4: Addressing Audiences

Creating Products for Specific Audiences

Types of Media Products

• TV
• Radio
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Books
• Websites

Elements of Media Products

• Selection of content – selection of elements

Selection of Content

• Words
• Images
• Sound
• Sequences

• Colours (colour grading)
• Fonts


Group Work
 

Media Product	Element	Comments of Use
Television Commercial (e.g.: MSV Life)	Voice Over	To describe the service, and attract more attention
Film (e.g.: Avatar)	Graphics and animation	To emphasize further the visuals
Radio adverts (e.g.: Vodafone)	Music	To make them more appealing
Magazines (e.g.: Gwida, Antenna) & Newspapers (e.g.: The Times)	Articles	Publishing the public opinion and freedom of speech

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR 'STRADA STRETTA' ADVERT

Gender:    Male ____                    Female _____

Age:   ____       

Occupation:    Student    ____                       Worker  ____

1.      In your opinion, is the advert of a good quality?

Yes ___                 No____

2.      In general, what did you understand from the advert?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

3.      From 1 to 10, how effective do you think it is? (10 being the highest)

Why?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

4.      Do you think the message interacted clearly with the audience?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

5.      In your opinion, do you think it has a specific target audience?

_____________________________________________________________

6.      A. Would you read ‘Strada Stretta; It-Triq li Darba Xeghlet il-Belt’ after watching this advert?

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Yes___                                        No____

B. Why?

_____________________________________________________________

7.      What impact does the editing of this advert leave on the audience?

Positive Impact___                                  Negative Impact___

8.      A. Would you require to change or criticize something from the advert?

Yes___                                    No   ____

B. If yes, what would it be?

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

Thank you very much for your time to fill in this questionnaire. Much appreciated!

STRADA STRETTA - ONE MINUTE ADVERT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8PjAqFucvU

 

THIS IS THE LINK FOR THE ADVERT ON YOUTUBE.

 

HERE COMES THE QUESTIONNAIRE!!

Defining Audiences

Media Producers

·         They produce Media Products

·         They know how their target audience uses their media products and what their likes are

Media Products

·         Is affected by the way the Media Producers think about their audiences

·         The make it their job to know what their audiences like and wants (Audience Research)

·         They give them what they want

Articles, books, music, films, PowerPoint Presentation, posters, adverts, DVD, magazines (Advanced Photoshop), Tutorial (Youtube)

Conclusion

·         There is someone who carefully chooses what we see, hear, buy and consume

·         Every Media Product we own has been carefully shaped to suit our tastes

Why?

Because the Media Industry is a money-making business and like every business organization is to make money by carefully targeting their audience.

Defining Audiences

Who is the Audience?

·         A group of people who is targeted by the media

·         How does the media knows the likes and dislikes of such a diverse group of people?

Market Research

·         Research is a very important process

·         All media products have been carefully planned & researched  to try to make them as successful as possible

Why?

Because the Media Industries are money-making business

Groups of Audiences

·         How do you think Media Industries group their Target Audiences?

·         Data gathered through research can be broken down into Demographic grouping (=the way people can be grouped together).

Demographic Groupings

The Media Industry uses the categories to distinguish between different groups of people:

·         Socio –Economic Status

·         Interests & Lifestyle

·         Gender

·         Age-Group

·         Location

Socio-Economic Status

·         Also known as Social Class

·         Past – working class – manual workers

·         Today – More women are working – More upward mobility – Due to more education and more jobs in the service sector – Middle Class

Socio-Economic Status in the Media

·         Kalamita

·         Bondiplus

·         MTV

·         Mezzo

Interests & Lifestyle

·         Lifestyle = the way people live and how they spend their time

·         Closely related to occupations due to income

Examples in the Media:

Yachting Magazine:

·         The audience might also be interested in collecting antiques, eating out, property, etc

·         So the advertisers also take in consideration their interests

Audience Feedback

-          We already know that media producers make use of audience research.

-          Now would like to get some feedback back from the audience.

 - Questionnaires, Comments, focus groups (feedback)

- Focus Groups - made up of representations of the target audience.

- Audience Panels – members of panels provide feedback on a regular basis.

- Trialling and Testing – samples of the audience give feedback on short ‘pilot’ extracts of what the complete product will be like.

Reviews

-          Ordinary members of the target audience / professional reviewers who write reviews of the product for newspapers.

-          Sometimes provide the cruellest feedback of all.

Complaints

-          Can be received directly from members of the audience

-          May complain to an official body (eg: Ofcom for broadcasting , ASA fro advertising, Press Complaints Commission for newspapers and magazines)

Audiences:

-          Audience Information

-          Sources of Infromation

-          Audience Classification

Audience Information

-          Focus Groups

-          Questionaires

-          Research Agencies

-          Audience Measurement Panels/ Ratings

Focus Groups

-          Usually 8-10 people

-          Have understructured questions

-          Discussion

-          Qualitative data

-          Answers the hows and whys

Questionnaires

-          Advantages: can be collected from a large group of people; standardised questions; easy to analyse closed-ended questions

-          Disadvantages: open-ended can generate large amounts of data and take a long time to process; some questions may be left unanswered

Research Agencies

-          E.g.: Misco – it is an independent professional company providing marketing research, training and development, business consultancy and people selection

-          Other Research agencies – private

Audience Measurement:

-          What we call ratings- through surveys etc

-          Measures how many people are in an audience

o   E.g: television viewership

o   E.g: newspaper / magazine readership

o   E.g: web traffic on websites

TVM Leads Broadcasting Survey ( Tue, 2^nd Feb 2010 11:48 CET)

Check: Timesofmalta.com

Sources Of Information

-          Rate Cards

-          Advertisers’ Information Packs

-          Research Agencies