2. Defining an Audience
Quantitative Audience Research:
Quantitative research is research regarding numbers.
In the UK there is 2 major companies carrying out quantitative
research relating to the print industry.
Firstly is the NRS.
Second is the ABC.
Quantitative research is useful because it allows companies
to see how many people are consuming their product.
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3. Defining an Audience
Qualitative Audience Research
Qualitative research is about the audience rather than
numbers.
The aim of qualitative research is to get a better
understanding of your audience.
There are many methods of qualitative research:
• Focus groups
• Face-to-face interviews
• Questionnaires
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4. Profiling an Audience
Socio-economic status:
Socio-economic status is a way of measuring a family’s or
individuals economic and social position in relation to others.
It is based of occupation, income
and education.
It can tell you a lot about an audience.
It is useful to know as it allows you to better target your
audience.
The National Readership Survey (NRS) use six categories to
define readers of magazines and newspapers within the UK
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5. Grade
Social class
Chief Income Earner's Occupation (% of Pop. 2008)
A
upper middle class
Higher managerial, administrative or professional.
(4%)
B
middle class
Intermediate managerial, administrative or
professional (23%)
C1
lower middle class
Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial,
administrative or professional (29%)
C2
skilled working class
Skilled manual workers (21%)
D
working class
Semi and unskilled manual workers (15%)
E
Those at the lowest levels of
subsistence
Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners and
others who depend on the welfare state for their
income (8%)
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6. Profiling an Audience
Psychographics:
Psychographics is the study of attitudes,
interests, personality and values.
The primary method of information
gathering for psychographics is through
the use of questionnaires.
The idea behind psychographics is that if you understand what type
of person is buying your product you can better suit your product to
them.
Grey Advertising company were the people to develop
psychographics.
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7. Profiling an Audience
Geodemographics:
Geodemographics is about location.
The idea behind it is that people living
in the same neighbourhoods have similar
lifestyles and spending tendencies.
This allows advertisers to make sure they are
targeting the right kind of people.
It can highlight important information such as how much money the people
in that area are likely to have.
It can also show you what kind of people are living in that particular area.
This is most useful to direct mail advertisers
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8. Profiling an Audience
Age:
Age is an important part of audience.
A lot of the time, people of similar
ages have similar interests and disinterests.
Although this is generalization and what
you are stating may not apply to everyone,
they normally apply to the majority.
An example of such statements would be ‘people in their 40’s are more
likely to have a secure job than people in their 20’s’
The vast majority of media products have a target age that they aim for.
Different media product will have different average consumer ages.
Obviously age is a very important thing as something that appeals to a 10
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year old will probably not appeal to a 60 year2012
old.
9. Profiling an Audience
Gender:
Gender is one of the more basic
ways to define an audience.
A lot of products are targeted at a
specific gender.
The reason behind this is because men
and women have different interests and
values.
It is good for a company to know what gender their audience is so they
can make a more effective piece of media.
Often products that are clearly aimed at a specific gender tend to push
away the other
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10. Profiling an Audience
Mainstream:
Mainstream is the word used to describe
the majority, things like chart music and
blockbuster films are mainstream.
Products that are aimed at the mainstream
are targeting a large audience. It is something
that the majority of people will be aware of.
An example of a magazine aimed at the
Mainstream market would be vogue.
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11. Profiling an Audience
Niche:
Niche is basically the opposite of mainstream.
A niche audience is a lot smaller and very
specific. A media producer may target a
niche market in the hope of being able to
dominate the market and capturing a large
portion of it.
An example of a magazine aimed at a niche
market would me mixmag. It is aimed at DJ’s
and people who like Electronic Dance Music.
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Editor's Notes
Quantitative research is research regarding numbers. It is usually about how many people consume a product. In the UK there is 2 major companies carrying out quantitative research regarding the print industry. Firstly is the National Readership Survey or NRS. They provide estimated readership and circulation figures for the print industry. Another service they provide is creating socio-economic breakdowns of audiences for clients. Second is the Audit Bureau of Circulations or ABC for short. The ABC is the industry body for media measurement. They produce figures regarding audience numbers for both digital and print formats Quantitative research is useful because it allows companies to see how many people are consuming their product, which allows them to keep track of what is going on
Qualitative research is about the audience rather than numbers. The aim of qualitative research is to get a better understanding of your audience. It helps you find out things such as who your audience is, things that they like, things they dislike, where they live, how much they earn, their lifestyle etc.There are many methods of qualitative research but some of the main ones are focus groups, face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. Focus groups are groups of people which are created to participate in discussion regarding a product before it is launched. It is a good technique as it is unbiasedFace-to-face interviews allow companies to get first hand opinions of potential consumers regarding their product. It can be a very effective way of gathering qualitative research Questionnaires are a very good way of gathering information regarding a product. It allows a company to ask potential consumers multiple questions about many different aspect of their product and it is also primary research.
Socio-economic status is a way of measuring a family’s or individuals economic and social position in relation to others.It is based of occupation, income, and education, and is normally broken down into three categories, but can be broken down further. It can tell you a lot about an audience such as what the average income of your target audience is, what level of education they got, in terms of quality, and what kind of jobs they may have.It is useful to know as it allows you to better target your audience making your product much more effective and can also allow you to make more effective choices in terms of what advertisement you may want to include in your product.The National Readership Survey (NRS) use six categories to define readers of magazines and newspapers within the UK
This is a table featuring the social classes
Psychographics is a posh word for lifestyle. It is the study of attitudes, interests, personality and values. The primary method of information gathering for psychographics is through the use of questionnaires.It is split into seven categories, each one representing a different type of person.The idea behind psychographics is that if you understand what type of person is buying your product you can better suit your product to them, making it more interesting and effective for the consumer.Grey Advertising company were the people to develop psychographics in the 60’s as a way of better understanding the audience.An example of a magazine that make use of psychographics would be Men’s Health
Geodemographics is about location. It uses demographic information for the national census.The idea behind it is that people living in the same neighbourhoods have similar lifestyles and spending tendencies.This allows advertisers to make sure they are targeting the right kind of people when advertising their product.It can highlight important information such as how much money the people in that area are likely to have, and how much ‘spare’ money they have.It can also show you what kind of people are living in that particular area, whether retired couples, well established families, young families etc.This is most useful to direct mail advertisers rather than mass media producers.
Age is an important part of audience.A lot of the time, people of similar ages have similar interests and disinterests.Although this is generalization and what you are stating may not apply to everyone, they normally apply to the majority.An example of such statements would be ‘people in their 40’s are more likely to have a secure job than people in their 20’s’The vast majority of media products have a target age that they aim for. Different media product will have different average consumer ages.Obviously age is a very important thing as something that appeals to a 10 year old will probably not appeal to a 60 year old.
Gender is one of the more basic ways to define an audience because there is only two main categories.A lot of products are targeted at a specific gender, and the companies behind them purposely make their product more appealing to certain gender.The reason behind this is because men and women have different interests and values and are looking for different things within media products.It is good for a company to know what gender their audience is so they can make a more effective piece of media.Often products that are clearly aimed at a specific gender tend to push away the otherIf PB media don’t already know what gender their audience is they can find out through the use of qualitative research.
Mainstream is the word used to describe the majority, things like chart music and blockbuster films are mainstream.Products that are aimed at the mainstream are targeting a large audience. It is something that the majority of people will be aware of.An example of a magazine aimed at the mainstream market would be vogue, it is a very well established magazine that the majority of people have heard of and is clearly aimed at the mainstream market.
Niche is basically the opposite of mainstream. A niche audience is a lot smaller and very specific. A media producer may target a niche market in the hope of being able to dominate the market and capturing a large portion of it.An example of a magazine aimed at a niche market would me mixmag. It is aimed at DJ’s and people who like Electronic Dance Music.
