DEFINING AN AUDIENCE

Jenny, April and Jake

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Defining an Audience

Quantitative research is in the form of number/statistics.Quantitative research is in a form of numbers/statistics. It is about knowing how big your audience is for a product. It their for

you to ask people/the audience opinions to produce facts and statistics to guide you when come to making or selling your

product.

Quantitative research tells you, is there a market for your product, are people aware of your product, how many people are

interested, what type of people are your best customer and better to aim at as well as their buying habits and how the target

market is changing.

There are 2 major companies in the UK for this.

NRS (National Readership Survey) established in 1956, is a form of audience research that covers 250 of Britain's major

newspapers and magazines, showing the size and nature of the audiences they achieve and also provide socio-economic

breakdowns of audiences. In a dynamic changing digital media age, the NRS was introduced to provide a unique measure

of combined print and online audiences.

http://www.nrs.co.uk/purpose/

ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations)http://www.abc.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit_Bureau_of_Circulations_(UK)

Bring the industry together to agree measurements and process reporting standards to define what counts and best

practise. Reporting standards are evolving to keep the pace with industry developments.

Its there to manage and uphold standards which reflect media industry needs. They produce figures on audience numbers

for both print and digital formats.

This type of research is useful because it lets you know what the audience wants and needs and their opinions on your

product or service. Without an audience your product would fail and this lets you know what you need to do to gain an

audience or gain a wider audience. It lets your also defines whether people are aware of your product, who’s interested and

the best customers for your product/service.

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Defining an Audience

Qualitative Audience Research

Qualitative research lets you get a better in depth understanding of your audiences.

This research technique helps you find how many readers or users you have as well as breaking down in who they are, what

they like, what they don’t, where they live as well as there income etc..

There are many different methods to gather this information-

Focus groups

Questionnaires

Face to face interviews

This is also useful for the reader/user as it enables them to express how they feel about the product, which will enable you to

improve your product from the response of the customers

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Profiling an Audience

Social economical status can be defined through what status your household falls in to. They

are categorized with letters and numbers, meaning the higher the letter the higher the class.

This can be shown because if a house is in the (A) class, then they are much higher then

say, a (C2) classified household. An (A) status is an upper middle class, which would mean

that a member of the family would be very high in a company, such as a manager,

administrator, or a professional. This is stereotypically people who have degrees, or a trained

profession. A (C2) status is a skilled working class. This shows that the highest member of

the family is a skilled manual worker. An example of this is a senior care assistant, and often

pay around £15,000 a year. The status of a household can therefore be determined by what

job a person has, and how much they earn in a year.

Creative Media Production 2012

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Profiling an Audience

A specific geographic area often shares a specific status class. This means that a certain

village or area of a city will home a certain type of people. So an area can be determined as

an A, B, C1, C2, D or E statues based area. This can be helpful in the print industry because

it allows a researcher to define what class of people are buying their product. This can

determined what vocabulary a magazine uses, and how they layout the print. This means

that if the main purchaser of a magazine or form of print is an A class buyer, they will

stereotypically use more complex vocabulary and would want a more basic layout with more

written information and text in. The opposite of this is that if a buyer is an E class status then

they will stereotypically want basic vocabulary with not as much text. Additional examples to

support your points. Psychographics shows what type of person is buying the product

through a list of assessed aspects that consist of: Personality, values, attitudes, interests and

lifestyles. This is gathered through a series of questions that put the person in to one of

seven categories. Each category describes a different type of person. Bit of background

information here. Advantages and disadvantages. The seven categories are Reigned,

Struggler, Mainstreamer, Aspirer, Succeeder, Explorer, and reformer. Each category has a

stereotypically age range which falls in to it. For example, a reformer is usually a pupil in

higher education, whereas an explorer is a younger student. Resigned is often looked at as

only being an older or elderly person. This makes it possible to find out what the reader of the

print’s opinions are on topics, determining what content they will put in the magazine and

what opinions the print will share. This will allow them to put opinions in the text which the

reader shares and therefore make the reader feel like they are on the same wavelength as

the print, meaning they will come back to the print week after week, building a strong client

bond with the company.

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Profiling an Audience

Geodemographics are based on the national census. They look at whereabouts the best place to sell a product is. It does

this by looking at what kind of people live in specific areas. They will look at how wealthy an area is, determining weather the

price is suitable for this set of people, meaning they can see weather people in these area’s would be able to afford it or not.

Geodemographics states that there are usually groups of people with similar income, and similar lifestyles living in the same

area. This means that the people in an area will either be able to afford it or will not have a high enough income. This gives

the company a good idea of whereabouts they should advertise their product, so that they do not waste money advertising in

an area which has not got a lot of people who could afford the product in. Geodemographics also give a rough idea of what

age the people are who live in certain areas are. Such as there being a lot of young student aged people living in somewhere

near a university, or a lot of older people living in an area where there is a retirement home. An example of this is is that they

would not advertise nuts magazine in a retirement home due to the fact that the target audience is not pensioners. This

method is not very useful if the print marketer is part of a very large company, due to the fact their name will already be

known and they will not need to choose what area’s to advertise because the people who know about it will already know

where it is available.

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Profiling an Audience

Age:

Age is important when clarifying audiences as most media products often have a target age that they aim

for. Making products that are more age appropriate for the audience and finding where's best to put

advertising, as similar age groups often have the same likes and dislikes. Such as children tend to watch

the same programmes which have their own magazines, an example would be that kids tend to buy

magazines for the cheap toy inside it. Age can also tell producers what kind of lifestyle certain people

would have. Such as; 20 year olds are more likely to live at home or rent somewhere rather than people in

their 30’s due to the fact that people of that age group don’t tend to still be living at home.

It would also be useful finding existing products that are directed at a similar age group and seeing why

this product is working for that particular age group.

Age will also figure out what language you would use. Such as, for children you would need to use

language that they would understand with basic words that are clear and easy to read using a simple font.

Age groups are split up in to different categories due to their interests. One age group will tend to read

something involving a topic that is more appropriate for their age. For example, Miley Cyrus. People in

there 60s may know of her but not be interested in her, whereas children and young adults will due to the

fact that they have grown up watching her etc.

When it comes to magazines/newpapers, young adults are more into their gadgets and would most likely

prefer their magazines uploaded onto their smart phone or tablet etc whereas the older generation haven’t

grown up around technology as much so are most likely to purchase the magazine/newspaper from the

store itself, or subscibe so that it could be delivered to their home

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Profiling an Audience

Gender:

Gender is key when it comes to the style of the product from packaging, advertising and the actual product itself whether

its for mal, female or both. If it was for a woman's magazine when it comes to adverts in the magazine you’d want

something that would appeal to them such as makeup, clothes, accessories etc.. Then if it was a men's magazine. If it was

aimed for both the use of advertising and layout of the product must be done in a way that would appeal to both such as

the colours used in the product. Most magazines would only aim for one gender.

Magazines that don’t are home magazines and vacation magazines.

Gender lets you get a stereotype of the audience which can be useful for when making the product but doesn’t give away

too many details. Although it doesn’t give you many details unlike age, its one of the most important one to include for your

audience as many magazines are aimed to one gender.

Examples of different gender magazines:

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Woman’s magazine

Model icons,

women’s fashions

and accessories.

Profiling an Audience

Mainstream and Niche are two different categories in which an audience can be divided too.

A mainstream audience is often a very large audience that follow trends and like well-known

items such as pop music such as Miley Cyrus or Katy Perry.

An example of a mainstream for of print would be a national paper such as the sun. This is

because it aims to target a very large audience nationally.

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Profiling an Audience

Niche:

What does this mean? Niche prints have a small target audience who have very specific

similar interests. This means that the audience will not be spread out throughout a large

group of people, but instead, focused on a smaller audience with unique tastes. This means

the print may not be as well known as a mainstream magazine or paper, but it will satisfy its

audience more then a large form of mainstream print. This is useful to the print industry due

to the fact that it allows a printer to choose what kind of audience they want to focus their

print on. This research can be collected through polls.

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