Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Media Lesson: Audience Profiling In Magazines

It is usually obvious to a reader, just by glancing at a magazine cover, what the Magazine is about. For example a magazine filled with dark and dull colours, with men with heavy eye make-up on, hints towards a heavy metal magazine, and this suspicion will be confirmed when they spot the skull imagery and the stern expressions on the men. However some magazines go for a less obvious approach, using a minimal design for there front page, like just a head with little text around it, including the masthead. After a while it may be discovered that it is an indie music magazine.  


Image                                              Image 

A mass audience are those who consume mainstream or popular texts. Some examples of these could be Soaps or sitcoms. 
On the contrary a niche audience is a much smaller audience, but a lot more influential 

When marketing any media Item, they look the demographics of their consumers. These are called 'GEARS'. 
  • Gender 
  • Ethnicity 
  • Age 
  • Religion/Nationality 
  • Socio-economic group 
They also look at  
  • Sexuality 
  • Occupation  
  • Education 
  • Annual income 
  • Disposable income 
  • Current lifestyle 
  • Aspirational or Designed lifestyle culture 
  • Media interests 
  • Buying habits 
  • Loyalty to brands 

They also put people into groups, according to their occupation and class. They are as follows: 

Group A 
  • Lawyers 
  • Doctors 
  • Scientists 
  • Well paid professions 
Group B 
  • Teachers 
  • Middle management 
  • Fairly well-paid professions 
Group C1 
  • Junior management 
  • Bank Clerks 
  • Nurses 
  • 'White collar' professions  
Group C2 
  • Electricians  
  • Plumbers  
  • Carpenters 
  • 'Blue collar' professions 
Group D 
  • Manual workers 
  • Drivers 
  • Post sorters 
Group E 
  • Students 
  • Unemployed 
  • Pensioners 

As well as looking and demographics they also look at Psycho-graphics which are the personality and behavioural traits. 

The 4 Cs model- Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation: 

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




1 comment:

  1. You have shown a good deal of understanding of audience profiling.

    ReplyDelete