2. ITV – influential figure
Using ITV as a paramount institution for
audience profiling, we were able to get an
interpretation on ‘pioneering’ audience research
and this is invaluable for us, because it gives us
the opportunity to get an idea of audience
trends from an existing flagship institution.
3. ITV Lives:
ITV LIVES focused on a massive project in order
to get insight into the lives and behaviours of TV
viewers within the UK. This means that ITV were
able to easily get a view upon the types of
demographic and psychographic audiences that
view their shows, by examining their lifestyle,
the brands that they engage with and then
subsequently their audience’s media and
technology usage.
4. ITV Categories:
The research by ITV gave them the information that
they split their audiences into four predominant
groups, because of the different attitudes and
perceptions towards social media, dual screening
and then new media technology. These four groups
of ‘LIVES’ consisted of:
• Social LIVES
• Connected LIVES
• Busy LIVES
• Traditional LIVES
5. Social LIVES
This group consisted of an audience that was the
smallest and the younger end of the population,
though this category were shown to be the most
sociable due to their interaction with modern
technology as they were connected with all events
in the connected world. This means that they have
the balance between watching television and
watching catch-up, though place a predominant
focus upon using the internet to continue their
interest within the ITV brand, with social
networking a prevalent factor for this category.
6. Connected LIVES:
This group was shown to be slightly older than the
aforementioned category, with this being a highly
networked group also that have a focus upon using
new technology. However, the category differs in
the sense because tese people are mainly students
and slightly older, meaning that they have the
balance between using the technology and then
also their adult lives. This category seeks using
catch-up services as fundamental because it is
extremely convenient for them, with them seeing
TV as ‘the heart’ of their entertainment.
7. Busy LIVES:
This group formed the bulk of ‘middle’ Britain,
with hectic families that are always busy being
shown towards new technology by younger era’s
within a family. Children will begin to introduce
their families towards the new technology to
give them further access, but they do not have a
lot of time and therefore they are not entirely
fully capable of using technology effectively. TV
is important for this group because it acts as the
main shared viewing between families.
8. Traditional LIVES:
This is the largest group of people that are
placed into the older end of the population,
with basically all of the television watched being
through a television set itself, with barely any
other technology used, with catch-up services
not seen as intrinsically important for this
category.
9. ITV as a commercial broadcaster
ITV continued their research by connoting that
people could use aspects of each category, rather
than just simply segmenting each person into one
category, it was potentially possible that some
people would fit into a range of them.
Subsequently, ITV went an extra step further in
order to look at how each of the groups engaged
with advertising, with this being absolutely pivotal
for ITV because of the fact that they are a
commercial broadcaster, meaning that image is
concurrent for the brand.
10. Fitting into more than one category
ITV were able to find that people who fitted into
more than one of the categories had specific
similarities:
• Brands are important to all groups, but choosing
a brand differs because of the processes involved
• All groups use social media, but different
categories use it differently
• TV is central to people’s lives, regardless of how
they watch it
• Viewers have a warmer response to content
when they are given the chance to engage with it
11. Conclusion:
From our research into ITV’s audience profiling, we were
able to gain insight into our own kinds of audience
profiling, as this allowed us to see past the simple
demographic and psychographic audiences, by using 4
extra categories, in which two of them are very useful for
our channel’s brand identity. We see the social LIVES and
connected LIVES categories as vital for our own brand
identity because this involves the types of demographic
and psychographic audiences that we are aiming at, by
aiming at around 18-35 because these people are
typically most apt with using technology and this is
supported through ITV’s research.
12. Ideas for Inclusion:
The audience profiling research was extremely important
because this gave us the opportunity to see into the minds of
the viewers, by giving us information on the audience of a
brand that we see as a massive inspiration for our own
identity, with ITV appearing as very similar to our own
representation. We will use this audience profiling when
drafting and creating our own products, conveyed primarily
through the fact that we are aiming at an audience that will
be entirely capable of using new media technology effectively,
as we will use synergy within our products in order to
cohesively market our brand successfully – by allowing active
audiences to engage with our brand – as this is something
that was shown to be integral by ITV’s audience research.
