Core Concept #5 Audience Ms.LeBouthillier

Two ways to look at ourselves as media audiences:  As consumers of media products we are:  Target audiences  Active participants in media construction

Target Audiences  Who are they trying to reach?  If a media product doesn’t reach its target audience, it will cease being produced  Media delivers audiences to a sponsor  It’s a numbers game

Active Audiences  Have you ever disagreed with a friend about the interpretation of a movie or tv show?  Are you a fan of a performer or rock band that many of your peers dislike?  Our responses to media are based on unique elements in our personality and back ground. (gender, age, class, ethnicity, religion, life experiences etc.)  Think backpack activity (WHAT IS YOUR WORLDVIEW? See wiki )

Psychographics  Help identify how large groups within the population will react to a given media message  VALS (values and lifestyle)  Developed in the late 70’s. VALS™ evolved to explain the relationship between psychology and consumer behavior.  Essentially four basic groups of citizens according to VALS  Belongers  Emulators, Emulator-Achievers  Societally Conscious Achievers  Need-Directed

Belonger  1 in 3  Typical traditionalist  Cautious and conforming  Believes in God, country, and family  Strong community consciousness  Arch enemy is change  Consumer profile: drives a dodge or Ford, drinks Coke, Pepsi or Budweiser, eats McD’s and love Jell-O

Emulators  Not set in their ways  Small but impressionable group of young people in desperate search of an identity and a place in the adult working world.  Represent 15% of the population  Will do anything to fit in  Lack self confidence and discouraged by future prospects  Compensate for this pessimism with unabashed personal hedonism  Confused and vulnerable  Purchase products from advertisers who offer solutions to their post adolescent dilemmas (prey on their insecurities)

Emulator-Achievers  Materialists, who are already successful  Own a Mercedes or Lexus  Most comfortable with high end brand name products (Tiffany, Gucci, latest high tech toys)  20% of population and in a funk  Believed the sky was the limit, today frustrated, bit cheated, stuck just below the top rung of the economic ladder  ¾ fear they won’t attain their fiscal goals  Cheered up with commercials that transform everyday items into things of accomplishment, success, and taste. Buy and you will appear…

Societally Conscious Achievers  Care more about inner peace and environmental safety then financial success and elegant surroundings  Person, not professional, fulfillment matters most to these individualists  20% of population  Are experimental as long as it fits into their belief system (acupuncture to Zen)  Shop often by mail, choosing LL Bean over Gucci, drive smaller foreign cars, lighter wines, wholesome foods, use refillable water bottles etc.

Need-Directed  Are survivors, struggling to sustain themselves on low incomes  15%, at least,of population  Are not consumers in the true sense  To busy to worry about image they present or the type of beer they drink  Rarely have the time to go out to eat; just struggling to survive.

Activity 1:  Assignment 1: VALS  You will check out an article online  Todays’ VALS are different (revised in the early 1990’s). Read about each type today and complete the assignment.

Notes for next time: