Essay

When an advertiser has to advertise a product, there are a number of things that they have to consider such as how they reach their audience, what to reach them with, and other things. The main thing they have to consider is how they define their audience. If the advertiser can’t define their audience then all of their advertising is wasted on the wrong audience.
One of the ways an advertiser will define it’s audience is through it’s geodemographic research. This is a way of identifying the audience’s attributes and the sort of texts that they’d read with their demographic area. Using this method, the advertiser can decide where the product that they are advertising would perform the best and how to reach that audience. There would be no point in using advertisements on taxis when your demographic is all in the countryside.
Psychographics is another way that an advertising company can define it’s audience. Psychographic data is when you can identify your audience through their hobbies and interests. Using this type of data the advertising company can personalise an advert and tailor it to a specific audience. For example, if my audience is young single males, I would advertise my product using a game
Gender is quite an easy way of identifying your audience as it is quite often very easy to find out which gender would prefer your text and who you advertise to. Although this is an effective way of finding out some vital information about your audience, there is a danger of alienating a potentially large audience. For example, the Fosters adverts are directed at males as that is it’s demographic. Although this is generally a good thing, it does lead to alienating the entire female audience.
Race, is another way an audience can be defined by advertisers. This a very difficult thing for advertisers to define their audience by as racism is a very touchy subject and so is more likely to be used for expansion and analysis. Using this data advertisers can see which ethnicities are using their product and can then see how they can reach more ethnicities.
Age is another factor an advertiser has to consider as a way to define their audience. Again advertisers have to be careful of discrimination as it is illegal to discriminate for age. However using age is essential to define your audience. A 30-40 year old male will not respond to a vibrant colourful advert as much as a small child will. In the same way cooking utensils or The Financial Times will not be advertised to young children.

One way I can tell that something is aimed for a certain audience is by looking at how it is advertised. For example let’s take the T.V show “Glee”. It’s advertising is aimed at a young audience. I can tell this through it’s bright, vibrant colours that appeal to a young audience. I can also see this through the poses and expressions of the characters. If we look at the time that this program is on (9 PM), we can see the type of audience that this program is directed to which is a teenage audience. It is broadcasted on Sky1, formerly E4. When it was on E4, it’s audience was typically a niche teenage audience. The target audience remained the same when it moved to Sky1, however the audience on Sky1 is skewed slightly older so it hasn’t performed as well.

Should people be interested? Performance etc..