Question 4

A product is always made with an audience in mind. The perceived opinions of the audience contribute to the overall finished music magazine.  There were several procedures I had to take in order for me to conduct thorough research on my audience and properly direct my product towards my audience.

There were two classifications that I had to make for my audience. The two classifications were my primary audience – the people who the product is directly aimed at. The second classification was my secondary audience – the people who the product is not directly aimed at, but may still possibly be interested in. My primary audience is females aged 17 – 23 in the ABC1 category. The ethnicity would primarily be mainly ethnic minorities – predominantly black females. However, the product is not specifically targeted solely at the ethnic audience, however many of the ideas and values expressed in this genre is typically associated with an audience of colour. Once I had figured out what my audience would “look like”, the next step was to figure the ideology amongst the demographic, thus conducting psychographic research. My primary audience is aspirers who consider personal status important. Typically, aspirers make up 25% of consumers. They aspire to certain lifestyle; choose purchases for fashion/ range. Choose products/services contribute to aspirer’s perceived image. My secondary are mainstreamers /conformists. They make up 40% of consumers – because they are mainstreamers. They do not want to stand out from the crowd – they want to fit in. They need to have trust in products/services – thus staying with well known brands. I think it was effective choosing aspirers as my primary audience because that’s a continuous theme throughout the genre – as I’ve mentioned previously, many artists in the genre excessively talk about how their hard work has got them to where they want to be.

How have you gathered all this information?

When conducting and gathering research there is two types of research that can be conducted. Primary research is when you personally conduct research and secondary research is when you use an external source such as the internet to gather research. There are also two types of ways to conduct research. Quantitative research is when the research is concerning numbers whereas qualitative research could be in the form of focus groups and interviews and is a much more personal approach to conducting research. The reason why I have chosen the age range of 17-23 is because of the information I received from my “Audience” research and the results I got from my “Questionnaire”. With half of the people who answered my questionnaire, most of the people who answered my questionnaire were aged 17-26. They also dictated the price. Many of the people I asked were also black males and females who listened to R&B – because I thought it would be effective to gather data from my main audience and a range other secondary /tertiary audiences.

Do you think this was an effective decision?

I do think that this was an effective decision because from my “Institution” research, I have learnt that the readers of magazines are aged 17-23. I also thought that it would not be effective to aim my music magazine at people in C2/D/E categories because they do not have the disposable income that A/B/C1 category people have. Also from American music TV shows – like 106&Park – it is clear that the primary audience are aspiring black males and females aged 17-23. Because they have the aspiration to achieve what many artists from humble beginnings have achieve, thus relating to the artist as well, identifying them as the “common person”