Audience Classification

During our media lessons we have been looking at ways that audiences are classified.

The need to define audiences has been driven by commercial needs.  Many media businesses need to deliver audiences’ eyeballs, or ears, to advertisers in order to be profitable and so the audience needs to be categorised.

The Registrar General’s Social Scale is the way the British Government defines the populace through their occupation:

Group	Occupations
A	Professional Workers (lawyers, doctors etc.), Scientists, Managers of large-scale organisations.
B	Shopkeepers, Farmers, Teachers, White-collar workers.
C1	Skilled Manual (i.e. hand) workers – e.g. high grade, e.g. master builders, carpenters, shop assistants, nurses.
C2	Skilled Manual – low grade, e.g. electricians, plumbers.
D	Semi-skilled Manual, e.g. bus drivers, lorry drivers, fitters.
E	Unskilled Manual, e.g. general labourers, barmen, porters.

A benefit of the Registrar General’s Social Scale is that it can help companies to target audiences. However, the scale has been criticised for being both crude and rigid.

Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALS): Possibly a better way of defining audiences is by categorising them by the values and attitudes they hold and the lifestyle they have; these are psychographic (psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles) variables.  For example, one of the better known systems is the Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALS):

• Actualisers: Successful, wealthy, dynamic people for whom image is important as an expression of their individuality.
• Fulfilleds: Mature people who are well-educated professionals. This group values order, knowledge and responsibilities.
• Achievers: Successful and career-orientated people.  They are politically conservative and value the status quo.  Image is important to them and they tend to buy established, well-known products.
• Experiencers: Young, impulsive and rebellious.  They like new products and styles but soon tire of them and search for new novelties.  They spend as much as they can afford on clothing, fast food, music and films.
• Believers: Conservative people who believe in traditional institutions, such as the Church, and in the importance of the family and community.  Their lifestyle tends to be very routine.  Their income is small but sufficient.
• Strivers: Tend to be unsure of themselves and have a low income.  They are striving for approval from others, which they feel they could gain by ownership of possessions, most of which they cannot afford.
• Makers: Makers are do-it-yourself enthusiasts and tend to live a conventional, family life.
• Strugglers: Strugglers are on the lowest income and tend to be loyal to their favourite brands.

Selby’s Psychographic Clusters: Similar to the VALs system, Psychographic Clusters is a system invented by Keith Selby:

• Trendies: Who crave the admiration of their peers.
• Egoists: Who seek pleasure.
• Puritans: Who wish to feel virtuous.
• Innovators: Who wish to make their mark.
• Rebels: Who wish to remake their world in their own image.
• Drifters: Who are not sure what they want.
• Drop-outs: Who shun commitments of any kind.
• Traditionalists: Who want things to stay as they are.
• Utopians: Who want the world to be a better place.
• Cynics: Who have to have something to complain about.
• Cowboys: Who want easy money.

Significance: After numerous discussions, as a group we feel that the Register General's Scale is slightly awkward as it is difficult to apply. A problem we face is that we have decided to aim our production at people aged 15-24. This makes it problematic because not many people of this age category have committed themselves to a career path as of yet. Therefore, when applying the Register General's Scale we looked into the occupation of the parents of those members of our target audience. When it came to making a conclusion, we referred to the following tables from the BFI's 2014 Statistical Yearbook:

As mentioned before, our film opening is going to be targeted to a 'niche' audience, therefore, it is very hard to compare our production with any of the successful productions in the BFI's 2014 Statistical Yearbook (Audiences). By not being able to compare our film opening to any of the productions listed and their categories, it limits our ability to put our film into a category. However, due to the fact that it is being targeted for a niche market I would estimate that people falling into the A, B and C1 categories are most likely to enjoy this film the most. But you argue that due to the films simple and easy to understand storyline, anyone from any of the listed categories would enjoy it.

Similarly, my group found that the VALs system and the categories its offering are limiting. They lack space for people towards the younger section of our target audience (15-17) as they are not yet familiar with things like careers or their own family life. The VALs system would work better if our target audience was one of the older generations. Fortunately we did have better luck when exploring Selby's Psychographic Clusters model and found that 'Cynics', 'Egoists' and 'Trendies' are all fairly apt descriptions for our target audience as they are able to relate to the main characters who have these traits.