A powerpoint about how audience applies to the institutional side of the media industry

1. Audience – Institutional
Approach
BY LUKE BOULTON

2. Identify the target audience
 All mass media texts are made for a particular audience
 We all know what media texts we like and what type we enjoy
 Analysing a media text is easier when you know who its for because you
can look for particular features that appeal to the target audience
 The target audience is a way for producers to know who they are making
the product for
 The target audience is decided early on in the planning stage and it will
affect the production
 Different target audiences will mediate the way a text is constructed,
therefore, it is far easier to ask why a text has been constructed a certain
way than how the text has been constructed

3. Advertising
 Adverts have four basic characteristics; They are commercial, they have an
ideology, they aim to sell and they seek large audiences
 When you put out an advert, such as a trailer, you are advertising something to
an audience
 You create an image for the product, an image that ill hopefully present the
product as appealing to its target audiences
 The point is that you are not buying the product but the image of the product
that you were presented
 You are buying the product but aspiring to the lifestyle being offered; you are
buying the benefit the product can have being offered
 This is referred to as the USP, unique selling point – basically what is different
about this product

4. AD formats
 Adverts often have four basic formats:
 Product-Information format – The product is the centre of the focus and its
virtues are pointed out and explained e.g. washing powder adverts
 Product-Image format – The product is associated with images that would
not often be associated with it e.g. car adverts
 Personalised format – The product takes on human qualities e.g. PG Tips or
Tango. These are often long running and successful
 Lifestyle format – The product is associated with a lifestyle e.g. mobile
phones or film trailers

5. Advertising techniques
 There are often many techniques used to trick audiences into buying products:
 Flattering words
 Celebrity endorsements
 Expert endorsement/Statistics
 The “new” ingredient
 Nostalgia
 Lifestyle fantasy
 Family values
 Happy kids
 Selective advertising
 Music and sound effects
 Obviously there are other techniques but these are the most common