AUDIENCE

A target audience is a group of people in which a product or service is aimed at. In marketing and advertising this is referred to as a target market as companies and businesses aim to find strategies to sell their product or convey their service. Defining a target market is the first stage in marketing as it is what makes the product successfully publicised. Through the psychographic segmentation table and the demographic table, businesses are able to define its target market effectively by applying codes and conventions which will achieve desired results.

When a media business is defining an audience there are some factors they must consider before referring to it as a 'target audience':

• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Sexuality
• Occupation
• Religion

The demographic table is used in marketing to classify an audience into age, class and occupation. Demographics are divided into six bands; A, B, C1, C2, D and E, which consumers fit into according to their job and status in which media companies follow and refer to ensuring that the product/service appeals to the right consumer. 

Advantages of the demographic table:

• Categorisation is easy as it is simple and the groups are distinctively different

Disadvantages of the demographic table:

• Classes overlap therefore some fit into more than one category

The psychographic segmentation table is divided into seven groups in which they are divided into groups based on their lifestyle and personality characteristics.

Advantages of the psychographic table:

• More variety within groups with more description

Disadvantages of the psychographic table:

• Personalities of individuals may overlap over sections

This One Direction perfume advert is aimed at an audience who is lower in the demographic table therefore in groups C2, D and E. The reason for this is because the perfume has a young target audience therefore financially less stable. Also, as it is a celebrity perfume, upper classes and higher occupations will prefer to go for a branded perfume, this was evident in my primary research results, an older audience chose expensive well known brands. The psychographic for this advert is aspirers and mainstreamers as the target audience is young and seeking security through the celebrity endorsement.