Audience Research & Profile

Magazine producers use multiple methods to identify their target audience. One of these methods is to isolate what types or groups of people would be interested in their product. This can be done through using common stereotypes to assume or understand what that group would enjoy or want. By pinpointing what is special about their product they can see what correlates to one or more groups in terms of interest. Important features of an audience that a company would have to consider are:

• Age
• Gender
• Class
• Location
• Income
• Interests
• Religion

There are two main ways of identifying a target audience and that is through the analysis of demographics and psychographics. Demographics are more common and show factual data and information such as age, gender, and location. Psychographics are very different and instead show an audiences personality, attributes, interests, and lifestyle.

As the genre of my product will be rock I have decided to analyse audience profiles of the average reader of a rock magazine. The average profile publishers state their audience fits is:

• Men
• 16-30 years old
• Straight
• White
• Extrovert
• Working Class

From this information I can infer that my audience would be under middle-age, male, open to daring design, and looking for something affordable. I can use this information for when I create my product as it will allow me to shape my magazine to better fit, attract, and entertain a more specific audience rather than blindly hoping to catch someones attention. The psychographics of an audience are slightly harder to pin down and identify than demographics. There are multiple ways of classifying an audiences psychographics, the Young & Rubican method categorises people into 7 sets:

• The Aspirer
• The Explorer
• The Reformer
• The Mainstream
• The Struggler
• The Resigned
• The Succeeder

Each of these sets has its own defining features based on how they would typically act in life and allows for easy classification of an audience to find out what type of product they would be interested in. For instance, 'The Reformer' is the type of person that values their own opinion over being told what to do, fairly anti-materialistic, and seen as intellectual. From this it can be inferred that someone fitting this group would be only interested in what they find useful or interesting and will not simply follow others and be corralled by the newest and shiniest. Those interested that fit the above profile are the typical audience for the rock genre therefore are most likely going to be the audience for my product. This means that 'The Explorer' could potentially be the set best fitting for my audience as they best respond to brands with instant effects and constantly seek out new thrills.