This document discusses different methods for defining and researching audiences for media products. It covers quantitative research which uses numerical data to analyze who purchases products and qualitative research which uses open-ended questions to understand opinions, values and demographics. Some key audience definition factors discussed include socio-economic status, psychographics, geodemographics, age, gender, whether a target audience is niche or mainstream. The advantages and disadvantages of each research method are also summarized.
3. Quantitative audience research
Expressed as numerical figures
How many people purchased a product
Closed questions
Just print media but makes assumptions
about peoples socio-economics after
analysing the reader figures
Digital as well but doesn’t make
assumptions about the socioeconomics of consumers
Gives limited feedback
Increase, decrease, change or axe
4. Qualitative audience research
Opinions and views
Open questions
Who they are, What they like, What they don’t, Where they live and
How much they earn.
Great detail
5. Qualitative audience research
Questionnaire – generate a number of questions to ask
Focus group – observer overlooks a group talking about a product
Face-to-face interview – An interviewer will ask a person/group of people
about a product
6. Socio-economic status
calculates an individual or
family’s economic and social
position in relation to others.
figures are based on income,
education and occupation.
help the media producers
select a target audience
Money to spend
amend it’s products
NRS conduct to differentiate
The percentage of individuals in each
category:
A – 4%
B – 23%
C1 – 29%
Disposable income
C2 – 21%
D – 15%
E – 8%
7. Psychographics
values, interests, personality, attitudes and
lifestyle
aspirer demographic, the aesthetic
features of a product are more
important than the content
Advantage
• It can identify different groups that could be
targeted by the media producers
• The questionnaires that find out this
information are easy to produce and also
cheap to produce
Disadvantage
• It goes into specific detail, but doesn’t give
percentages of society, like socio-economic
findings. This will make it more difficult for the
company to find the most popular
psychographic category and therefore the best
group to target.
• Questionnaires could be unreliable, people
could be untruthful with their answers and the
reliability could be compromised.
in essence, different target audiences for media products.
8. Geodemographics
National census
It will tell you what sort of group live in
that particular area
market their product in the
correct places
same neighbourhood may have similar lifestyles & spending
tendencies
which areas maybe best to advertise their
product
Loss in profit if generated wrong
Advantage
• An easy way to find information about peoples spending
patterns, education and income. This will help media producers
identify their target audience easily.
• Saves time and money investigating each individual from every
household using a questionnaire.
Disadvantage
•This is an average, this research and theory exists with a lot of
assumptions of people. This could backfire on companies if they
are misinformed.
9. Geodemographics
LS1 – affluent achievers
LS2 – Thriving Greys
LS3 – Settled suburbans
LS4 – Nest builders
LS5 – Urban venturers
LS6 – Country life
LS7 – Senior citizens
LS8 – Producers
LS9 – Hard pressed families
LS10 – ‘Have-nots’ (economically disadvantaged)
The affluent achievers out buy the
economically disadvantaged by 23% on
broadsheet newspapers. Even though it
doesn’t apply to all financially
disadvantaged individuals/families, it
applies to the majority and therefore
equated to an average (shown right).
10. Same genre, different demographic
The ageing cover star, dull colouring and
simple layout suggests this product is aimed
at an older demographic.
Age
make assumptions about
people of a similar age
having similar likes and
dislikes
The youthful cover stars, intertwined with
the bright colours and modern layout, NME
Magazine is aimed at a younger
demographic.
Q average age of 29 like it
shows on the Qualitative
research slide
Advantage
•It tells a media producer about different age demographics likes and dislikes, therefore enabling them to make a
more suitable product.
•It gives the company a better understanding of the audience they are trying to appeal to.
Disadvantage
•While establishing different groups likes and dislikes, this goes on an average and doesn’t apply to all of the
demographic.
•If the questionnaires are not filled in correctly by the consumer, the feedback will be incorrect and the product will
instead be changed for the worse. This is also a disadvantage to qualitative research methods.
11. Vogue is more tailored to a female
audience with it’s choice of colours,
layout and tends to have famous
females on the front.
Gender
Gender that reads a particular
product most and how?
Men’s health is, as expected, a male dominated
viewership. This magazine will have, if not 100%, a
high percentage of male readership. It tends to
have simple colours, simple layout and a celebrity
that most men aspire to be to try and hook them
into buying the magazine.
Gender readership per product
Generated using both qualitative
and quantitative research methods
like questionnaire and surveys.
Q’s
ratio
Advantage
•Can find out very specific details on gender specific media products and techniques that could be
used to appeal to both or one gender.
Disadvantage
•Similar to age demographic, it is an average and the reliability of the research maybe
compromised.
•Also like age research, questionnaires that are used to find this information maybe filled in
untruthfully, affecting the results and the media producers changes to products.
12. Reader’s digest is a mainstream
magazine because it doesn’t
focus on one topic or genre, it
covers a lot of interests.
Mainstream
Like Reader’s digest, ‘people weekly’ is
also a mainstream magazine. This is due
to similar reasons to Reader’s digest, it
discusses more topic/interest areas than
one.
large audience/majority of the audience
aware of it or consuming
Whether a product is mainstream
The percentage of mainstream compared
to niche audience and the techniques of
mainstream product,
How do they draw the audience in?
What should go in to make it
mainstream ?
Advantage
•Can give very clear percentages of mainstream audience types as well as identifying the techniques
to choose if you were to produce a mainstream magazine.
Disadvantage
•Some techniques that work for one magazine won’t always work for another so the mainstream
techniques that are suggested to a company may do more harm than good in terms of finance.
13. Even though the good selling figures, Top
Gear would still be considered a niche market
product because of the specific interest/topic
inside the magazine.
Niche
Four Four Two would also be considered niche
market, due to the single interest area covered
within the media product.
Smaller audience
Large portion of that small
demographic
Avoid
Emulate
Advantage
•If you want to produce a niche market magazine, this research will help you produce a magazine that interest an
audience, while enticing them to buy it.
Disadvantage
•Like the mainstream slide, one niche market magazines techniques won’t work for them all. However, if the techniques
don’t work they will then know what features to avoid in the future.
