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Categorising Audiences

Understanding how producers select and target audiences, as well as how audiences may react to the product is important when constructing a product.

The categories

The categories

  • Audiences can be defined by using two categories:
    • Demographics.
    • Psychographics.
Demographics

Demographics

  • Demographics refers to the physical characteristics of a person.
    • E.g. age, gender, ethnicity, geographical location and social class.
  • People grading is a method used to categorise audiences by social class. Based on the following grading scale, upper middle class people are grade A etc.
  • This can be helpful when thinking about the budget an audience might have for the product.
People grading

People grading

  • A - Upper Middle Class
    • Higher managerial, administrative or professional job employment.
  • B - Middle Class
    • Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional job employment.
People grading 2

People grading 2

  • C1 - Lower Middle Class
    • Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial administrative or professional job employment.
  • C2 - Skilled Working Class
    • Skilled manual workers.
People grading 3

People grading 3

  • D - Working Class
    • Unskilled manual workers.
  • E - Casual/Lowest Grade Workers
    • Pensioners and others who depend on the welfare state for their income.
Psychographics

Psychographics

  • Psychographics refers to people's interests or values, things which are harder to define.
  • Psychographic profiling can include separating people into categories such as:
    • Mainstreamers (people who follow trends).
    • Aspirers (those who aim to improve themselves).

Audience Segmentation

Audience segmentation is useful for producers as it can ensure the product is constructed to meet the target audience's needs.

Audience appeal

Audience appeal

  • Products can target large, mainstream audiences or more specialised, niche audiences.
  • If a product is dependent on audience numbers/sales to make profit, it will be essential for producers to understand how to appeal to the audience through production, marketing and distribution in order to make money.
Scale of audiences

Scale of audiences

  • By understanding the scale of audiences, the budget and methods used in production and distribution can be more fit for purpose.
Audience targeting

Audience targeting

  • A range of research methods can be used to help producers understand their audience better.
    • For example, qualitative and quantitative data.
  • By researching the target audience, producers can tailor the construction of their products to meet the audiences needs.
Qualitative and quantitative data

Qualitative and quantitative data

  • Qualitative data refers to data which is rich in detail and is unable to be put in to numbers.
    • This can include focus groups and interviews.
  • Quantitative data refers to data which can be put into numbers.
    • This might include questionnaires using scales rather than written responses.
Jump to other topics
1

Overview

2

Component 1: Section A

3

Component 1: Section B

4

Component 2: Section A

5

Component 2: Section B

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