A2 Media Target audience of Hip Hop

1. TARGET AUDIENCE
ANALYSIS: SECONDARY
DATA
Seyi Odusoga

2. INTRODUCTION
Before I start my hip hop music video, I need to identify my target
audience in order for me to be aware of what the viewers would like
to see, because a video cannot be successful without the interest of
viewers.
To make my research easier, I started with secondary research in
order for me to easily find my target audience. It would help me
choose a sample of these characteristics whom I can later use to
perform my primary research.
This presentation shows extracts from the articles, statistics,
presentations, and more, I had used while researching, and who my
target audience is.

3. EARLY TARGET AUDIENCE
ASSUMPTIONS
Before going into my secondary research of Hip Hop and R&B; I had
thought that my genre would attract mostly males from age 16 – 25,
considering how this genre is dominated by mostly young adult black
males and the origins of the genre. However, it is a close assumption,
this cannot be my final choice of target audience because it is not
exactly accurate considering the fact that no research was put in.

4. XXL MAGAZINE
XXL Magazine, as
shown on the image,
focuses on the hip
hop culture, and
emphasizes on the
urban music and
lifestyle living within
the genre. XXL
Magazine is a good
example of a media
product which stands
for the hip hop genre,
so their target
audience may
correspond with hip-
hop as a music genre.
This information was withdrawn
from XXL’s survey in July 2008 to
measure the demographics of their
American readers.
It shows that majority are male,
African-American (black), age 21+
(average age 29).

5. SLIDESHARE
@ASHLEYRILEY
Ethnicity:
black
Age: 11-
25
Social class:
C1/C2

6. MUSIC MACHINERY
Musicmachinery.com was one of the
source I had used to see the gender
my genre was more skewed towards.
Here, I had circled the hip hop artists
in order to see which artist appeals to
which gender. I learned that only few
hip hop artists appeal to both genders,
however more appeal to the males as
none appeal to the females.
This may be because the hip hop
artists are male, as the female-skewed
artists are either good looking males,
pop artists or other females. The only
hip hop artists mentioned are males
also, which may explain that males are
more biased to artists of the same
gender no matter the genre.

7. MUSIC MACHINERY (2)
The information here shows the top 40 favourite artists of
each gender. I had circled the hip hop artists in order to
identify the gender who prefers more hip hop artists.
Again, the males had more hip hop artists in their top 40. In
fact, 15/40 of the artists in their list were hip hop artists,
while on the female top 40, only 9/40 were hip hop artists.
This told me that even though the females do not have much
interest in hip hop music, they are still much aware of it, and
some of these artists are even their favourites. However, they
do not enjoy it as much as males.

8. MUSIC MACHINERY (3)
Finally stated, the hip hop genre is most skewed to male listeners.

9. MUSIC MACHINERY (4)
This table shows the artists
preferred by each
demographic. I noticed that
the first three age groups
were the only age groups
that recognized hip hop
artists. After age 34, there
are no hip hop artists
mentioned. The age group
of 18-24 only had hip hop
artists, this tells me that
that age group have much
more of an interest in hip
hop music than any other
genre. This tells me that
my primary target audience

10. OTHER ONLINE SECONDARY DATA
The global hip hop community: twenty four million people between the ages
of 19-34, from a range of nationalities, ethnic groups and religions. Their
collective spending power is $500 billion annually in the U.S. alone.
- A Tech Crunch article on a “hip hop culture” effort from Accel Partners and
Russell Simmons called Global Grind.
A popular myth of hip hop’s target audience: In 1991, Newsweek Magazine
did a cover story on Gangsta Rap and in their article they put out an un-
researched statistic that said 80% of Hip Hop’s audience is white and that its
reflected in record sales. Which has been challenged by many hip hop
journalists and enthusiasts, such as Bakari Kitwana; who is popularly known
for having written a book on the controversial topic.
Target Audience – Teenagers and young adults (ages 16-25) both male and
female.
People who listen to hip hop music listen to radio and TV stations such as
MTV BASE, Capital Xtra, etc. These stations play a lot of hip hop songs so this
is why they are listened to buy teenagers and young adults. How much
disposable income to they have? People ages 16-25 would probably have a
full/part time job so are of C1/C2 social class.

11. CONCLUSION
My primary target audience is:
Gender: Male
Age: 16-24
Social Class: C2
Ethnicity: Black
I withdrew these demographics from different parts of the
research carried out. Most of the information stated that
the genre is popular amongst the black community, even
though loved by other ethnicities, it is mostly consumed
by black people. Many said that the social class of this
audience is C2. Age was very difficult to extract, as the
range of ages mentioned went from 11-35, so I picked
the modal ages which were most appropriate. I chose
males as my primary target audience, because it was
clearly stated in the musicmachinery.com source that the
genre is more skewed towards males.
My secondary target audience is:
Gender: Female
Age: 12-34
Social Class: C1
Ethnicity: Any
I had chosen both females to be my secondary target
audience gender because music genres are not usually
biased to gender, and tend to be more fluid, as females do
recognize hip hop. I chose C1 social class because every
piece of information had stated that it was either C1 or C2,
however, more chose C2 because of the amount of
(dependent) young people who listen to the genre. I had
chosen no particular ethnicity because during my research,
I had noticed that white and Asian people were also avid
listeners of hip hop, not just black people. I also chose an
older minimum age than the primary target audience,
because much data states that the minimum age is 18. The
lowest age in my research was 11, however I decided to
overlook it because with the hip hop genre comes a lot of
inappropriate themes such as foul language and sexual
references, which should not be of interest to 11 year olds.