Audience research

What is audience research?

Audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on specific audience segments to gather information about their attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviours with respect to prevention issues. Segments may be based on various grouping strategies, such as race and ethnicity, age, education, or family income. Some investigators refer to audience research as "formative" or "elicitation" research.

What is the purpose of audience research?

Before finalising any project, research must be done before even thinking about the initial design. The point of doing this is so that the producer can get a better insight of the target audience, it would be pointless creating something that’s not going to appeal to the right people. It’s important part of the procedure as it’s time consuming, and a waste of money if the product is not created the way expected. Knowing the kind of people you want to target the product at can create a wide variety of ways to advertise the product also.

Audience categories

There are many different categories in which they fit into. These include income, profession, life cycle stage, age, gender, marital status, behaviour, demographics, geodemographics, religion, etc. There are several ways to collect this information some of which can be conducted by the use of; Surveys, online ratings, interviews, focus groups and more.

Standard occupational classification – the bureau of labour statistics say the 2010 standard occupational classification (SOC) system is used by federal statistical agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. All workers are classified into one of 840 detailed occupations according to their occupational definition. To facilitate classification, detailed occupations are combined to form 461 broad occupations, 97 minor groups, and 23 major groups. Detailed occupations in the SOC with similar job duties, and in some cases skills, education, and/or training, are grouped together.

This helped me choose which category my advert would fit into and as my advert is based with young people it was harder as they don’t fit into the categories so I based this part of my research on the parents who would decide to watch it and pay for the viewing and product. Although my viewers would vary I decided to place them in C1 and C2

Age and gender

My target audience is aimed at young adults from the age of 15 – 25, but also elder women around 25 – 30 because it may attract elder women but it is not specifically aimed at that age. I’ve decided this as my target audience as I know for a fact the majority of females would rather see a ‘girly’ advert rather than an action pact one. However, by my own personal opinion I do enjoy watching action pact adverts because it’s something different to what you normally see. Using different methods to find out information on audience research

Method Suitable Reason whyQuestionnaires Yes Questionnaires would be good to use

as it is extremely simple for people to use seeing as it is multiple choice (most of the time).

Surveys Yes “ ” Once again help conclude what the audience think would be best suited, which is something needed in order to be most successful.

Online forums Partly Probably most suitable as majority of young teenagers spend most of their time on the internet, better communication. And also you can come across anonymous if wanted.

Interviews Yes The public can describe and express what they would like to see, what works and what doesn’t.

Focus groups Yes Focus groups are more informative as they look in depth of two comparable reasons for/ and against.

Online ratings Yes The youth of today are forever into high technology so teenagers are more likely to pay attention if it’s accessible and promoted at the right time. An example of this could be a ‘Facebook’ page.

Magazine reviews No The data would have already been collected, and would not be specific to what I’m looking for.

Internet forumsInternet forums are often used for audience research as fans from the same genre will discuss what they hope for a film or even spoilers which may encourage people to see the films. Internet forums are often a lot more helpful in audience research if the film was a book before as there’ll already be a big fan base and people waiting for a film.

Internet forums really helped in audience research as much as different methods of my target audience would be using the internet so I couldn’t find out what they wanted to see or what sort of things they all wanted to see.

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

. http://www.nielsen.com/uk/en/insights/press-room/2013/uk-consumers-are-less-brand-loyal-when-trying-new-products.html

Below are graphs I found online stating what percentage of people find new or tend to by beauty products

From this graph, the data given states that majority of people who are more like to buy new products will do so from hearing from friends and family, compared to people who have a job and work (office jobs). As my advertisement would be seen on the internet and TV the percentages were lower than what I expected. The information given has proven that majority of people spend more time noticing adverts online than they do on TV. This has made me realise that I will focus more on making my advert appropriate to be seen online.

Although this graph was completed a year ago and is based on people in the USA it has still given me an insight into what social networking sites were most popular last year. I purposely looked into the USA stats because I knew that have almost tripled the amount of TV channels and that beauty advertisements will be shown 24/7.

Demographics

A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fix ant), class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and lower classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the male/female mind-sets).

A demographic profile can be used to determine when and where advertising should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. In all such cases, it is important that the advertiser get the most results for their money, and so careful research is done to match the demographic profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium.

I think the best thing I can do in order to find great way to advertise my product would be to research into previous adverts on TV and online and evaluate them and try and develop ideas how I can make mine just as successful within the competitive industry.

I now also need to consider about the pricing of the advertisement and product. If this were to be for a real client instead of a media assignment I would look into props, location hiring, lighting, costumes, equipment, camera, cast, production crew, makeup artist, actors, publicity, director etc. However this is an individual task and I have thought through each step of my production, where and when I’m going to film and what I’m doing in each scene.

Thinking ahead, I will need to consider what channels it will be shown on, and where about online. I will also need to take into account what I would price this perfume bottle at, to make it an affordable for most regular people or overpriced making it a great essential pricing.

Socio – Economic

What is it?

Socioeconomics is sometimes used an umbrella term with different usages. 'Social economics' may refer broadly to the "use of economics in the study of society." More narrowly, contemporary practice considers behavioural interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social "markets" (not excluding for example, sorting by marriage) and the formation of social norms. In the latter, it studies the relation of economics to social values.

Here is a table I found online that best describes Socio – economic. It is a table based on the Standard Occupational Classification.

This image above is a summary of job titles listed numerically by SOC200 code. This graph narrows down the types of people who will be targeted at. It specifies what category people come under as it gives us a good impression of what they’re like and their lifestyle. In this image above ‘1134’ is whom I aiming mine towards.