RESEARCH: AUDIENCES

RESEARCH: AUDIENCES

What is an Audience? Why is it so Important?

Every product ever created has to have an audience in order to succeed. An audience is a group of people who consume the released product and take an active part in the post production stage. They also determine whether the product was a success and should be manufactured or not. They are crucial in measuring the achievement. A target audience is the group of people who you aim to sell your product to. They have to have certain characteristics in order to enjoy the product and allow profit. For example a rock album will appeal to older target audience who enjoy heavy music. It’s important to establish your target audience at the pre-production stage in order to know exactly what conventions to use and fit the audience expectations. Otherwise it is possible for the product to fail and make a loss due to the lack of audience consumption and profit.

Audience Categories

There are certain audience categories which help to label certain audiences and make it easier to target such category. The categories are made depending on people’s social class, occupation, age, gender or racial/cultural background. This is because certain demographics allow people to share common interest and therefore these people are grouped together and have products aimed specifically at them.  For example, young girls who have no occupation and are from lower class tend to listen to similar music or show interest in similar products. Therefore many pop albums/ products are aimed at these girls and artists make profit as it’s a safe investment.

Audience categories have been sorted into a system which describes different audiences from ‘Category A’ being the most sophisticated people, all the way down to ‘Category E’ where unemployed and students are placed. Anyone can move up or down the audience categories depending on their income or career.

This is the table of Audience Categories:

Category	Who are They?
A	Top Management, Bankers, Lawyers, Doctors and Other Professionals
B	Middle Management, Teacher, Many ‘Creatives’ e.g.: Graphic Designers and etc.
C1	Office Supervisors, Junior Managers, Nurses, Specialist Clerical Staff
C2	Skilled Workers, Tradespersons (White Collar)
D	Semi-Skilled and Unskilled Manual Workers (Blue Collar)
E	Unemployed, Students, Casual Workers and Pensioners

However, it is worth keeping in mind that not all of the categories will be accurate and they don’t restrict people to enjoy products they would usually enjoy. For example, someone from the top category doesn’t have to listen to only sophisticated classical music, they can enjoy pop or rock. Manufacturers will also base their prices around the audience categories in order to fit the audience’s budget. For example a rap music album will be cheaper than a classical music album due to the category and their salary, as the lower categories will have less disposable income.

Audience Categories: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages:

• ·         Easy to target an audience successfully
• ·         Audiences are categorised with similar people, with similar interests
• ·         Helps to establish common conventions and characteristics, which will appeal to audiences
• ·         Easier to contact your audience/ ask them for feedback (e.g. focus groups or questionnaires)
• ·         Helps to establish your price and make your product affordable, according to your target audience

Disadvantages

• ·         It is not clear what happens when someone moves up or down the category
• ·         It leaves out people who subvert the categories. For example people from category A who enjoy popular music
• ·         It assumes people’s income or tastes based on their demographics and psychographics which can be deemed unfair

In my opinion audience categories are still useful for manufacturers, despite the disadvantages. However, when considering the different categories and your target audience, it is important to utilize other methods and avoid to base your target audience heavily on the categories due to audience diversity.

Genres and Common Audience Categories

Despite different tastes, some genres have the common audience and stereotypical listeners who are likely to enjoy the specific genre. Therefore artists aim their music towards these categories. These are some of the examples:

• ·         Rock- Males, aged 30+, predominantly white ethnic background, semi-skilled or unskilled workers and underplayed (Category D, E)
• ·         Punk/ Emo- Males and Females, aged 13- 19, predominately white ethnic background, unemployed, students or casual workers (Category E)
• ·         Classical- Females and Males, aged 40+, predominantly white ethnic background, top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors (Category A)
• ·         Pop- Females, aged 11- 20, mixed ethnic background, unemployed, students, semi-skilled manual workers or tradespersons (Categories E, D and C2)
• ·         Reggae- Females and Males, aged 35- 60, black ethnic background, unemployed, semi-skilled workers, skilled workers and tradespersons (Categories E, D and C2)
• ·         Hip-Hop/ Rap- Males, aged 15-22, mixed ethnic background, unemployed, students, unskilled manual workers, pensioners (Categories E, D)

Audience Reactions

Audiences play a large part in the post-production of a product. They determine whether it was successful or if it wasn’t appealing. They also determine if the artist will gain profit, since they are the ones who buy the product. Their consumption is crucial. With the consumption comes the reaction to a product and the way the public reacts to the media. These are the different reactions and responses:

Audience Engagement	This is the way in which the consumer interacts with the media whether they are an active or a passive consumer and decide to take part in engaging with the media in some way.
Audience Expectations	Audience comes with their own ideas and expectations in terms of the product. This allows the producers to play with their products in order to fit the expectation or surprise the audience and further intrigue them.
Audience Foreknowledge	The credible information which the audience has in terms of the product, instead of vague expectations.
Audience Identification	This refers to the way the audience reacts to the product, considering their own experiences or memories. They can identify and connect to the piece of media or reject it and feel detached.
Audience Placement	Producers can utilize different polysemy techniques in order to sell their product in a way that makes the audience feel special and significant; as if the product is made just for them.
Audience Research	Research is significant in order to measure the success or find the appropriate target audience. Once the product has been distributed, the audience will be monitored.

Audience and Hebdige, Dyer and Goodwin

Some of these reactions can be linked to the common media theorists including Hebdige, Dyer and Goodwin.

• ·         Audience Engagement- Engagement is linked to Hebdige theory. He stated that different people can react in different ways to the same stimuli, or a media product in this particular case. This can be linked to his subculture theory and how different groups of people react similarly within their group but differently to other groups, if exposed to the same media text. This means that audience has the power to engage in different media in their own individualistic way, based on their own memories or traits. This makes them an active consumer who can make their own choices and decisions.
• ·         Audience Identification- This fits some of the Dyer’s Star Theory. Dyer stated how an artist is a construction yet should have a personality and be ordinary in order to allow audience identification and inspire the viewer. Therefore this reaction fits audience identification because a viewer is able to relate to a particular media product and if they do, they are likely to buy it.
• ·         Audience Expectations- When waiting for a product, the audience is likely to have their individual expectations and hope to have them fulfilled, due to the different needs and associations each product holds. Goodwin identified that, in popular culture, everything has its common conventions that are used by artist to navigate and make their products. They will use certain characteristics in order to appeal and fit the appropriate audience and their expectations.

Conclusion

Overall, I think it is important to know exactly who your target audience is and who you are trying to appeal to, therefore research into audiences is crucial in the process of making a campaign and in the pre-production stage of a music campaign. This is because audiences play such a large part in the music industry. I hope to target people of mixed gender, aged 15-40, of any ethnic background and of category E, D, C2 and C1. This is because indie music is a flexible genre that can target a wide range of people despite being niche and often underrepresented. I think that this wide range of audiences is highly beneficial as it gives me a broader number of conventions to experiment with and choose from, yet at the same time gives me a chance to make a larger profit. I think that this is a good base to start from as now I can begin to decide my fundamental conventions and generics.