LO1- How do media producers define their audience

Types of research

Quantitative audience research• Quantitative is research that is more structured and statistical and uses a set answer

so that the responses are more clear. The advantages of using this method of research is that the data you collect is more clear and therefore can be analyzed faster to find out what the person has answered as the answers are usually short or are part of a multiple choice selection and therefore can be plotted into graphs and charts easier that will allow the results of research to be more apparent easier. With the data being easy to put on graphs and charts this makes the data good for use on info graphics which can make the data even easier to view. However the disadvantages of using quantitative research is that the person answering the questions cant go into extra detail as the answers are usually set and therefore you can loose a chance to find out extra information about your audience such as why they have selected the answer they have which could be helpful to improve your product or make it more appealing to your target audience. Companies such as the National readership survey (NRS) and the Audit bureau of classifications (ABC) can be used to do quantitative research for you and can give you suggestions on how to make your product more appealing to a target audience.

Uses for quantitative research• As mentioned earlier the data that you

collect from quantitative research is easy to plot on graphs an charts and therefore can be used to create databases and info graphics to view trends and majorities within the answers given by the target audience so you can easily see which aspects of the product you are creating to focus more heavily upon to increase the likelihood that the target audience will find your product appealing and want to buy it.

Qualitative audience research• Qualitative research is research that is more unstructured and subjective

and gives the people answering the questions more freedom with the answers that they can submit. The advantage of doing qualitative research is that the answers can go into a lot of detail and therefore can give you an added insight into how the target audience thinks as they may add reasons for their choices or suggest other alternatives for you to consider in there answer as it is in a very open format. This can allow you to gain information that you would not have been able to if you had asked closed questions to the audience. However the disadvantages of using this method of research are that with such an open format there is the possibility of the audience providing answers that are not relevant of only have a small part of the answer that is relevant to the original question. The data will also take a long time to analyse as the answers are not set and clear so you will have to read through all the answers and then draw conclusions form them.

Uses for qualitative research• Qualitative research can be used to target

focus groups to find out their interests and find out more about how you could aim the product towards them by finding out their interests. This can be done by gathering a group of people who all fit the description of a target audience you will try and focus on. This can allow you to find out form interviews and surveys how the audience thinks and what they are like. The open nature of the questions can allow follow up questions and make the research more flexible to fit the audience.

Audience demographics

Socio economic status• The socio economic status refers to which class within

society a person belongs to. This can be used to help target products towards people by focusing on interests and values that are common within different classes so that they will be more inclined to want to purchase the product. The most common socio economic group to target is ‘ABC1’. This is a broad group that cover everyone from upper class to lower middle class. This is a common group to target as these are the people that tend to have the most disposable income to spend on products and therefore are the ones who will most likely buy non essential purchases.

Socio economic status

• This is the table that is used to help classify what economic status a person belongs to and what occupation they would typically have.

Phsychographics

• Phychographics refer to the targeting of advertising that focuses on peoples personality traits. This can be done through targeting products in different people based on either the values that they keep, their attitude, their lifestyle or their interests. Phychographics can also be classified into a table that contains the most common types of people in broad groups. This table is known as the four C’s table and can be used to target products towards a large group by generalising the interests and effective marketing techniques for them.

Phsychographics

• This is the four Cs table as previously mentioned it includes a short broad summary of each group namely the typical nature of the person and how they can be targeted.

Geodemographics

• Geodemographics are where an you can target a product at people from a select area or location. This is effective as people living in the same area tend to live similar lifestyles and people can use this information to work out where a product would best be marketed. This form of marketing is most use to direct mail and similar marketing companies rather than mass producers.

Age • Marketers can also target certain age groups as a target

audience for their products. You can make broad statements about the interests and wants of an age group which, whilst they wont apply to every single person within the group, will apply to the majority. Different media products will aim for different age ranges as they will have a different average consumer age and typical consumer to aim for. The age that will be targeted will be decided before production but may change after the product has been released and the audience has been studied if a different age range finds the product more appealing than the initial target audience.

Gender• Marketers can also use gender as a broad generalisation to

target products toward common interests and themes within the two genders. The generalisations may not apply to all of the members of the targeted gender but will apply to a large number of people within the target audience this is due to the broad scope of the interests associated with the different genders. The most easily recognisable use of this marketing is with children's toys where the aisles are usually split into boys and girls sections which are mostly blue coloured for boy and pink coloured for girls to make them instantly clear for the children.

Mainstream

• Mainstream marketing is marketing that is intended to cover a large target audience by appealing to a large amount of people in order to make more potential sales. However the downside to this form of marketing is that the competition will be large as you will be trying to target the same target audience as many other brands as your audience is so big and therefore it can be difficult to make the company stand out amongst the crowd.

Niche

• Niche marketing is where you will try to target a very specific audience with your product by creating a product that will only appeal to a small number of people but being one of the few companies doing it as it is usually done when there is a gap in the market. This can make you have little competition to contend with. However the downside to this form of marketing is that the target audience will be very small and therefore you may not be able to make as many sales as a company with a larger target audience.

Mainstream and niche• An example of where mainstream and niche

marketing can be seen is in the music industry. The mainstream music that is in the music charts will have a larger target audience and therefore will have greater amounts of competition with other popular music that is in the charts. More unpopular music will have a far smaller audience yet will have far less competition as the fans of the music will be a more specific group.