Audience

Media texts are a product usually made to make money and generate revenue for the institution that has produced them. In our case music videos and their artists been the product make money and generate revenue for the artist music label/institution.All products need audiences to gain what the institution wants. The institution needs an audience to target so they can construct the product to appeal to them. We define a target audience using GRASS:

Gender

Race

Age

Socio-economic Status

Socio-economic Status is essentially what class a person belongs to depending on their job/occupation/family here is a chart to explain the different categories, these are the six standard socio-economic groupings in the UK:

Group                                          Description

A           Upper Class                            Buisness proffesionals

B           Middle Class                            Middle management

C1         Lower middle Class                 Trades and supervisory jobs

C2         Skilled working class                Blue collar workers

D           Lower working class                Manual workers

E           Subsidence                               Pensioners/unemployed

This is the socio-Economic scale used in marketing today, these are the six standard socio-economic groupings in the UK.

Audience profiling can be divided in to two broad categories:

1.Demographic profiling techniques

2.Psychographic profiling techniques

Demographic Profiling

Following World War 2 media industries grew, there was a need to identify and target different audiences in order to market their product to the 'types' of people who would buy the products. The first type of audience profiling developed was demographic which involved grouping the audience into smaller groups based on variables such as sexuality, religion, class, economics, age, gender, geographical area etc. This method of profiling is good as it groups people according to the lives they live or/and their economic or social status in society.

There are of course problems with demographic profiling as people are not all the same just because they have the same job, income  etc. People with the same race or gender don't share the same interests, everyone is different, so it is hard to find out specific audiences through this profiling method. Due to these problems research has moved to Psychographic Profiling, the method which categorises consumers of products in terms of needs rather than characteristics.

Psychographic Profiling

This method of profiling just assumes the audience to be complex and have certain needs which are to be fulfilled. The method aims to appeal to the audiences' emotions and psychological needs, different audiences of obviously having different psychological needs and emotions. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs addresses audience segmentation this way.


Maslow's Hierrachy of Needs
Maslow developed his theory of needs whilst he was researching the behaviour of monkeys. He discovered that all living creatures have basic needs that must be fulfilled to enable survival. However Humans are more complex, therefore are more unique than other species. There is a diagram of a triangle which illustrates his theory. The way to read the theory diagram is to start from the bottom and move up. The first four sections below 'self actualisation' are known as the 'deficit' or 'D-needs', if these needs can't be achieved a person cannot gain 'self actualisation' at the top. The levels of need are known as:

• Physiological needs- ie need for basic survival. These are required to be able to move up the diagram. They include water, oxygen, food etc
• Safety and Security- this is the need for shelter, warmth, protection
• Belonging needs- ie social needs. Maslow describes this need as everyone has 'an innate need for love and affection of others. Its what Humans need in life.
• Esteem needs-this is split into two levels, lower and higher self esteem. Lower self-esteem is gained through appraisal of others, if people like a person the person often feels better about themselves, however if a person isn't liked by someone it creates a person to be low or sad or hurt. HIgher esteem is much more difficult to achieve but when achieved is much more stable/long-lasting, it is self respect and genuinely feeling good about oneself

If all the D-needs are met then 'Self-Actualisation' is achieved. Self-Actualisation is when a person realises our full potential of their Human Being status. Self-Actualisation is made up of 'being needs', which include: perfection,beauty, diplomacy, uniqueness etc, not survival needs.


Here is Maslow's theory:

The aim of our group is to appeal to our target audience, young people who like indie/pop punk music, and we are going to try and achieve to give them their needs in our video and our band 'Funnels' image. Other studies that we concern ourselves with are Young and Rubicam's Cross-cultural Consumer Characteristics. This psychographic profiling approach characterises people in terms of their personal aspirations/needs. Rubicam and Young said there were four categories of audience based upon there  aspirations/needs:

1. Mainstreamers-which is 40% of the market, largest section of the market. This group seek for security in conformity therefore tend to buy well known brands. ,for example popular mainstream Hollywood films.

2.Aspirers-This group are people who are motivated by status. They buy smart high fashion goods. For example the newest best equipped televisions.

3.Succeeders-This group consist of people who have already climbed the ladder and want to keep control of what they have. For example car adverts promoting 'power' etc are aimed at this group of people.

4.Reformers-This group of people are those that want the world to be a better place. As in educated people such as teachers and doctors who apparently are more likely to buy eco-friendly and health products.

In 1988 a new group emerged the 'individual', this group responds to advertising and marketing that emphasises quirkiness or individualism. This is the group we essentially want to appeal to our target audience. Hopefully our product, our video will appeal to our target audience because of the mise-en-scene-, the narrative and editing to match the song. We did a questionnaire which Pete carried out and from this we determined what elements we will put forward on our video..




Jane Keegan