Audience Research - Audience Research Profile

Audience Research Profile

    My audience - Generation Z - is middle market, meaning they are comfortably able to afford some luxuries, while still aspiring for more in their life. They populate 51% of the UK's population and fall under the BC1 demographic. As they are aspirers, they seek status, consider themselves stylish, are easily influenced by celebrity culture, are orientated to image and appearance and hold a high importance on fashion and personal image.

My audience of 16-25 year old middle-market aspirers were introduced to social media from a very young age, and were socialised to live their lives mostly, or entirely, digitally, on applications such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. My target audience are generally much more ethical and morally progressive, more aware of their environmental impact and are, as a whole, better-educated. They are more socially and politically active, more culturally competent, more conscious of their social impact and strive to make better in their lives.  My target audience is in the critical turning point of their lives where they build upon the foundation of their personalities and individual selves, and social media has a large influence on this - trends, brands, fashion, pictures and music, and online personal connections are all shared rapidly online, and my audience is consuming these forms in mass amounts. The rapid sharing of opinions and thoughts online influence my target audience to a degree and their personal selves are formed online, as digital natives.

    My target audience are more likely to be conscious of the gender binary and hold the idea that the clothes and attitudes someone holds does not equal their gender. Diversities in interests and cultures are much more normalised for my target audience, and they are less likely to attach social labels to themselves and others. My target audience also places importance on individualism and embracing one's imperfections, and features that may be deemed less socially desirable - instead of aiming to be flawless.  My target audience is also more likely to engage with styles and trends that they identify with, rather than conforming to a group of larger people. 

    However, my target audience has a general interest towards mainstream trends, are materialistic, and often strive for and desire to "be like" figures in celebrity spotlight. However they have a level of social consciousness and individualism, so do not entirely base their life around the happenings of celebrity culture. My audience will hold attachments to particular trends and cultures around them, and build their individual styles off of them.

My target audience is middle market- describing those who are middle class, neither expensive or cheap. They are a part of the BC1 demographic group- in 2016, the frequency of grade B being 23% and grade C1 being 28%. This made the combined BC1 demographic group just over half of the UK populuation.

    My target audience also holds a strong level of cultural competency and appreciates intertextual references when they are used correctly in context, whether made from popular shows or trends found on applications like TikTok. My audience's cultural competency stems from their consumption of online media - such as films, music videos, video games and TV shows. Intertextual links are an important aspect of communication between my audience - promoting nostalgia and borrowing meanings to create a new meaning in context.

    A study held by AudienceProject in 2020 revealed that 82% of 15-25 year olds used the video-sharing platform YouTube, making it more popular that Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. The leading celebrity YouTube channel in the UK was Ed Sheehan, with 42.8 million subscribers as of December 2019. The full list of  leading social networking sites went as follows:

1. YouTube (82%)
2. FaceBook (80%)
3. WhatsApp(79%)
4. Instagram (76%)
5. Snapchat (57%)
6. Twitter (44%)
7. LinkedIn (30%)
8. Pinterest (28%)
9. TikTok (24%)
10. Reddit (23%)
11. Tumblr (10%)

However, these numbers may have rapidly changed over the years with the popularisation of the application TikTok - which allows users to watch and create short, fast-paced videos on their smartphones. 95% of my target demographic uses social media in order to stay updated. It was recorded the most popular app of 2021 and allows audiences to express themselves through short videos, and has taken the younger demographic by storm.