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Critical Responses Presentation
The document discusses the importance of defining and researching audiences for creative media projects. It covers quantitative audience research, which determines the size of potential audiences, and qualitative research, which provides a deeper understanding of audiences through methods like interviews and focus groups. It also discusses profiling audiences through socioeconomic status, psychographics, geodemographics, age, gender, whether they fall into the mainstream or niche categories. Understanding audience demographics and characteristics is crucial for targeting advertising and content appropriately.
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Critical Responses Presentation
- 1. Defining an Audience CraigCassidy Creative Media Production 2012 1
- 2. Defining an Audience Whyis researching an audience so important? Creative Media Production 2012 2
- 3. Defining an Audience QuantitativeAudience Research: What is it? Quantitative research is all about finding out how big an audience for a product is going to be. Who does it? NRS(National Readership Survey) Socio-Economic breakdown ABC(Audit Bureau of Circulations) Why is it useful? • For advertisers • For quantities needed Creative Media Production 2012 3
- 4. Defining an Audience QualitativeAudience Research What is it? Qualitative research helps you understand your audience What methods are there and how do they work? Interviews Focus groups Questionnaires Why is it useful? • Better understanding • Along side quantitative research it can be really useful Creative Media Production 2012 4
- 5. Profiling an Audience Socio-economicstatus: What does this mean? Putting an individual or household into social hierarchy's. What can it tell you about an audience? • Income • Education • Occupation Why is it useful to know? • More detailed than typical kind of research • Adverts Who does this kind of research? •National Readership Survey Creative Media Production 2012 5
- 6. Grade Social class Chief IncomeEarner'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%) AS Media Studies 2009 6
- 7. Profiling an Audience Psychographics: Whatdoes this mean? Classifications of people according to attitudes, aspirations etc…. What can it tell you about an audience? • Values • Beliefs • Motivations Why is it useful to know? • Understand your audience better • More in-depth profile “The more you know about the customer target, the better job you can do of building and delivering your message!” Creative Media Production 2012 7
- 8. Profiling an Audience Geodemographics: Whatdoes this mean? What can it tell you about an audience? • Lifestyle • Income • Social Life • Interests Why is it useful to know? • Make your product more personal • Good for regional items Creative Media Production 2012 8
- 9. Profiling an Audience Age: Whatdoes this mean? Classifying people by age basically means that you will have a set of characteristics for each age range and you can tailor your products to suit these characteristics. What can it tell you about an audience? • Makes a brief statement about a certain age group Why is it useful to know? • Useful starting point into knowing your target audience Creative Media Production 2012 9
- 10. Profiling an Audience Gender: Whatdoes this mean? Classifying your product dues to sex What can it tell you about an audience? • Basic information the same sex have in common Why is it useful to know? • Makes your product appeal more that certain sex Creative Media Production 2012 10
- 11. Profiling an Audience Mainstream: Whatdoes this mean? Idea’s, activities or attitudes which are shared by the majority. What can it tell you about an audience? • Music interests • Fashion interests • Social life Why is it useful to know? • Know what to base the majority of the content around • Know what kind of adverts to use Creative Media Production 2012 11
- 12. Profiling an Audience Niche: Whatdoes this mean? Small majority who have specific interests What can it tell you about an audience? • Interests • Needs Why is it useful to know? Creative Media Production 2012 12
Editor's Notes
- #3 Researching an audience is very important for an form of media producer. Because when they produce any form of product they will have an audience in mind.If the product they produce is of the highest standard. But it has no audience then it will fail, because it wont appeal to the audience therefore it wont sell.There is an entire industry who are dedicated to defining audiences, this industry is useful to media producers because they give them information about products and who buys them.
- #4 What is it?Quantitative research is basically dealing in figures and statistics and is commonly presented by graphs and tables, it also deals with closed questions were the answer will be either yes or no or a figure.Quantitative research is all about finding out how big an audience for a product is going to be. For example if you were going to produce a magazine, the quantitative research for that magazine would be finding out how many people are interested in are that certain subject.Advantages- You get very clear resultsEasy to understandDisadvantages-Don’t get peoples opinionsAll closed questionsThere are two main companies relating to the print media who are responsible for quantitative research they are the National Readership survey and The Audit Bureau of circulationsThe NRS surveys cover over 250 of Britain's newspapers and magazines and get data on the audiences that they manage to receive. The NRS conduct over 36,000 interviews a year. The NRS also create socio-economic breakdowns which is basically putting people into one of six possible groups based on their employment status and their income. These groups are basically so they have some idea of a household income and how they might spend it.The ABC is run by the media industry for the media industry, the conduct surveys and produce figures for total audience numbers for media products, print and digital formats.Quantitative research is useful because:Advertisers can look at this research and find out which product attracts the largest audienceProducers of magazines/newspapers can look at this research and see how many copies they will need to produce based of previous audience figures.How PB media could use this?PB media could use this quantitative research by researching other similar products and looking into quantitative research data on them, by doing this they could find out their potential audience sizes, the could also research into the most popular form of meida products such as to publish their magazine in print or digital format or maybe both.
- #5 What is it?Qualitative research is dealing with peoples onions and thought upon things, and deals with open questions which is were you don’t have to give a set answer.Qualitative research helps you understand your audience by basically telling who they are, such as their dislike and likes, whereabouts they live and their income.Advantages-Open questionsIt can be done on a lower scale because you can get much more information out of a smaller group doing qualitative research than you could quantitative researchDisadvantages-Can be difficult to find the right information sometimesOpinions can be swayedWhat methods of collecting qualitative research are there?Qualitative research can be collected by interviews either over the phone or someone stopping you on the street and interviewing you.Focus groups is where a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs, concept and ideas about media products.Questionnaires are also a method of collecting qualitative research, you can receive these usually by post and they are usually quite open so they can get your opinion on something.Usually after all the data has been collected it will be compiled into an understandable format and then the media companies will then use it for a better understanding of different types of audiences.Why is qualitative research useful?It is useful because it gives the media companies a better understanding of their audience as a person rather than just figures and statistics. Along side quantitative research it can be extremely useful because you have a combination on both figures and opinions. How PB media could use this?The PB media can use this research so their product will suit peoples opinions on matters and also make sure it doesn’t offend their target audience.
- #6 What does this mean?Socio-economic status is essentially a study done by researchers putting individual or a household into social hierarchies. Once the study is completed the information is put together and from this collective information you are put into one of six grades set by the NRSDisadvantages-StereotypingWhat can it tell you about your audienceSocio-economic status can tell you lots about your audience such as their income, their education and occupation, for example if you were trying to appeal to someone with a good education and a high income you would look at the higher class’sWhy is it useful to know?It is useful to know because, rather than just you building an audience profile on things such as demographics and age, you can use social-economic research to get a more in-depth and complex product to attract your audience.It is also useful to know for people who want to advertise in magazines for example if you wanted to appeal to higher class of people you would look at the social economic status of a certain magazine and if they appealed to the higher class you would want to advertise to in that magazine Who does this kind of research?The NRS do socio-economic status research and they use six categories in classifying their researchHow does this relate to PB media's product?It relates to the product because in every product produced in the media, a target audience is always in mind and with the help of socio-economic research it can help narrow down your target audience even more and makes the product that little bit more appealing.
- #7 The table shows the different grades of the socio-economic status which is set by the NRS.The grades go from A to E with A being the highest grade of people who would typically have a very good education and a good job with a high income typically as manager or an owner of a large company and the lowest grade which is E would typically be people with below average education and either not have a job or have a very low income job and the middle classes which is the highest percentage is what would be classed as your “average working” person.There are six grades typically the top 3 grades and the bottom three are grouped together as the top three are usually the people who are classed as the consumers who can afford to buy things for luxury and pleasure, and the bottom three are usually the people who have to “work hard” for a living.
- #8 What does this mean?Psychographics is basically the study and classifications of people according to their, attitudes, aspirations and other psychological criteria.What can it tell us about an audience?Think of psychographics as basically building a profile of your audience, so it can tell you anything such as, their values, beliefs and more importantly underlying motivations of your target audience. Essentially they tell us how a person interacts with the world.Advantages-Builds an in-depth profile of your audienceDisadvantages-Can be hard to get the informationWhy is it useful to know?Its very useful to know because it is probably the closest your going to get to building a complete profile of your audience, because it analyses so many different things. It extremely important in the fact that it helps us understand what drives people’s purchasing behaviour so you can tailor your product to suit their lifestyle, budget and needs.How can PB media use this?Once PB media have thought of the idea for their product and its main values, they can look through psychographics for their target audience once they have picked the right psychographics they can use it to start choosing their content and were to place advertisement etc……
- #9 What does this mean?Geodemographics, provide a summary of characteristics and other defining products of people who live in a certain area.Advantages- Helps you build a picture of a region rather than individual peopleDisadvantages- Not everyone who lives in the same area will have the same lifestyleWhat can it tell you about an audience?The whole idea behind geodemographics is that people who live in the same area or neighbourhood will usually live a similar lifestyle, not exactly the same but the basics are there such as their working life and their social life. It can you lots of information about your audience such as if you wanted to sell your product in a certain area you would look at that area’s geodemographic data and look at their income rate and then lifestyle choices and base your product around them.Why is it useful to know?Its useful to know because, if you sell a regional magazine, you can tailor your magazine to an area’s needs and interests as suppose to making your product with a just an age range in mind.How can PB media use this?PB media can use this for their product by looking at geodemographic data for their target audience and then making their product the right price for that area based on their income.
- #10 What does this mean?Classifying people by age basically means that you will have a set of characteristics for each age range and you can tailor your products to suit these characteristics.Advantages- Helps you build a brief picture of a large group of peopleHelps you attract a large group of peopleDisadvantages- Sometimes it can be seen as stereotyping Not always that accurateWhat can it tell you about an audience?Basically it makes brief statements about each age range such as people in their late teens-20’s are likely to live at home with their parents and have more disposable income and people in their late 30’s-40’s are likely to have moved away from home and have bills to pay so have less disposable income. Why is it useful to know?Its very useful to know because once you have decided on a target age range for your product, you can use data which is collected on that age range to help you make your product as interesting as possible.How it relates to the PB media project?It relates to it a lot because if you don’t get your target age range right then your product will not reach the right target audience for example you wouldn’t include articles about nightlife and the music scene in magazines aimed at people who were retired.Who does this kind of research?
- #11 What does this mean?Its basically classifying your product audience by their sex.Advantages-Your products will appeal to the 99% of that gender.Disadvantages-Too vagueIf your product is aimed too strongly at one gender it can push the other away.What can it tell you about an audience?It can tell you very basic things such as common interests, habits and hobbies.Why is it useful to know?It useful to know because if you are going to design a magazine with men in mind, the you will need to know basic things such as their interests to make your product appeal to them.How can the PB media project use this?They will need to use this if they are designing any form of media product which is aimed at a specific audience they will need to use this so they can appeal to the gender of the audience.
- #12 What does this mean?The mainstream is, ideas, activities or attitudes which are shared by the majority of people and is regarded as the norm.Advantages-Helps you appeal to the massesDisadvantages-It’s a very large subject areaWhat can it tell you about your audience?It can tell you a lot about your audience even though the description will be quite brief. It can tell you things such as their interests in music to interests in clothing all by looking at popular subjects at the time.Why is it useful to know?It is useful to know because if you want to design a magazine with the mainstream as your target audience, your content will be based around all the popular and well know subjects. Its useful to know as well so you can only include popular articles and makes sure you don’t include things which aren't that popular.How can PB media could use this?If the product PB media were designing were to appeal to the masses, then they would need to take research into mainstream items into accordance such as what appeals to the mainstream.
- #13 What does this mean?Niche is referring to the people who have very specific interests and don’t really show interests in really popular things. A nice market would be things such as the underground music such as events like FabricAdvantages-If done right you can attract a large amount of this small marketDisadvantages-There are a lot of niche products so can be hard to appeal to the audience as a wholeWhat can it tell you about an audience?When trying to aim your product to a niche market, the research into a niche market can tell you mainly things about their interests and what they like doing in their free time.Why is it useful to know?It is useful to know your niche market because, it is such a large subject and if you try to appeal to the niche as a whole you will more than likely loose your audience.How it relates to PB media?It relates to the PB media because if we wanted to appeal to a niche market we would research into a certain niche subject and make sure the adverts we placed into the magazine were also of niche objects.