Target audience Billboard - primary research

Target Audience Research

As part of my coursework I am required to produce a billboard as one of my chosen ancillary tasks. To do this well I needed to find out what would attract them to a billboard. I set up an online survey and got people to go online and complete it. The survey had ten questions, which were designed to give me the information required to produce an appealing and successful billboard. Here are the results:

My results show that the same amount of males and females completed my survey. This means that all other results should relate to both genders. This means that my target audience doesn’t have to be limited to just one gender as I have an equal amount of research on what should appeal to both. As I would like to produce a lifestyle magazine this is ideal because I can target both genders with content that would appeal to both and have a good idea on how to market the magazine towards them.

When it comes to the age of people who have completed my survey there is a large spread. However, with 27.27% of the responses coming from people under the age of 18, this makes this the most popular category with the 18-24 category coming in a close second with 22.73% of the responses. This means that my results mainly represents a young audience as 50% of all responses came from people aged 24 and under. This suggests that I should target these people for my billboard and magazine as I have a large amount of research on things that appeal to this group of people.  However, the lifestyle genre isn’t really controlled by age and could appeal to people of all ages depending on the content which I choose to include. However, the information collected about people’s interested mainly applies to a younger audience, making these people my primary target audience.

These results show that a large proportion of my responses came from people of a White/Caucasian ethnicity. In fact 77.27% of the responses came from people of this ethnicity making them by far the most popular category of people who completed the survey, with the second most popular categories being Black or African American and Asian or Pacific Islander with only 9.09% each. This means that further responses in the survey will give me an idea of what the White/ Caucasian ethnicity would like to see and how I could attract them to my billboard. This suggests that I should aim my products at people of this ethnicity because I have detailed information about what they find interesting and appealing, which would allow me to create a billboard which targets the specifically.

 The results show that a large proportion of my responses came from people with an average household earning of £0-£24,999 annually. In fact 59.09% of the responses received came from this category with the second most common category being £25,000-£49,000 with 22.73% of the responses. This suggests that 81.82% of the responders lie within the lower and middle classes. This will impact on what content to include in my products because if I try and include things which these classes would stereotypically be able to afford I may risk alienating them from my products, causing them to not want to read my magazine. This means that I should find content in which they can relate to, which should attract them to my magazine. This means that these categories should be part of my primary target audience as I have a good insight in what will attract them to a billboard.

These results show that by far the most common responders were of a heterosexual sexuality, with 86.36% of the responses lying in this category. This means that this should be part of my primary target audience as I have detailed information on how to attract these people to a billboard, allowing my billboard to be potentially more successful. Stereotypically some things will appeal to a heterosexual audience compared to people of a homosexual or a bisexual sexuality. For example stereotypically homosexual males will find bright colours and content about other males appealing. This means that I should only include content which would stereotypically appeal to heterosexual men and women because I have an in depth knowledge about what to include which should attract them to my products.

These results are very spread compared to other results in my survey. The most common response was in the watching TV category, which had 50% of the people who completed the survey select this option. However other options such as going shopping received 45.45% of the people responding to my survey select this option and reading closely following with 36.36%. All other options had a fairly large response as well. This suggests that all kinds of content should appeal to my primary target audience but content included on the billboard should be about activities like watching TV, going shopping or reading.  This is because my survey suggests that this would appeal to the largest proportion of my target audience as it should appeal to the large majority of people.

These results give me a good idea about what colours I should include on the billboard. The results show that in order to appeal to the largest amount of people possible within my target audience I should include colours such as red with 50% of the responders selecting this option, green with 45.45% and blue with 40.91%. by using this colour I will not limit the target audience too much which is good for a lifestyle magazine as there should be content that appeals to all. As the majority of people find the colours appealing I should try and use these colours in a clean and uniformed colour scheme as to try and not make the billboard seem ‘tacky’.

These result show that I must include large images on my billboard as this appealed to everyone who completed my survey. This means that my billboard should appeal to the largest audience possible, as this should appeal to everyone. Another thing I should probably include on the billboard is only a little amount of text, as 50% of the responders selected this option. This makes sense because a large proportion of the people who responded where under the age of 24. As Hebdige said ‘youth as fun’ meaning that they will only do something if they find it fun and interesting. By including too much text on a billboard you run this risk of making it come across as boring, which would not appeal to this primary target audience.

 These results show me that my primary target audience are most likely to see my billboard if it is located near a large shopping centre as 47.83% of the responders selecting this option, or in a city centre with 30.43%. This means that I should locate my billboard in these areas because this is where my target audience are most likely to see the billboard meaning it is more likely to be successful at attracting people to my magazine. Other information that can be gathered by this question is further information what my primary target audience like to do in their spare time, which gives me a better idea about what content to include.

These results show that the majority of my target audience find still billboards more appealing than digital ones with 69.57% of the responders choosing this option. This means that I should design a still billboard as it would appeal to the most people possible.

In conclusion my primary target audience should be men and women of white/Caucasian ethnicity, heterosexual sexuality and in the lower and middle classes. This is because these people are the best represented from the responses to my survey. My results also show me how I should appeal to these people.