Target audience2
- 1. Audience research is an important tool used within the industry to study and understand the several characteristics of target audience for various media including demographic and psycho-graphic details such as age, gender, lifestyle, location and other figures. By looking at these aspects of the target audience the production of a product or idea can be shaped for the preferred enjoyment or appeal to that target audience. Audiences can provide feedback to producers and help create a friendly and appealing final product. It provides consumer insight into what the target audience want to receive and helps shape and form a quality product. Age The target audience that this project is going to be directed at is males and females between the ages of 15-18, as this is the audience that is most likely to be looking for courses in college and/or looking to transfer colleges or even start out with new subjects. A secondary target group that we are going to focus on is parents of school leavers as it is suggested that parents do wide researches about different colleges and courses in order to find the one that is the most suitable for their sons and daughters. Hence, the secondary target audience that we are going to focus on is going to be males and females between the ages of 38-50. Gender It is important to decide which gender you wish to aim your product at. If it were a male the product would need to somehow relate to male audiences. This would mean incorporating aspects that appeal to males. Revering form colours such as pale blue or pink would be wise. The language used would need to associate and connect with a male audience, referencing aspects of society that are masculine like sport or athleticism, gaming or even the sexualisation of women. Though it may not affect all men these stereotypical areas have proven to be effective in marketing towards the male gender. When appealing to a female audience it would be considered appropriate to avoid any reference to sexualisation of women or unattractive colours that don’t blend well together. Subjects like make- up, fashion and romance may be more appealing to the female gender. As would poetry, girlish colours like pink and adorable animals. That’s not to say that males would not find this appealing or that females would not find male associated aspects appealing either. However when studying figures a team would look at the majority figure rather than minority. When looking at both male and female audiences, it is important to consider what each gender may be more or less appealed to. For example fashion is something that could be appealing to both genders but is statistically in favour of females. Instead of fashion the marketing team could rename it clothing which is a much more neutral general word that would not put off either genders. It is things like this that must be considered during the development process. For our promotional film for Cheadle and Marple College we will most definitely aim to appeal to both genders as film studies is a subject that both males and females can find equally appealing and interesting. The course does not distance or lean towards either gender. This means using both male and female representatives in our video and remaining neutral with the subjects and questions we include in the final complete video.
- 2. Lifestyle The lifestyle of the target audience is vital when it comes to figuring out how we should direct this project so that the audience that will see our video are interested in college courses and / or have a family member that is interested in taking a course up in Cheadle &Marple Sixth Form College. The target audience that we are going for, as mentioned above are school leavers as they are looking for a college to move to and also the parents of school leavers as they will have a potential input into their child’s choice of college and courses. School leavers are more likely to have a lifestyle based on technology and internet, so we are going to direct the promotional video primarily towards the internet crowd which is for a promotional video YouTube and video advertisements. As the course we are promoting is Film Studies, we are going to try and place the promotional video in areas that are related to films and film related interests. Socio‐economic grouping Socio-economic grouping is term used to describe the economic order of classes in relation to their social standings. It is not the same as a social or economic class but blends the two together. For example someone in the middle class bracket would be making a certain wage that was higher than someone in the working class bracket and lower than someone in the upper class bracket. This is an economic structure. Socio-economics brings to mind the occupation of someone as well as their income. Someone in high authority would most likely associate themselves with a different group of people socially when compared to someone of low authority. The system of socio-economic grouping is used to see how people from different socio-economic groupings react to the same stimuli. The structure usually goes as follows: A- Higher managerial, administrative, professional e.g. Chief executive, senior civil servant, surgeon B - Intermediate managerial, administrative, professional e.g. bank manager, teacher C1- Supervisory, clerical, junior managerial e.g. shop floor supervisor, bank clerk, sales person C2 - Skilled manual workers e.g. electrician, carpenter D- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers e.g. assembly line worker, refuse collector, messenger E - Casual labourers, pensioners, unemployed e.g. pensoiners without private pensions and anyone living on basic benefits
- 3. For our promotional video our priority in terms of a socio-economic group would be young people out of work and in full time education. In some cases this may include young people with part time or semi-skilled jobs. They would typically fall into the bracket D or E. Location The location of the target audience is also a major factor as for example if the viewers of the promotional video are from another city or even another country they would have no way of actually signing up for the course that is offered at Cheadle &Marple sixth form college. We are going to minimize the availability of the promotional video and make it more location specific as the service is more valid and useable if it is directed towards the right area, which is Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme and Stockport. These are three areas are the areas that are around Cheadle &Marple sixth form college and are the areas where most of the students studying in our college are from. These areas are very specific when it comes to trying to project the promotional video to on the World Wide Web. Therefore, we are going to try and focus on the city of Cheadle &Marple Sixth form College which is Manchester. We are also going to try to make this more specific towards Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme and Stockport as much as possible.
- 4. Film Studies YouTube Advertisement video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kp6N6nkkyE The video above is an advertisement for the subject film studies for Carl Albert State College. It displays a rendition of a famous scene in the movie Psycho and after the scene is done it shows the process and making of the scene and what goes on into it, this tries to explain what is offered in the subject Film Studies at this specific college as much as possible. This video has 2,345 views and was posted on 11th of March of 2007. Audience figures
- 5. BARB: The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board collects audience measurements and television ratings in the United Kingdom. Basically, BARB is a ratings and view ratings measurement agency that shows the amount of audience(s) that is watching a specific TV show or a television programming. BARB helps creators and the makers of television based programming to have an outlook on what their audience wants to see and what type of programming they are interested in. It is owned by the BBC, the ITV companies, Channel 4, Channel 5, BSkyB and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Participating viewers have a box on top of their TV which tracks the programmes they watch.