Audience Profiling

Audience Profiling

Media audiences can be profiled as a;

• Consumer
• Gamer
• Surfer
• listener
• Viewer

Audience Profiling is a task all media institutions need to perform when creating a new product to launch onto the market be it a magazine, film, album, website etc. 

Audience profiling allows media businesses to narrow down their audience/ customers to find their target audience. It is always best for a media business to find their target audience before they market a new product so they can get the best results and profit. A target audience is an audience that is most relevant and connected to the media product that a company is trying to sell hence the name target audience. 

When a media business is defining an audience to find their target audience some of the factors they must consider are;

• Age 
• Gender 
• Race 
• Sexuality 
• Education 
• Occupation 
• Annual Income 
• Disposable Income 
• Current Lifestyle/ Aspirational or 
• Desired Lifestyle 
• Culture 
• Media Interests 
• Buying Habits 
• Loyalty to Brands 

WHY DO YOU THINK MEDIA COMPANIES NEED TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION?

Demographics 

Demographics; are quantifiable characteristics of a given population. Demographic analysis can cover whole societies, or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity.

A common and traditional method of using demographics for audience profiling is show below, this defines the adult population largely by the work that they do . It breaks the population down into 6 groups, and labels them by using a letter code to describe the income and status of the members of each group. The chart then labels them by using a letter code that then describes the status and income of the members of each group.

This audience profiling method is allot more useful to media/ documentary producers than the socio- economic status research method because rather than just choosing one of the three classes (upper, middle and working class) they have a march larger variety of choice for finding their target audience. 

For example, let’s say a media producer is trying to find the best target audience for a TV documentary which is about making a creative design for a skyscraper and then building it. 

Straightaway the producer can choose two groups that would be a target audience for this documentary; 

B because it has a large amount of creative workers in that group who would take interest in the design and structuring of the skyscraper and C2: Because the builder (other manual workers too!) would take interest in the building process of the skyscraper.

Psychographics

Psychographics are similar to Demographics but that they deal more with the audience’s behaviour and personality rather than the work they do. An eccentric party animal would sort in a separate group from someone more dependent on security and someone who’s introverted. Of course, they aren’t meant to be discriminatory. 

The Demographics describe who the audiences are where as the Psychographics explain why they do what they do. Media producers often use Psychographics graphs to help profile their audience because just like demographic charts, they are much more detailed and offer a larger variety of audience to choose from. 

For example a documentary producer is looking for a target audience for their documentary which is about a group of 16-18 year old leaving home and living on their own for the first time having to pay for themselves with no help from their parents in looking after themselves. 

The producer would choose the reformers group because that contains people who want freedom of restrictions (independence). The producer could also choose the strugglers group for people who are seeking escape or are disorganised.

Psychographics labels a particular type of person and makes an assessment about their viewing and spending habits. The advertising agency Young and Rubican invented a successful psychographic profile known as their 4C’s Marketing Model stand Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation. They put the audience into groups with labels that suggest their position in society. 

WHO ARE YOU?

Age & Gender 

Age and Gender are an obvious but major part for audience research. Media producers need to have the target aged and gender decided first before they can define their target audience any further (think of it as the structure of finding your target audience)

It usually depends on the type of documentary the producer is trying to sell/ advertise. For example if a producer was trying to find a target audience for a documentary looking back at the history of world Margaret Thatcher they would go for a target audience age of between 40- 60 years old because those were the people living those days, hence they would be more likely interested in what the documentary had to say.

Patterns of Consumer Behaviour

Producers like to know more than the demographics of their audience, they want to know how their audience behaves. They look at;

• Genre choices
• Products consumed
• impact of technology

These can be especially important when it comes to deciding how to distribute your product.

Data

Within research we looked at different data that could be used by producers, this information is used to create the audience profile. Producers will look at;

• Box office data
• Sales figures
• Ratings
• Circulation
• Website hits

This will then be linked to the other information gathered about the audience to create an audience profile.

Audience Profile

Below is an audience profile for a reader of the music magazine NME. 

This document is updated every quarter following market audience research, and is produced for advertisers in order for them to appropriately place their brand in a magazine that is going to align itself with their target audience. 

Look at this profile – what statistics/info would be of interest to potential advertisers?

Look at the website for the Broadcast Audience Research Board see what audience information you can find out for TV viewing in the UK.

Look at the Bauermedia website and see how they profile audiences for different magazines.

Another good site Thinkbox

You are going to produce your own Target Audience Profile for a magazine of TV programme of your choice. 

You need to consider demographics and Psychographics, lifestyle and the brands your audience will identify with (potential advertisers). 

IT’S NOW YOUR TURN!

Audience Profile template