1. Audience Information
The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) is a common classification of
occupational information for the United Kingdom. It’s a system used by all United States
Federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for the
purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. IPC also know how to depict an
audience as they have many categories and studies on different audiences. For example,
‘In every home multiple purchase decisions are being made every day by the women of the
household. This makes mass-market women an ideal advertising audience. Constantly
juggling tasks, these women take pleasure in occasional ‘me’ time, during which relaxing
with a favorite magazine or visiting an inspirational website is a ‘must-do’. IPC Media is
the UK’s leading consumer publisher for mass-market women. Our weekly magazines and
websites are packed with inspiration, entertainment, information, advice, celebrity and
real-life appealing to women, especially mothers, of all ages and attitudes. Advertisers
access these powerful communication platforms predominantly through IPC Connect
which represents IPC's portfolio of women's weeklies and TV magazines.’
Geodemography includes the application of geodemographics classifications for
business, social research and public policy but has a parallel history in academic
research seeking to understand the processes by which cities evolve and neighborhoods
are formed. However, geodemographics has drawn critical attention. Some focus on the
possible discriminatory and intrusive effects of geodemographic practices. Others
wonder whether members of geodemographic groups really are sufficiently alike to be
analyzed together. The generally unknown variance within geodemographic groupings
makes it difficult to assess the significance of trends found in data.
An audience category is a classification of the viewing audience into a specific group.
The following audiences are sometimes referred to as main categories - Homes,
Individuals, Adults, Men, Women, Children and Housewives. Sub-categories are more
detailed breakdowns of the main categories - by age groups, social grades etc.
Individuals aged 16 or over are classified as Adults within the BARB service. Whereas,
BARB reports viewing for children aged 4-15. With age demographics, the government
knows when people will retire, and can therefore take measures in advance to ensure
that the expected rise in pension and health care costs are adequately addressed. Age is
an important variable to consider when analyzing your target audience. Individuals who
grow up at the same time are called cultural generations. They often share many of the

2. same experiences as others of the same age group. An outcome of a cultural generation
is a set of shared values, beliefs, and attitudes that are important to consider when
preparing a speech. For example, an “age defying” cosmetic cream that reduces skin
wrinkles might have the demographic profile of a married female, of light skin color and
age 30-40, with children, a college education, median family income, and minivan for
transportation. Although there is liberal debate, the age demographics said to be most
desirable by businesses is 18 to 34 year olds.
Since the idea of identification carries immense weight in the targeting of specific
audiences, advertisers begin promoting the concept of gendered environments early on
beginning with children's toys. However, as people grow older the gender roles are only
made more evident and are further perpetuated in advertising that is targeted towards
adults. The best examples include clothing, hairdressing, magazines and toiletries and
cosmetics.
Knowing your audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should
include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of supporting details
will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting. Knowing your
audience is important as you can effectively communicate with them on their terms and
not waste advertising money pitching to the wrong audience or not pitching
appropriately.
The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) provides official viewing figures for
UK television audiences. It commissions specialist research companies to collect data
that represent the television viewing behavior of the UK’s 26 million TV households.
Program audiences are calculated by averaging the audience of all minutes covered by
the program transmission, from the start-time to the end-time of the program. This
calculation excludes any embedded commercial breaks and promotions. BARB viewing
data is available for a range of audience data, including overnights, dayparts, program
and commercial information, time lengths, reaches and channel share of viewing.
The Audience Measurement Panel is a statistical sample of the universe to be measured
and refers to an appropriate number of families / homes which accept the installation of
the people meter on all the TV sets in their home. These homes provide the statistical
estimates of television viewing upon which the TAM data is based. The TV ratings panel
is a panel of households from which individual TV viewing data is extracted. The people
meter allows each individual and their guests to register their viewing by means of a
dedicated remote control, thus creating a database of viewing behavior for each
individual. Audience Research is an important tool to study the characteristics of target
audience for various media including demographic and psycho-graphic details of the
audience, their exposure to various media habits, needs and tastes for various media
contents and moreover, to estimate the size of audience for various programmes and
program ratings.