Audience Research

Ellie Dawson

Qualitative ResearchQualitative research is unstructured data with subjective conclusions and a summary. This type of data also includes interviews and observations, although it is helping you to understand your audience rather than gathering factual/numerical data. This data also includes exploratory research gaining an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions and motivations. It un-covers trends in thoughts and opinions. This type of research would typically be used to gather non-statistical information and more exploratory and investigative problems.

Advantages of this sort of research are it is useful for studying a limited number of cases in depth, it provides an individual case of information meaning that although it is not factual it does go into great detail so if you were after detailed information rather than factual then qualitative research would be more useful.Dis-advantages of this research are that it is difficult to make quantitative predictions with the information gathered not being factual. It generally takes more time to collect the data when compared to quantitative research: data analysis is often more time consuming.As I said before this type of research cannot be used to make generalizations of population of interest as findings are not conclusive, again in comparison to quantitative research it is not as reliable and useful as quantitative research in some cases because it is more detailed than it s factual.

Some examples of companies doing this in the UK for the print media industry are the National Readership Survey and abc.

Quantitative ResearchQuantitative research involves structured data which involves statistical analysis, factual information, objective conclusions and often surveys/experiments are carried out to prove/find out information and uncover patterns. This kind of data quantifies a problem by way of generating numerical data or data which that can be transferred into useable statistics. Quantitative data quantifies attitudes, opinions, behaviors and other definable variables. Other kinds of observations/participations taken place are; online surveys, paper surveys, mobile surveys, kiosk surveys, face to face interview, telephone interview and online polls.

Some advantages of this method are that the information you are gathering is all factual and proven in some way, carrying out surveys means that you can get a wide range of feedback from different people but of the same audience demographic. The disadvantages to this method of research are that when carrying out the survey the answers may not go the way you had hoped, or it may be hard to choose between certain answers if there is not a clear side to choose on the survey. Another disadvantage is that people may not answer honestly they may either feel influenced by the way the survey is written or they may answer randomly if they are unsure what to put as an answer.

In comparison to qualitative research I think this is a better alternative if you would like factual and reliable data, as qualitative research is often not conclusive and cannot be used to make generalization about the population of interest.

Socio-economic statusSocio-economic status is the class in which a person belongs to in social categorization, based on your job, work experience and wealth/income. This is used by companies to help determine which class has which interests and values, then which class group would be more likely to buy their product. This is usually based on the main person in your household, for example with your average family, it would be based on the Male’s job, then that family all have a social class based on that person, and this generally tells us a lot about someone as a person, for example if you are in category A, you are more likely to have higher education, and a good job.

A – Upper middle classB – Middle classC1 – Lower middle class

C2 – Skilled working classD – Working classE – Lowest level of subsistence

These are the most common social classes used for a target audience.

PsychographicsPsychographics is the study of a person’s lifestyle. For example their hobbies, interests, values and attitudes. It also helps us to understand how they see themselves and how they should be represented within groups.

The reason marketing companies use this is to define what sort of person is buying their product and understanding that person in order to keep them happy and interested in their product.

The different consumer characterizations go from resigned, struggler, mainstreamer, aspirer, succeeder, explorer and reformer. Which are all different types of people who have different attitudes and aspirations and goals.

Cameo UKCameo UK is another way of identifying an audience. Typing in a postcode of an area allows you to find out their lifestyles, occupations, income etc.. This would be a useful way for companies posting leaflets to know where to post them to so that it is directly appealing to their target audience, for example posting a leaflet to a low income area for houses for sale would be irrelevant, so they would post them to bought houses and areas of high income and high socio-economic statuses.

Another example is a farm foods leaflet, this would be posted in areas with a farm foods nearby, otherwise you are not appealing to an audience that does not have a farm foods nearby and it would be a waste of the company’s time.

Cameo UK examples

GeodemographicsThis method of audience profiling is used with demographic information. For example people living in the same postcode typically have similar lifestyles and ways of spending money. This enables advertisers to capture their audience and advertise to the right audience all with the same interests.

Geodemographics will also tell you if an area is full of young professionals, retired couples or young families etc. Which allows a company to know exactly where they want to advertise to. This is a popular way of marketing in direct mail, for example a leaflet posted through the door at your house will have been researched for its audience and geodemographic, so they know where to post which is going to be of interest, rather than posting everywhere and it not being an interest to half of the addresses.

Mainstream or NicheAudiences can be further grouped into mainstream or niche audiences. A mainstream audience is typically a large audience in which the product is popular and well-known. Whereas a niche audience will be a much smaller and more un-usual group of people who are interested in a much less popular product that some people will possibly never even heard of because the product is aimed at a very selective audience with particular interests.

For example, Vogue magazine is aimed at a mainstream audience because the majority of people know what it is even if they do not read it, it will typically be aimed at a middle class audience as it is not the cheapest magazine, whereas the Nature Life magazine is much more of a niche audience because it is not going to be one of those magazines like Vogue that every knows of and the audience will not be as large. This is because the audience is selective and it is for those with a particular interest for nature therefore they buy the magazine.

AgeThe age element is very important and simple when it comes t classifying your audience. You can easily make a broad statement about an age group, although it may not apply to everyone in the group, it will apply to the majority. For example teenagers are most likely to be living at home and 99% of the time that will be correct.

Age is one of the most important demographics because it is the factor that separates audiences up more significantly.

Examples of age stereotypeAn example of an age stereotype is the stereotype of teenagers. A lot of people and especially older people make the assumption and accusation that the majority of teenagers are usually loud, disrespectful, un-intelligent etc.

Yet on the other hand there are many stereotypes and quick assumptions about old people; incapable of being independent, forgetful, helpless, boring etc.

GenderGender is also a very simple way or classifying an audience.

Finding out about an audience’s gender can help you make the product more appealing to them as men and women more often than not have different interests and values thus meaning they are interested in different things and want different products from media.

Products aimed at men and products aimed at women are quite obvious and easy to spot as they are so different, creating gender neutral products avoids this.

It is quite easy to guess which product is for which gender but when you stick to these conventions you run this risk of producing a stereotypical product.

Examples of a gender stereotypeOne common version of a gender stereotype is for example children’s toys. When typing in ‘children’s toys male’ it comes up with very boy-ish toys with certain colours and unless it is a uni-sex toy it never breaks this colour scheme. These colours are usually, blue, green, yellow and red, in the most common cases of toy making.On the other hand when typing in ‘children’s toys girls’ it comes up with almost purely pink toys with some elements of purple. This is on the assumption that all girls want everything pink. Both of these stereotypes are heavily used.

Focus groups

A focus group is a way of observing a small group of people talking about a particular issue.

This means that a company or organisation wanting to find out information from a certain category of people can gather 6-10 people a time to a focus group and have a mediator direct a discussion and rather than getting single and possibly rehearsed answers from an interview they hear a genuine discussion. The role of the mediator is in the background, ensuring that the group boundaries are kept to and to ensure that the group stays on track.