Audience Research and Feedback

Exploring Research into the target audience

Segmentation

Audience segmentation is a large part of stereotypes and research into audience. It all depends on the socio-economic factor. E.g. Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Regional identity, and then social class.
Social class continues onto a more detailed factor;

[NRS Social Grade Table]
A Upper Middle Class - Higher managerial, administrative or professional
B Middle Class - Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1 Lower Middle Class -Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2 Skilled Working Class - Skilled manual workers
D Working Class - Semi and unskilled manual workers, students
E Lowest level of Subsistence - State pension, widowed, casual, unemployed or lowest grade worker

Target demographic will likely fall into anyone of any gender, of Essex origin (no particular ethnicity), around the ages of 16-25 and most likely between C1 and D social status. This most accurately reflects the people who would be buying a takeaway in the first place, so that would mean more casual adverts with more complacent/enjoyable themes.

Gender;
For gender, it's slightly more likely that males will end up buying rather than female. This is because of how women are much more watchful of their weight, and are also more likely to end up buying healthy stuff over unhealthy items. To match the bias, I'll focus parts of the advert towards males very slightly. This can be done by using a blunt tagline, or showing stereotypically "manly" food. However, to represent the female identity, I will not have anything representing overtly singular-gendered items in the advert to both support equal rights, and follow print media rules by ASA. It is important to reach those who are more likely to buy it, however equality is much more important.

Ethnicity;
There are many grey areas when it comes to this. For example, I could make an advert showing fried chicken and it be represented by a black person. This is more likely to reach the minority identity, however, it could also be seen as insensitive and racist. For my adverts, I will not be using any ethnicity-specific taglines or photos.

Age;
Lots of people of different ages can be found ordering takeaway, however people under the age of 16/without a job don't really order takeaway, so that is a factor that came into play for the 16-25 age. In the adverts I will be focusing on making it related to what maybe people wear, or stereotypes might wear.

Region;
Speaks for itself. Essex region, and I'll be trying to make at least *some* links to its location.

Social Class;
In my opinion, I believe people between C1 and D will order takeaway from Your Food on a regular basis. This means that I will base my adverts on slightly lower class things. For example, it could be taken in front of an urban area with graffiti.

Consumer Characterisation
Cross-Cultural Consumer Characterisation model

There are four categories of the CCCC:
Main-streamers, Aspirers, Reformers and Succeeders. With auxiliary categories Explorer, Resigned and Struggler. Consumers are motivated by the level of security, control, status, individuality, freedom, survival and escape. Much like everything in life.

Potential Questions
---Section 1---
What is your first name? (Open Q, optional) (only to know which survey is which)
How old are you? (Multiple choice, optional)
What do you identify as? (Multiple choice with "other", optional)
---Section 2---
This image is of a mock-up for a new advertising strategy for YourFood™, a takeaway service based in Essex. Do you believe this is effective at enticing you to use the company? (Multiple choice)(show mockup)
How far do you believe this advert is accurately portraying the region of Essex? (Multiple choice)
If not, please explain why (Open Q)
Which social class do you believe this advert to be structured in? (Multiple choice)(show social class img)
We have decided to research straplines and slogans for the company to use. Which do you prefer? (Multiple choice)
We have decided to research improved logos for the company to use. Which do you prefer? (Multiple choice)
---Section 3---
In your opinion, how likely are you to use this takeaway service from the information provided? (1-10)

Here we see an almost-unanimous response for being between the ages of 16-17. This means that every survey result must be taken into account.

There is a wide variety of gender identities shown within the group who have been surveyed (other than the clear "alien" joke which will not be accounted for due to it being anomalous), which is perfect as it means people from a wide variety of backgrounds have seen and criticised the mock-ups so far.

The closed results show that the advert is interesting to the consumer, and the advert catches peoples eye. However, 20.0% of people do not agree this is a good advert. We'll see why in the open question, but this shows there is clear ways to improve.

This advert has different results compared to the previous. 33.3% of people disagree with the advert, which means the advert isn't as effective as it can be. There is room for improvement and it is likely this won't be one of the main ways I create the final designs.

Before I start, these are both the same question, just with multiple screenshots due to the length and amount of answers. Quite a few of the answers are talking about how the adverts don't match the Essex style which was intended. It is apparent that they look too ambiguous to be considered an Essex brand, which means there needs to be more discerning features to the final designs. This is great feedback.

The results for this describe the adverts as being unappealing and having a lack of professionalism to them. Furthermore, they are following apparent clichés, as well as the fact that the adverts would theoretically "blend in" with the other adverts around it. I take from this that there needs to be a cleaner feel to them, with more professional taglines, straplines, captions and better areas to photo. Furthermore, there needs to be something which makes the adverts stand out.

This question is mainly on finding out if I have aimed to the target audience. I find that I've correctly reached the target audience, as people between the ages 16-25 are typically low wage workers (first time jobs are usually E class), as well as how people who order takeaway typically seem to be of lower wage. There is an anomalous decision of "Upper class", which will be dis-counted.

This clearly shows that the logo should either be the Essex-based logo, or the print logo of the burger buns. This helps as it has been a difficult decision on what logo should be used.

Just like the previous question, this gives some easy insight into what should be used. In this instance, the slogan "Whenever, Wherever, However" shall be used (the slogan in the survey was incorrect, but the survey is closed now).

These questions are less important and just show if the adverts will be successful or not. From this information I can find that people are definitely interested in the product, albeit with a few people that are less interested. However, people are less likely to spread the word about the product. This means that if it ever was truly advertised, the reach would have to be very far out and reach as many people as possible, due to the lack of word of mouth.

In conclusion, I see multiple areas to improve. It needs to be more professional, have a location which matches the brief, it needs to use a better tagline and it *must* stand out. Furthermore, it would be helpful if the adverts were aesthetically pleasing to the eye.