1. Defining an Audience
Patrick Gouldsbrough

2. Quantitative Research
Socio-economic status
Qualitative Research
Psychographics
Geodemographics
Age
Gender
Niche
Mainstream

3. Quantitative audience research
What is it?
This type of research is all about numerical figures, this involves identifying how many people
purchased a product. Closed questions are used to generate quantitative data, which will be ‘yes’
or ‘no’ answers, which in turn, gives limited feedback. Quantitative research is all about how big the
audience is, which is expressed in a numerical or a percentage form.
Who does it?
One company that collects readership and circulation figures and then make assumptions from this
are the National readership survey (NRS). From these figures they can create socio-economic
breakdowns of audiences. This company is just responsible for the print industry, not all of the
media platforms.
Another company, who are the industry company for media measurement, are the Audit bureau of
circulation (ABC). They produce audience figures for not only the print industry, but the digital
media platform also. However, unlike the NRS, ABC do not create assumptions from the figures
they generate.
Why is it useful?
It helps companies identify if their products are successful in the markets where they are
advertised. Media producers will look at the data generated by both NRS and ABC and, dependant
on the nature of the information, increase the numbers produced, decrease the numbers or axe the
product if it is making the company a loss in sales figures.

4. Qualitative audience research
What is it?
This type of research is all about opinions and views of the consumer. Different to quantitative
research, in terms of open questions been used so the reviewer/consumer can let you know
their feedback in great detail. Qualitative audience research will help you find out how many
readers you have, but unlike Quantitative, can tell you things like: who they are, what they
like, what they don’t, where they live and how much they earn.
What methods are there?
• Questionnaires
• Focus group
• Face-to-face interview
Why is it useful?
Unlike Quantitative, this research helps a company identify their target demographic in detail,
instead of just seeing them as a figure. This research can find out most things from an
individual, dependant on the method used. Companies can identify peoples income, which
will identify whether they have money for luxuries such as magazines, or whether they just
have enough money for necessities, this factor will help the company identify their target
demographic.
This is the kind of information
that Qualitative research can
create, like Q Magazine have
done.

5. Qualitative audience research
How do the methods work?
Questionnaire – a company produce a number of questions to ask their
audiences to get a better understanding on things like spending habits,
likes and how they discovered the product.
Focus group – An observer will get a group of people together to
discuss a certain topic, in this case, a certain product. The person
observing will then get a better understanding of what they’ve done well
and what they need to improve on to appeal to a wider demographic.
Face-to-face interview – An interviewer will ask a person/a group of
people about a certain topic, in this case, like the focus group, a product.
This will give an interviewer a chance to ask specific questions, instead
of sitting and observing, while maybe not finding out the information they
require, like in focus groups.
This Questionnaire is an example of how
Qualitative research is generated. This is then
how media producers identify the later
mentioned age, gender, mainstream and niche
markets.

6. Socio-economic status
What does this mean?
The socio-economic status calculates an individual or family’s
economic and social position in comparison to others. These figures
are based on income, education and occupation.
What can it tell you about an audience?
It can tell a company about different peoples social position in society.
This could help the media producers select a target audience
because they identify incomes and how much each individual has
available to spend on things such as media products. Education and
occupation can also be identified, which may also dictate a
companies decision on target audience.
Why is it useful to know?
If this information is held by a company, it can help it amend it’s
products to fit a certain demographic or to appeal to a completely new
audience if the sales figures for a certain product are low.
Who does this kind of research?
All media companies look at these figures, but the actual categories
that help differentiate individuals social position is supplied by the
National Readership Survey (NRS). This media body identifies Six
categories within the social class, starting at professionals and high
management in A, working down to category E, which features the
unemployed and pensioners.
This table shows the six categories of social position.
Media producers use this to identify which social class
they will target with their product. They tend to target
category C1, the biggest category at 29%.
The percentage of
individuals in each
category:
A – 4%
B – 23%
C1 – 29%
C2 – 21%
D – 15%
E – 8%

7. Psychographics
What does this mean?
Psychographics is the study of values, interests, personality, attitudes and
lifestyle. A questionnaire is the most common way of finding out these traits so
an individuals psychographics can be established.
What can it tell you about an audience?
It can tell a media producer what individuals tend to spend their money on as
well as the personality traits, interests and lifestyle of a particular person. This
information is then categorised (pictured right) into 7 groups of people, these
categories are, in essence, different target audiences for media products.
Why is it useful to know?
This can assist the company in making their product more appealing to a certain
group. For example a company may want to concentrate on targeting an aspirer
demographic. As it states on the picture, the aesthetic features of a product is
more important than the content, so the company will concentrate on the layout
and colours, rather than the article quality.
Advantage
• It can identify different groups that could be targeted by the media producers
• The questionnaires that find out this information are easy to produce and also
cheap to produce
Disadvantage
• It goes into specific detail, but doesn’t give percentages of society, like socioeconomic findings. This will make it more difficult for the company to find the
most popular psychographic category and therefore the best group to target.
• Questionnaires could be unreliable, people could be untruthful with their
answers and the reliability could be compromised.
The 7 Psychographics categories

8. Geodemographics
What does this mean?
To generate this research, demographic data from the national census. This idea
of Geodemographics states that people in the same neighbourhood may have
similar lifestyles, suggesting they have the same spending tendencies.
What can it tell you about an audience?
It will tell you what sort of group live in that particular area. This includes age,
education and income, as well as others, which tell a company which areas
maybe best to advertise their product. For example a teen magazine will not sell
well in an area that is mainly populated with pensioners.
Why is it useful to know?
It enables media producers and their advertising teams to market their product in
the correct places/areas. Like so many factors in the audience profiling section,
if this is selected wrong, the company will make a loss in sales.
Advantage
• An easy way to find information about peoples spending patterns, education
and income. This will help media producers identify their target audience easily.
• Saves time and money investigating each individual from every household
using a questionnaire.
Disadvantage
•This is an average, this research and theory exists with a lot of assumptions of
people. This could backfire on companies if they are misinformed.
This is an example of how Geodemographics
could be presented. Even though this image is
about housing in London, this is how it would
be presented for different geographical areas
for media products also.

9. Geodemographics
LS1 – affluent achievers
LS2 – Thriving Greys
LS3 – Settled suburbans
LS4 – Nest buliders
LS5 – Urban venturers
LS6 – Country life
LS7 – Senior citizens
LS8 – Producers
LS9 – Hard pressed families
LS10 – ‘Have-nots’ (economically disadvantaged)
The affluent achievers out buy the
economically disadvantaged by 23%. Even
though it doesn’t apply to all financially
disadvantaged individuals/families, it
applies to the majority and therefore
equated to an average (shown right).

10. Age
Same genre, different demographic
What does this mean?
Companies make assumptions about people of a similar age having similar likes
and dislikes in terms of products, in this case, print products.
What can it tell you about an audience?
It tells print producers about people of a certain age demographics their likes
and dislikes of a product, genre or topic.
Why is it useful to know?
It can improve a magazine considerably, especially if a print product was
targeting a particular target age, which it usually is. For example, Q Magazine
will send out a questionnaire and review the certain age groups likes and dislikes
within the magazine, including: articles, layout and design. This review will then
allow them to make a better product for the majority of their demographic.
(Picture on the Qualitative research page states the average age for a Q
Magazine is 29). While it won’t apply to all the demographic, the majority will
hopefully be enticed by the product, therefore making the company a profit.
The youthful cover stars, intertwined
with the bright colours and modern
layout, NME Magazine is aimed at a
younger demographic.
Advantage
• It tells a media producer about different age demographics likes and dislikes,
therefore enabling them to make a more suitable product.
• It gives the company a better understanding of the audience they are trying to
appeal to.
Disadvantage
• While establishing different groups likes and dislikes, this goes on an average
and doesn’t apply to all of the demographic.
• If the questionnaires are not filled in correctly by the consumer, the feedback
will be incorrect and the product will instead be changed for the worse. This is
also a disadvantage to qualitative research methods.
The ageing cover star, dull colouring
and simple layout suggests this
product is aimed at an older
demographic.

11. Gender
What does this mean in terms of audience profiling?
A company will investigate the gender that reads a particular product most. Not
only this, they also investigate how different genders are appealed to by media
products and how they read their products.
What can it tell you about an audience?
It can tell you about the percentages of gender readership per product. This can
be found out using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, which
include: face-to-face interviews, questionnaires and surveys.
Vogue is more tailored to a
female audience with it’s
choice of colours, layout
and tends to have famous
females on the front.
Why is it useful to know?
This enables companies to make their product more gender specific, make it
appeal to one gender while pushing the other one away. For example Q
magazines male/female ratio of readers is mainly male dominated (pictured
right). These statistics will then tell them it would be beneficial to appeal to a
male audience because it’s the majority of viewership.
Advantage
• Can find out very specific details on gender specific media products and
techniques that could be used to appeal to both or one gender.
Disadvantage
• Similar to age demographic, it is an average and the reliability of the research
maybe compromised.
• Also like age research, questionnaires that are used to find this information
maybe filled in untruthfully, affecting the results and the media producers
changes to products.
Men’s health is, as expected, a
male dominated viewership. This
magazine will have, if not 100%, a
high percentage of male
readership. It tends to have simple
colours, simple layout and a
celebrity that most men aspire to
be to try and hook them into
buying the magazine.

12. Mainstream
What does this mean?
A product to capture a large audience/majority of the audience. Most
people will be aware of it or consuming this certain product, like a
blockbuster film or chart music. Many magazines tend to be mainstream
because media companies want to make a profit on their products.
What can it tell you?
It can tell you three things: whether a product is mainstream, the
percentage of mainstream compared to niche audience and the
techniques of mainstream product, how do they draw the audience in?
Reader’s digest is a mainstream
magazine because it doesn’t
focus on one topic or genre, it
covers a lot of interests.
Why is it useful to know?
It not only helps a media producer/company decide if to make a niche or
mainstream product, it also helps to identify what sort of thing they should
be putting in their magazine to make it mainstream.
Advantage
• Can give very clear percentages of mainstream audience types as well
as identifying the techniques to choose if you were to produce a
mainstream magazine.
Disadvantage
• Some techniques that work for one magazine won’t always work for
another so the mainstream techniques that are suggested to a
company may do more harm than good in terms of finance.
Like Reader’s digest, ‘people
weekly’ is also a mainstream
magazine. This is due to similar
reasons to Reader’s digest, it
discusses more topic/interest
areas than one.

13. Niche
What does this mean?
A product to capture a much smaller audience than mainstream, but are meant
for specific groups for their interests. However, a niche market magazine will aim
to capture a large portion of that small demographic. Not many magazines are
niche market because it doesn’t make a great profit, but if the product is
successful, it will make a reasonable amount of revenue for the company.
What can it tell you about an audience?
Researching niche market, and in particular existing products, can help media
companies identify the techniques they need to make their magazine/newspaper
successful, while looking at the features they need to avoid.
Even though the good selling
figures, Top Gear would still be
considered a niche market
product because of the specific
interest/topic inside the magazine.
Advantage
• If you want to produce a niche market magazine, this research will help you
produce a magazine that interest an audience, while enticing them to buy it.
Disadvantage
• Like the mainstream slide, one niche market magazines techniques won’t work
for them all. However, if the techniques don’t work they will then know what
features to avoid in the future.
Four Four Two would also be
considered niche market, due to
the single interest area covered
within the media product.

14. References
• http://www.techjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Audit-Bureau-of-Circulations01.jpg
• http://www.thedrum.com/uploads/drum_basic_article/100333/main_images/download%
20
• http://image.slidesharecdn.com/musicmagazinequestionnaire-130322074418phpapp02/95/slide-1-638.jpg?1363956293
• http://miaspicerx.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/picture2.png
• http://3.bp.blogspot.com/8QsqFPNEBN8/UoOGF24lvYI/AAAAAAAAAJA/vouF9wvnRQo/s6
40/SocialClasstable.png
• https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/v8jweHVy2H4/TXo1ShktBqI/AAAAAAAAIPI/pZmslMA
7Dto/s1600/psyco.jpg
• http://oliverobrien.co.uk/files/2012/02/boothoac.png
• http://cybergeo.revues.org/1546?lang=en
• http://sgriffithschs.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/nme-front-cover-29308.jpg
• http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Guitarist-Magazine-Summer-2007-inc-CD-Jeff-Beck-DevinTownsend-New-York-Dolls/00/s/MTAyNFg3MjE=/z/9~YAAMXQiFxSAV6G/$(KGrHqYOKo0FH,tDVjshBS!V6GFIMg~~60
35.JPG

15. References
• http://press.petspyjamas.com/uploads/2012/10/vogueCover-545x750.jpg
• http://h0memadecinema.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ryan-mens-health-magazinemarch-2009-ryan-reynolds-4045159-928-1222.jpg
• http://static.guim.co.uk/sysimages/Media/Pix/pictures/2011/5/4/1304508374877/Readers-Digest---May-2011001.jpg
• http://svapicsandmags.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/people-1981-august-3.jpg
• http://www.thecoolwall.co.uk/images/Magazines/to_gear.jpg
• http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/03/27/article-0-18D4CDB0000005DC477_634x641.jpg