Critical Approaches - How Media Producers Define Audiences Assignment 1
Media is everywhere. It comes in many forms, whether it's an action packed film, an interesting BBC Documentary or your favorite console game. In this blog, I will be looking at the importance of target audience and how an audience is profiled from the research producers carry out.
The Importance of Target Audience:
Once you know who your product is for you can begin to aim all the different media creation process towards the audience. Marketing will usually be the way in which the audience is drawn in as all the trailers, posters and merchandise are specially designed to appeal to the niche audience.
Finding your target audience is also a vital part of the pre production. This information is used throughout the creative process. This then makes a product very easy to market a you know where the product is going, a rough idea of when its going to be released and you know why your making the product in a style that you are. Not only giving your work purpose but also making sure there is a level of quality in the final piece. If this isn't done correctly or to a high standard then the product could fail to maintain a certain appeal.
Using the Knowledge of who your Target Audience is:
How can you turn all the data you get from your research into audiences? One way you can do this is to profile your audience. Another is to turn it into a visual representation using facts and figures in graphs which can be used in profiling later on in the process.
How Target Audiences are Profiled
Target audience profile is a very important step in researching your target audience as it acts as a summary of all your findings. Which means that you get a more concentrated view of who your audience as you know a lot more detail about them and then you can treat them as a stereotype when creating your product. You can set out the profile of the audience in various ways, some people chose to do it visually others may wish to create a bullet pointed list. When profiling we look at the following areas:
Socio-economic status:
The soci-economic status is a way to measure the wealth of an audience. This way they can match the branding towards the correct classes; typically you have three classes, which are: working class, middle class and upper class.
Psychographics:
Psychographics is all about what the audience is thinking. This includes what their habits are, what values do they have and what are their hobbies? Combined with demographics, you get a detailed breakdown of the average life your audience. For instance, a demographic would include: gender, age, marital status and income. Where as psychographics might have the following information: thoughts on appearance, lifestyle, hobbies, what they find fulfillment in and what they value. Which could be something such as valuing time between friends. When it comes to this section of profiling we often stereotype people into different categories:
- Mainstreamers - Seek security, tend to domestic, conventional, sentimentalist, follow trends and often go for the big named brands. This is often the larger group.
- Apsirers - Will seek status, excessively concerned about the acquisition of money, acquisitive, orientated to image and appearance. Typically younger people.
Geodemographics - Regional Identity:
Geodemographics and regional identity are two of the same thing. Regional identity is where in the world the audience is, geodemographics then adds all the important information such as income and research data. This is so a producer can get specific information about a region, small town, county, country, town or city. This is so they know exactly who to target the product at. This will then be combined with the other pieces of data to form a profile. The best way to analyse the geodemographics is to look at a couple of examples. For these examples, it is hard to get them from media companies. But in this case you can normally look at graphics that already exist and then aim a product towards it.
Demographics:Demographics is the study of population based on a series of factors. These factors allow the producers to see exactly who their audience is. This summary can then be profiled in a series of ways. The factors included in demographics are age, race, sex, economic status, level of education and income section. Demographics are vital to the production of any product as it sets the focus for its audience. It is also important to note that people are stereotyped when it comes to demographics as its easy to target towards. As if you get too deep into an audience it may become niche, which can come with its own advantages/disadvantages.
Age:
Age is as simple as how old the audience is. 10 year olds have a different mind set and thinking process to products compared to 50 year olds. So by noting who the target age is you know what level of maturity to set your product. Age is also important from a legal point as if you aim to make a product for a child then the standards are very different. For example, if you are making a film or commercial aimed at an audience 6-8 years old you cannot include drug references, sex, violence, strong language or any disturbing scenes. Which effects the overall production. Yet if you know your audience straight away you know to avoid these. It also means that your marketing can be aimed directly at your age range.
Gender:
Gender is very important as male and females have different mind sets. This section is also stereotyped to draw in a larger target audience. Males are known to be more into action and fast paced production and females are stereotyped to be more delicate and into things such as musicals, dramas or romances. Although everyone is different, everyone is stereotyped when it comes to audiences.
Sexual Orientation:
They also look at sexual orientation. Straight, bisexual and gay people all have different tastes. It is important to make sure you content is suitable as you don't want to offend your audience, no matter if its about race, religion or sexual orientation. Films can be targeted towards certain orientations, such as the recently released 'Pride'.
Mainstream:
Mainstream means what is popular with the majority of a population. This means the content is normally wide enough that anyone could find it entertaining. Big companies such as Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal will all do this by looking at whats popular and will make big blockbuster hits, which may not be the best films, but they are films that get a mass following. And a mass following means a bigger cash reward. So when they come to profile an audience they need to write a summary from their findings. So basically, if the mainstream audience keep watching then the big companies will keep making content and they will continue to make money.
Alternative:
Alternative is when a producer aims a product at a select target audience but then turns it around to try and see if the product works elsewhere. This is often done to gain more viewers or to see if a product is more successful with another audience.
Niche:
Not every audience likes following the mainstream productions. Often, audiences will like just one specific thing. This is known as a niche, an area that only looks at a small target audience. When you profile this type of audience it will often be very specific and won't have a wide appeal by the masses. There might be a big appeal of that subject but not by the whole population. This enters a minority audience focusing on obscure or less popular themes. This can make it hard to target this audience as if you do not meet everyone as their needs they can be put off.
How Media Producers Carry Out Research
Quantitative Audience Research:
Quantitative research is secondary research for any media project, as you are finding out where audiences currently reside. This could also be primary research if you are collecting the data yourself. Here you can make a rough judgement to what content is most like yours, you can then look at the figures of similar products to place yours in the market. This type of research is all about the numbers and the systematic investigation into a phenomena via mathematical techniques. This will stereotype the audience as all you know so far is the numbers behind the views not the people.
BARB:Since 1981, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, known as 'BARB' has been in charge of gathering the official viewing figures for the UK. They represent the viewing behavior of the UK's 26 million households. They offer broadcasters and producers a minute by minute breakdown of nations viewing figures. This is important for the producers, so they can assess how their own product has perform but they can also use it as market research to see how well their products could do. To estimate a viewing pattern, they carefully select a panel of private homes. To make sure it is fair and accurate they recruit all types of households to be part of the panel so that it suits the necessary demographics. Currently 5100 households are on the panel.
Qualitative Audience Research:
Unlike quantitative research which is formed on the basis of numbers and data; qualitative is about how the audience think and feel about a subject area looking at the quality's of the product rather than just figures. The data is always descriptive. You can easily look at forums and websites such as Reddit which hold threads of conversations. Instead of getting simple yes or no answers, qualitative research requires detail conversations, responses and discussions in order to be effective.
Focus Groups:
A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are questioned on their opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards something. This is used for the purpose of feedback, as they are the users of similar product/the product you are producing. Without it, you have not indication of what the public thing of your creation. Which could result in months and work going down the drain because you haven't done your research thoroughly.
Questionnaires:
A questionnaire is a tool for a producer to use to collect and record information about a particular subject. It is made up of questions that the recipient will answer, following the given clear instructions. Questionnaires always have to have a focus, so all the questions are related to what the producer wants to find out. It must also be clear on what the information is for as you could be misleading the public. Face to face interviews are the most common medium. Which means there should be a variety in the type of questions asked so you can get a detailed breakdown instead of yes or no answers.
Questionnaires can also look like this. This type is used more to get the statistics and don't care about the personal life of the audience. The use of never, once, 2 or 3 times, 3+ and not sure will also make great visual representations. As all those questions that flag to most percentage in the never section can immediately be targeted and looked at for improvement for their target audience. This type of questionnaire can also be used in the world of media in order to fully under stand what a target audience gets up to in their spare time, what they like and where they will spend their money.
Face-to-Face Interviews:
A leader or interviewer will talk to one person about their opinions and beliefs, making it more of a discussion than a one word answer. They may use a questionnaire as their basis of the interview but by getting a personal reaction you can record what they say and record their facial expressions. Getting a personal reaction instead of a piece of text can be very important. This type of interview is also known as an in-person interview and is one of the oldest and most popular forms of survey collecting.
A one to one interview can also take advantage of social cues such as voice, body and language to add to the verbal information already given by the interviewee. There is also the chance to directly react on what another person says instead of having a time delay online or through the post. You can quickly get through a series of different people in a day to find their opinions and review them at the end of the day through a recording. But this means you have to be consistent with every interview in order to keep the research fair and focused. You must also make sure to make notes alongside the recordings in case something goes wrong and you loose all your evidence. This way you can check that you have answered all the questions. It is also important to remember that it takes a long time to transcribe so notes can help with this process.
