audience profile

1. My target audience
profile
BETH HALL

2. Why create an audience profile?
 Audience profiling is important when creating a new media product as your target audience will effect the ideas you use in the final
product and will either rule out or inspire more ideas to fit that certain audience group in order for it to be a more successful product.
For example, magazines such as ‘NME’ know everything about their audience in order to shape the product to the audiences’ specific
liking. It will effect the layout of the product, the colour scheme, the advertisement featured, the articles and subjects that are spoken
about in the product.
 Audience goes beyond Young and Rubicam’s Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation theory and focuses more specifically on the
individual audience member. The things that company’s need to consider when creating a product for a specific audience is
demographics, psychographics, lifestyle and the brands they associate themselves with. The specific things that are key to consider:
- Age, gender, race and sexuality
- Education
- Occupation
- Annual income
- Disposable income
- Current lifestyle, aspirational/desired lifestyle
- Culture
- Media interests
- Buying habits
- Loyalty to brands
 All these aspects of an audience’s life help influence the product created by the company. Though some may think that the extent of
the specific details may be limiting your audience, however, it helps the company to decide where they will spend their money that
will offer the greatest profit return on their investment. It serves as the foundation of the company’s entire marketing campaign and
creative process.

3. Demographic
Defining the demographics of an audience is the most common
method of audience profiling and tends to apply more so to
adults then it does to younger generations as it focuses on the
working/job status of an audience. This socio-economic scale
determines the audience group based on age and status in society.
When considering my genre of music and the audience it would
appeal to, I would definitely specify the members of the hip-pop
and Childish Gambino’s audience as letter code ‘E’. This is because
I believe this type of music to attract to students and the younger
generations more so than any other age group. My reason for
thinking this is that students and younger people are more able to
relate to the lyrics discussed in the hip-pop/hip-hop music genre
as it normally includes intertextuality of pop culture, as I saw in
Eminem’s ‘Without Me’. Therefore, this audience categorisation are
morel likely to relate, understand and enjoy this genre of music.
Also, a common theme in some types of hip-hop music is ‘getting
money’ and buying expensive things, this is something that would
appeal tot his social category as it would act as a ‘Diversion’ to
their everyday lives where this is not the norm. This would fulfil
one of the criteria for audience Uses and Gratifications (according
to Blumler and Katz).
Letter
code
A Higher management, bankers,
lawyers, doctors and high ranking
professionals
B Middle management, teachers,
creative media people (graphic
designers)
C1 Office supervisors, junior managers,
nurses, specialist clerical staff –
white collar
C2 Skilled manual workers, plumbers,
builders – blue collar
D Semi-skilled and unskilled manual
workers
E Unemployed, students, pensioners,
casual workers

4. Psychographics
Mainstreamers Seek security. Domestic, conformist, conventional,
sentimental, favour value for money family brands.
Largest audience group.
Aspirers Seek status. Materialistic, acquisitive, oriented to image
and appearance, personal and fashion. Typically
younger people.
Succeeders Seek control. Strong goals, confidence, work ethic and
organisation. Typically higher management and
professionals.
Resigned Seeks survival. Rigid and authoritarian values.
Interested in past and tradition. Typically older people.
Explorers Seeks discovery, energy, individualism and experience.
Values difference and adventure. Typically a younger
demographic.
Strugglers Seeks escape. Alienated and disorganised. Few
resources beyond physical skills. Buys alcohol, junk
food, lottery tickets. Typically lower demographics.
Reformers Seeks enlightenment. Freedom of restrictions and
personal growth. Social awareness and independent
judgement. Anti materialistic but aware of good taste.
When considering the psychographic part of audience profiling,
the ‘4 C’s’ theory by Young and Rubicam theory is often
considered as this categorises the majority of consumers and
audiences into distinct group. It is a great starting place for an in
depth audience profile. The psychographic segmentation divides
the audience into groups based on personality characteristics,
social class and lifestyle. The grouping is based on the
presumption that the types of brands and products the
individual purchases will reflect their living patterns and
personality. In terms of the music genre that I am focussing on
for my products (Hip-Hop), the groups that they would appeal
to varies dependent on the style of hip hop. The groups
associated with this genre would be ‘Explorer’, ‘Strugglers’ and
‘Reformers’. Specifically I think Childish Gambino’s music would
apply to the ‘Explorers’ group. The reasoning behind this is that
Gambino’s style of music is different to others in this genre as it
offers a vast amount of energy due to the high tempos in his
music, he has an individual style when it comes to his music and
media products, and he is an experienced performer in many
parts of the media industry. However, it could be argued his
music appeals equally to the ‘Reformers’ group because he
discusses topical issues in his music as well as not conforming
when it comes to materialism in this genre, which is a common
theme in many other Hip-hop artists. I do not think his music
would appeal to ‘Strugglers’ because I associate them with liking
more aggressive forms of hip-hop such as NWA and Lil Wayne.

5. UK urban tribes
This sociological project set up by Channel 4 presents a range of social groups and
personality types that should be considered whilst creating an audience profile for a
product. This audience structuring seems to act as a modern extension Michael
Maffesoli’s ‘Urban Tribes’ theory and has developed from Young and Rubicam’s‘4 C’s’
theory but instead focuses on the younger generations more specifically. It’s focus on
Britain's youth groups helps define audience members more specifically. It will be useful
to me when deciding my target audience as the general audience of hip-hop and the
subgenres of it all tend to be younger people, therefore this will be of great significance
to me as the focus is on younger people’s ‘Urban Tribes.

6. Who will I target my products towards?
Because Childish Gambino’s music genre changes so much from album to album it is difficult to
classify one specific target audience. His music goes from hip-hip, to R&B to Indie-pop, Therefore his
target audience range is vastly increased. For example, ‘Because the internet’ has more of a traditional
Hip-Hop style, whereas his album ‘Kauai’ has a more R&B take on Hip-Hip. As well as this, even though
he is categorised as an ‘attractive’ male music artist, his music does not only appeal to female
audiences, as most would assume. His lyrics, sometimes controversial, attract more of a male audience
because of their frequent vulgarity which is stereotypically not explored or listened to by females. But,
his audience still has high percentage of females.
In terms of the UK Urban tribe grouping I believe my target audience would be ‘Hypebeasts’. This is
because this is the group that listens to the most hip-hop and it’s subgenres. Furthermore, Childish
Gambino is an American artists and this audience group is heavily influenced by American pop culture
and lifestyle, which is why they are attracted to artists of the likes of Childish Gambino. When I was
analysing Gambino individual I noted how his success seems to be internet rooted, which is another
reason I have associated this group with his music as they have a thriving online culture.

7. Adidas, Nike, Supreme, Odd Future, as well thrifting in
charity shops/vintage stores.
Letter grade E on
the socio-economic
scale
Age = 17-21
Other artists they like:
Chance the rapper, Drake, Frank Ocean, J-
Cole
Thriving online culture
Race = Mostly either White or Black
Nationality = British but heavily influenced
by American (pop) culture
Religion = atheist (or
agnostic, rarely Christian
Gender = male and female,
but majority male
Little disposable income but when have money available, which
may be from a part time job, they are brand loyal.
Rarely read
magazines
Education = May not always come across as well
educated but are very intelligent and aware. A
levels – University.
Annual income = not enough, either live with
parents or with roommates
Reformers, and
Aspirers (4 C’s)
Desired lifestyle = to have lots of disposable
income, living in a different country (most likely
USA)
Strong moral
values
Food preferences