Audience theory

The Mass Market

Media institutions and producers like to see their audiences as belonging to different groups, which each appeal to dissimilar tastes. This is shown to be very beneficial to media product advertisers as it provides them with a way of targeting sections of consumers.

Over time, media producers and business had come to the conclusion that all potential consumers of their media texts, belong to segregated groups of diverse audiences which all respond to different products. The most common ways of identifying these audiences are by their age, gender, race and their locations.

The classification of a person’s class is often identified by the type of profession that person is occupied with and by how well the person’s job pays. For instance someone who is a doctor, would be considered to be a part of an upper class audience since, this profession is seen as being ‘Top management’ which is a job that produces high wages and is exceptionally professional.

Income Bracket/ status classification

A: Upper middle class- Top management, professional jobs such as bankers, lawyers, doctors etc

B: Middle class - Middle management, teachers, many creative jobs i.e. graphic designers

C1: Lower middle class- Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc

C2: Skilled working class- Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

D: Working class- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)

E: People at lowest level of income- people who have little to no professional occupations such as unemployed people, students, pensioners and casual workers.

Young and Rubicam’s four consumers

`Another way of classifying different audiences was later developed by an advertising agency known as ‘Young and Rebicam’. These audiences were also defined by thee different classes they belong too but were also defined by the different products that each audience would most likely appeal too.

This classification consisted of four main categories such as:

• Mainstreamers -Which are people that make up 40% of the population, and like security, and are also belonging to a group.
• Aspirers-People who aspire for high prominence and esteem from their peers.
• Succeeders- People who already own status and control.
• Reformers – People who aim to identify themselves by what they want and what they aim to achieve through their self-esteem and self fulfilment.

LifeMatrix

The LifeMatrix tool is another method of classifying different audiences that is based on the audience’s different values, attitudes and beliefs. This audience classification consists of ten different audiences:

·         Tribe wired- These are digital, free- spirited, creative young people that are single.

·         Fun/Atics- This  category refers to an audience consisting of young people who are very aspirational in what they aim to do and achieve in their future lives, who are also very thrill seeking energetic, toung people.

·         Dynamic Duos- Hard- driving, high involvement couples.

·         Priority Parents- Family based entertainment, activities, media strongly dominate.

·         Home Soldiers-Home-centric, family-oriented, and materially ambitious.

·         Renaissance Women- Active, caring, affluent, influential mums.

·         Struggling Singles- High aspirations, low economic status.

·         Settled elders- People who belong to a senior and elderly age group and have more sedentary lifestyles.

·         Free Birds- Vital, active, altruistic seniors.