Target Audiences

Demographics is the study of a population, and how it is distributed. It would look at characteristics like social class, age, gender, education, religion, family size, etc. Knowing about demographics is important to media producers, who aim to target particular audiences.

In Australia, most of the population live in or close to large cities In Australia, most of the population live in or close to large cities. This urban population are the main targeted audience to media producers. The most dominant groups of a demographic become a mainstream audience. Media producers try to determine their values, preferences and the way they use media. Knowing a demographics values can enable producers to make their products more appealing.

In trying to understand an audience, media producers need to make generalisations – overarching statements that fit most of a population or group. Most teenage girls are fans of the ‘Twilight’ movie series. Most middle aged Australian men like watching ‘Top Gear’. Many high income earners read ‘The Australian’ newspaper.

One way of breaking a population up is through family life cycles: Marketers have broken populations up into various groups, that can then be targeted. One way of breaking a population up is through family life cycles: Young singles Newly married couples Couple with child under six Couple with child above six Couple with older children/ teenagers Couple with no children living in the house Retired couple with no children in the house Working senior Retired senior What group does your family fit into?

They have divided women into four categories: Advertisers have found women make more than 70 per cent of all household purchases. They are highly targeted by advertisers. They have divided women into four categories: Women at home not working Women at home planning on working Women who work because they have to Women with a career What products might you market to these types of women?

Your Task: Target Audiences In groups of three, you are to market ‘vegetables’ to a particular audience. You will be assigned a specific target audience, and you will need to work out how best to appeal to this audience group. You need to describe your target audience, and then come up with a product brand, and three products of the advertising campaign (written paragraphs, drawn poster, TV advert script, etc). You need to complete this task in this lesson.