Targeting and categorising audiences

Audiences are part of a producer’s planning

An audience consists of the people who use a media product: viewers, readers, listeners, players or online users. A target audience is the group the producer intends to attract. These are not necessarily identical. Someone outside the intended age group may still enjoy a programme or game.

Producers make decisions about content, presentation, distribution and promotion with an audience in mind. A useful distinction is between reaching people, by making a product available where they can access it, and addressing them, by using language, images, topics or personalities that seem relevant to them. An online radio player provides access; a presenter discussing a listener’s interests helps make the programme appealing.

Mass and niche audiences: different routes to success

A mass audience is large, and a product aimed at it usually offers broad appeal. Family television programmes such as Doctor Who can bring together viewers of different ages. A niche audience is smaller and more specialised: Farmers Weekly, for example, serves people interested in farming.

Neither type is automatically better. A mass audience offers the possibility of many sales, subscriptions or advertising contacts. A niche product can meet a particular need more closely and attract a loyal audience. Its smaller audience may be especially useful to an advertiser selling a specialised product.

Commercial media producers often earn money by offering advertisers access to their audiences. When we say they sell audiences to advertisers, we mean that they sell advertising space or time through which those people can be reached. The audience members themselves are not being sold.

Advertisers therefore want to know both how many people a product reaches and who those people are. A farming equipment company may find a specialised farming readership more valuable than a much larger audience with little interest in its products. Audience research helps producers demonstrate the value of their advertising space and justify financial support.

Categorising audiences through segmentation

Audience segmentation divides an audience into groups sharing particular characteristics. Three approaches answer different questions.

Geographic segmentation can help a producer decide where to distribute a product or place advertising. A city-based event, for instance, may suit audiences who can travel to that location. Online distribution allows products to cross national borders more easily, but language and local interests still influence their appeal.

Demographic segmentation helps producers estimate the size and composition of a potential audience. Kiss Breakfast has been aimed at 15–34-year-olds interested in pop and hip-hop, mainly based in UK cities. This profile combines demographic information, geographic information and interests rather than using only one category.

Psychographic segmentation looks beyond age or income to consider wants and values. Two people of the same age living in the same city might prefer very different media: one may seek celebrity news while another wants challenging puzzles. Understanding those interests allows producers to fine-tune both their content and how they promote it.

The three approaches can be combined. Suppose a producer plans a podcast for young adults in a particular region who care about environmental issues. Age is demographic, region is geographic, and concern for the environment is psychographic.

Targeting involves assumptions, not certainty

A producer cannot know every potential audience member personally. It therefore makes assumptions about what its intended audience likes, recognises, can afford and is likely to do. These assumptions influence choices such as presenters, topics, visual style and marketing platforms.

Research can make assumptions better informed, but group profiles remain generalisations. Sharing an age or occupation does not mean sharing every preference. Producers also need to distinguish an intended audience from the audience that actually arrives.

To explain targeting, connect a decision to the assumption behind it. For example, using a celebrity presenter assumes that some audience members recognise that person and will transfer their interest to the programme. Promoting a product through Instagram assumes that the intended audience uses that platform and will notice or share the content.

Genre conventions communicate an appeal

A genre is a recognisable type of media product. Its conventions are familiar features that signal what an audience can expect. Marketing can use those features to attract people who already enjoy that kind of experience.

For example, the NHS Blood and Transplant Represent advert uses music-video conventions, including direct looks at the camera, non-sequential editing and repeated returns to the main performer. These make a public-information campaign recognisable through an entertaining form. The targeting assumption is that the intended audience will respond to that style rather than only to a conventional spoken explanation.

Recognisable conventions reduce uncertainty: audiences can judge whether a product promises something they enjoy. However, recognition does not guarantee that they will choose it.

Trailers, tasters and teasers give different amounts away

Marketing builds awareness and encourages an audience to try a product. Three related techniques offer different kinds of preview:

• A trailer assembles selected material to promote a product, often establishing its genre, characters, tone or story.
• A taster shares a small part of the product so that audiences can sample what it is like.
• A teaser reveals less, aiming to create curiosity and anticipation rather than explain the product fully.

A trailer can demonstrate the appeal of a drama through selected scenes. A taster might provide an extract from a programme. A teaser might reveal only a brief image or suggest an upcoming guest. Each depends on assumptions about what will interest the audience and how much information it needs before choosing to watch or listen.

Guerrilla and viral marketing use surprise and sharing

Guerrilla marketing is unconventional promotion, usually involving a memorable physical experience in a public place. Flashmobs, stencils, stickers or projections can attract attention by interrupting everyday expectations. The aim is to create surprise and discussion, particularly among people who might ignore ordinary advertising.

The promotion of Lara Croft Go included performers appearing as ‘real-life Laras’ on the London Underground. In partnership with the Metro newspaper, they gave away iPads loaded with the game. The encounter connected the game’s recognisable character with a public experience. Promotion for I, Daniel Blake also used images projected onto a building. This is a useful marketing example, rather than an additional audience-study requirement for that film.

The physical audience for a guerrilla event may be limited. Coverage through social media or conventional advertising can give it much wider reach.

Viral marketing works through audience members passing promotional material to others online. The organisation may create and launch the content, but users then help distribute it by reposting, forwarding or sharing. A message received from a friend can feel more personal than an ordinary advert.

Kim Kardashian’s promotion of products through social media can use this process when followers repost her content. Lego Fortnite also invites sharing through its YouTube and Instagram channels. Posting online is not, by itself, viral marketing: audience sharing is the crucial mechanism. Nor can a producer guarantee that content will spread widely.

The techniques can overlap. People might record a guerrilla event and share the recording online, giving a physical campaign a viral element.

How Kiss Breakfast combines marketing and access

Kiss Breakfast provides a concrete example of targeting through several connected methods. In its Jordan and Perri period, the presenters’ existing following from the dance group Diversity offered a way to attract people already interested in them and in the music associated with KISS.

Billboards, bus campaigns and phone-box advertising used presenters and well-known music stars to reinforce the station’s identity. Social-media posts previewed guests, reused programme content and introduced stories that listeners could hear discussed on the show. These techniques connected recognition and curiosity with a reason to listen.

Events such as Kiss Fest and the Kiss Haunted House Party linked the brand to city locations, presenters and music familiar to its audience. Meanwhile, online players, archived episodes, playlists and short videos made the programme available beyond its live broadcast. This addressed a different issue: interested people might not be awake or free to listen at the scheduled time.

Together, these choices show that targeting is not simply putting an advert in front of people. It also involves maintaining interest and making consumption convenient.

Digital technologies reach audiences and reveal their behaviour

Internet-connected devices bring previously separate media activities together. A smartphone can play radio, display promotional clips, access a programme archive and allow the user to post a response. On-demand services let audiences choose when to consume content rather than relying entirely on a broadcast schedule.

Online resources also help identify audiences. Surveys can ask users about themselves; platform analytics can record behaviour such as views, clicks, viewing time and shares. Producers can use this information to judge which material attracts attention and where audiences stop engaging.

Different evidence answers different questions. A viewing total indicates the scale of recorded activity, while an interview may explain why someone watched. A click does not necessarily show enjoyment, and comments represent the people who chose to comment rather than automatically representing the whole audience.

Digital tools also allow audience members to become producers. A user can consume a clip and then create a response video or promotional post. Such a prosumer can help circulate a product, as well as use it.

Research methods: two separate distinctions

Quantitative research produces numerical information. A questionnaire asking which station people listen to can produce counts or percentages. It helps answer questions such as ‘How many?’ and ‘How often?’

Qualitative research explores opinions, meanings and reasons. Interviews, focus groups or open-ended questionnaire responses can help explain why a presenter appeals to listeners or why people stop using a product.

A second distinction concerns where the information comes from. Primary research is collected first-hand for the investigation. Secondary research uses information already collected by others, such as published audience-measurement reports.

These distinctions can be combined. Suppose a radio producer carries out its own survey of listening frequency: that is primary quantitative research. Its own interviews about listeners’ preferences are primary qualitative research. Using a published RAJAR report is secondary research for that producer, even though RAJAR originally collected the information first-hand.

Research usually examines a sample, not every audience member. Its usefulness depends partly on whether that sample represents the wider audience and whether questions or recording methods produce reliable information.

The organisations that measure audiences

Audience-measurement organisations provide evidence that producers and advertisers can use to understand audience size, composition and behaviour.

BARB is now called Barb Audiences Ltd, formerly the Broadcasters Audience Research Board. Its panel provides estimates for the wider population rather than recording every UK viewer. It publishes overnight figures and consolidated figures that include later viewing, including seven-day and 28-day measures. Its measurement has expanded to cover broadcaster on-demand services and major streaming services, reflecting changes in consumption.

RAJAR, Radio Joint Audience Research Limited, measures listening for BBC and commercial radio and publishes results quarterly. Recording the listening platform matters because audiences can use AM/FM, DAB, online services, apps or digital television.

PAMCo, the Publishers Audience Measurement Company, was established in 2016 in response to the effect of online platforms on traditionally printed products. It helps publishers understand audiences beyond print alone.

Nielsen provides US television ratings, including information about audience composition as well as size. Across these organisations, the central purpose is similar: to turn audience behaviour into evidence that informs production, distribution and advertising decisions.

Audience range and commercial value

• Mass: large audience, broad appeal.
• Niche: smaller, specialised audience; potentially loyal and valuable to relevant advertisers.
• Commercial producers sell advertisers access to audiences. Both audience size and composition matter.
• Intended target audience ≠ everyone who actually uses the product.

Categorising and targeting

• Geographic: location.
• Demographic: age, gender, ethnicity, income, occupation.
• Psychographic: interests, values, attitudes, lifestyles, aspirations.
• Categories can overlap; profiles are generalisations, not guarantees.
• Genre conventions signal a familiar experience to people likely to enjoy it.