the different age groups you can make a broad statement about them but it wont apply to everyone in the group but the majority of them. When brands start a project they will choose there audience but then define it more closely later. People in their 20s are most likely going to rent a home then people in their 30s will own a home. So the sellers are wanting to aim for prices that will suit them and they will be able to afford. People in their 60s are less likely to have children at home then people In their 40s.For example the IPhone, its there to satisfy everyone's needs mostly aimed for people aged between the ages of 13-55. On the IPhone you are able to download verity of apps news, games and books giving the audience what they want and they are pleasing everyone’s needs. Having it on your phone makes it easy to locate what you want and you are able to be updated staying in the loop and you are able to use it in everyday use. Another thing the IPhone has done is provide a range of colours which is another selling point as the buyers are able to chose their favorite colour having rose gold, gold, Space Grey and silver buyers are able to chose their favorite colour and identifies there phone as apart of them. Even if everyone has the same phone they are all different in some sort of way because we all have different pictures, colour phone and apps. Also another thing apple do have different sizes as come people say bigger is better or it might be for people needs as it maybe easier to hold.I would say apples primary audience will be men and secondary would be women. The reason why I picked men first is; they like to be updated on new trends, having a new gadget to use because for instance getting the new IPhone 7, as it has a new camera better quality of pictures, its also water proof and its now in the colour black.

GenderGender is a way of classifying your audience, male or female. When you find out this you can understand their needs on what they like. You are able to then make the branding more specific to that audience and choosing what will suit them so they buy it. When you know what your genders needs are, you then have to research about the type of things they like that will make them buy you product. Men and women most likely have different interests. For the type of colours you would use to sell something for instance blue is a colour that will attract men; it suggest, fun, confidence and control. If advertising for women you might see colours like Pink which can illustrate, immature, bold and girlish. When choosing your audience this then often pushes away the other gender and the gender an individual just basing it on them. This makes it specific on what genre they are targeting, but when doing this there can be a risk of overly stereotyping For example selling a PlayStation 4, is being advertised for males. Using this as something to get away from the real world. Using the colour black to show mystery because you don’t know what sort of games that are going to get advertised for it. Also it shows power and control as its hanging on to all this information you have put in to it. It lights up blue show communication because you're able to play with people around the world.

Socio-economic status Socio economic status measures individuals, family economic and social position in relation to others. This is based on their income, education and occupation. Having this I feel like it is important as you can then verify on the price that will attract this audience. National readership survey use categories to define readers of magazines and newspapers in the UK. They base it on the occupation and job title. For example the lower class you are, the lower the price. Keeping it reasonable for them to afford. When putting class in in socio economic status you are then labeling them and making the target audience for specified to easier for the companies to know what they are dealing with.Having this within a company, you then may change the way speech is being written. So for instance if buying a magazine or newspaper, it can be written in higher standard using words that they will be able to understand which you will have a higher level of English required to read them. There are three socio economic classes, which is upper class who are rich, and powerful, who are most likely to get their own way. 2nd one is middle class, who are in educated work force in technical economies people providing for family. Last of all low class which are working but employed with low wages providing little income. Knowing their status this will begin to show contrast within the different categories on out a producer is wanting to publish something

GeodemographicsGeodemographic is giving the advertisers information on where people live, allowing the products ideas on where they can base stores and shops to give the audience the price they want. For instance people who live with the same postcode will have similar lifestyle and spending tendencies making it easier for the producers to evaluate if it is high or low class; When knowing this You are then able to see the surrounding population Knowing this gives the advertisers an easy target for their audience. It can tell you the population of young professionals, retired couples or young families. This can be most of use to direct mail and similar marketing companies rather then a mass media producers. For instance Aldi, is based around low class audience, placed in an area where people may not have the money to shop at Waitrose. Aldi Is their to produce food with low price to be affordable for many young adults for instance at at uni or just stating a home.

Psychographics Psychographics is to understand the companies type of audience, being able to know their personality, values, attitudes, interests and lifestyle. Companies do this so they are able to know what type of person is buying their product and how to keep them happy. It also helps how the audience sees themselves and how they represent to other groups seeing each generation. Gives companies indication of the sort of things they like and will buy and How they look to be sold. Makes each audience easy to represent and be an individual. This kind of information can be gathered through questionnaires keeping them simple. You are looking at how they label them selves like ‘mainstream’ or ‘niche’ using type of words they will be able to understand. You are then able to spot the difference job titles and stages of their life. For instance choosing a female teenager and evaluating the type of technology they are using to know how to advertise a questionnaire so it grabs their attention. Using the stereotype in colours that will intrigue her to look at it but also by stereotyping may not work. Finding information about your audience it will be identify aspects of them that you didn't’t know before making them an individual from everyone else.

Niche & MainstreamNiche audience are very small and have specific interests. Having a niche audience I feel doesn’t bring as much income in, as well the circulation isn’t going to be huge. By doing this not many people will know about it. But what I feel is a positive thing about this is the the brand is focused on its audience interests and the brands are able to narrow down the advertising to suit them. This creates more of a stronger data base in who they are selling for. For example the ‘Kerrang’ magazine based around a specific type of music like rock and metal. I think that the primary target audience will be men and secondary will be women, aged between 17 to 25. I think this because from the look of the magazine the artists are a lot older so this could suggest that he may have just become popular within the last few years. But what people may like about niche audience is that they're unique compared to mainstream audience because they are not following the crowd. On the magazine the colours been used are yellow, black and red. Theses are the types of colours that you may see on road signs which suggest that they want to be noticed. The colour black and connotation mystery as people don’t know about them, yellow can illustrate confidence, this shows if they play at digs they like to stand out. Red could show that these bands are bad and they don’t care what people think about them and maybe there gigs get messy. Another thing about this magazine is how they are giving the audience ‘free’ items suggest they are wanting to intrigue there audience to buy it intriguing them. Mainstream captures a wide audience, this can include things like fashion, Movies, music, social media, magazine and books. Being mainstream most people will know about and they're keeping updated on the intend. Having a mainstream audience it makes it easier to advertise for you, so for instance when going to buy glamour magazine, you are presented with a a celebrity singer or actress using celebrity endorsement as, people maybe inspired to be like her because she was in the lime light as a young girl. Cheryl Cole is a singer was in a girl band and words on X factor. What people know about her is that she is a confident and independent women who can make her own choses and people look up to that. By her being printed on the front cover shows that she has got some gossip to tell. For the type of audience that will be reading this will be young girls and secondary audience will be Boys, aimed between the ages of 16+20. The magazine contains writer informal language using slang like ‘OMG’ implies that they know the audience are immature. Furthermore the masterhead has been placed at the top in big bold letters its also behind Cheryl’s head which implies that it is a popular magazine that people buy and its well known with out seeing it all. Using different shades of pink shows that they are stereotyping which will cut down their circulation on trying to intrigue a Niche audience to buy there magazine.

Quantitative audience research • Quantitative research is based around numbers, percentages and fractions. Having

this kind of data creates a better understand of the audience . You can find theses figures from website, television ratings and sales. By having a variety of different platform gives the brand a better understand on what type of technology people are using as well. You are then able to identify what is most popular technology to use. Being able to see the data shows how the brand is getting a wider circulation.

• Two major companies doing quantitative research are National Readership Survey and ABC; theses are both print media industry's.

• NRS is there to provide estimated readership and circulation figures, they also do socio economic breakdowns of audience.

• ABC produces figures on both print and digital platforms. I think this is a good thing creating to platforms for people to be able to do a survey on as this brings in a better understanding of which platform is used the most as well you're able to identify the age who is using them.

• How quantitative research put in to categories are structured data, statistical analysis, objective conclusions and survey experiments.

Qualitative • Qualitative research is there to help understand your audience. You are able to know

who they are, what they like and don’t like. Using questions like yes no answers getting straight to the point as well you will it provides an insight in problem solving and helps to develop ideas. There are three ways you can find this information out is by doing a questionnaire focus groups and face to face interviews. By having these people are then able to expand on what they are saying so you are able to get more detail.

• Qualitative research but in to categories, unstructured data, summary, subjective conclusions, interviews, focus, groups and observations.

• When doing qualitative research you are able to suss out how they like to question there answers because they may question quantitative questions very little giving very little detail. so asking theses types of questions may be used on young children aged between 7-13. What is good about theses questions is that they get straight to the point, so you are able to identify what good or bad about something. For instances if you think there needs to be adjustments to some of your work people can eaither answer yes or no but what is a disadvantage is how it does not specify the types of things that need to be done which comes as a disadvantage.