Target Audience: 'ists' and 'isms'

In the modern world, it is almost impossible to look into the media industry without coming across the concept of a 'target audience'. Every media product produced, whether an advertisement, newspaper or film, has a defined purpose with a specific target audience. An audience is a collection of consumers, and the creators of the media product target a specific collection of consumers with regard to the product and its appeal. For example, the creators of a magazine entitled 'Gardener's Monthly' would most probably focus on gardeners as their target audience, and would need to seriously consider a career change if they had done otherwise.



To simplify the process of determining a particular audience to target, the media industry has resorted to categorising and labelling certain types or groups of people. Just as a blissfully ignorant school-child might define a dislikeable cohort as a 'chav' in order to make their social stance clear, a media company will label types of people depending on certain factors, such as aesthetic preference or yearly income, in order to clarify their aims. Over the latter decades of the 20th Century up until now, this categorisation system has developed in complexity, and can describe almost any comprehendable type of audience with a smothering range of terminology.

When defining an audience, the media uses two main types of categorisation. The first of these is know as the Quantitative Method. This method of categorisation looks at aspects of individuals that are determined by amount or quantity. For example, yearly income and age both fall into this method. Accompanying this method are 'socio-economic-brackets', which classify areas of society into grades, making them easier to target for the media industry.

social grade	social status	occupation
A	upper middle class	higher managerial, administrative orprofessional
B	middle class	intermediate managerial, administrative orprofessional
C1	lower middle class	supervisory or clerical, junior managerial,administrative or professional
C2	skilled working class	skilled manual workers
D	working class	semi and unskilled manual workers
E	those at lowest level of subsistence	state pensioners or widows (no other earner),casual or lowest grade workers

This table is provided by the NRS (National Readership Survery), and is funded by the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA), and Periodical Publishers Association (PPA). Copied from http://www.businessballs.com/demographicsclassifications.htm

The other type of categorisation is the Qualitative Method. This focuses on the actual qualities of the audience, such as their asthetic preferences and consumer habits. Film audiences are generally split into three sections, which can be used to define what films might appeal to them. Here is a list of the three categories, along with a definition and some example films:

Hedonist: Purely devoted to their own pleasure and are likely to take risks for this purpose. Such a person would probably watch films like Cloverfield and Final Destination 3D for the thrill aspect, and might chance watching an independent film such as Little Miss Sunshine or Gangster No.1 without really knowing what to expect.

Traditionalist: Sticks to conventions for safety and security. Traditionalists like to have their expectations fulfilled, and would go to watch movies with rigid conventions. Such films include Disney Pixar's Finding Nemo, the original James Bond action films, and almost any romantic comedy.

Post Modernist: A person with intellectual interest, who will revel in intertextual references and enjoy analysing the way in which the film has been constructed. A post modernist would enjoy watching films like District 9, which transposes a science fiction story over South Africa's troubling history. They would also watch movies such as Pulp-Fiction, Run Lola Run, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so as to enjoy the thought and creativity that has made the film.

Whilst these categories generally work for the media industry in areas of research and marketing, it is important to remember that the definitions are not set in stone; a predominantly Hedonistic film may appeal mainly to Post-Modernists, for example.

On top of this, any consumer can be labeled as either Active or Passive. Active consumers will purposefully consume a specific media product, whilst Passive consumers will happen to consume it because it was either forced upon them, or they were guided into it. For example, a woman going to see the latest romantic comedy would be an Active consumer, whilst the poor man being dragged relentlessly along behind her would be a Passive consumer.