BA (JMC) 2014 – Basics of Advertising

Unit 1: Concept of Advertising

Sukriti Arora

Target Audience
Refers to the group of people who are intended recipients of an advertising message. The
objective of this chapter is to understand what is target audience, how is the audience
categorized and its relevance for advertising.

Introduction
Imagine that a young student has some gossip about one of his classmates. He calls his parents
living in another city to tell them about it. Their response is minimal and unenthusiastic as they
are not too familiar with his friends, the subject matter of the gossip is not very valuable to
them and they are more interested in knowing how his studies are going.
In this scenario, the boy has wasted his time and money on communicating an information
which was not relevant to the audience. Selection of the right audience is, therefore, very crucial
for a message to have the desired effect.

The same is applicable to all mass media messages including advertising messages. While it is
not possible to exactly identify the people, who would be interested in a type of message, a
classification of audience on some factors is possible. This classified set of audience for whom
the message is intended is known as the Target Audience.

In the context of advertising, target audience refers to the group of people that are potential
customers of a product or service. They are the people most likely to be interested in that
offering. For instance, women in the age bracket of 15 to 45 can be the target audience for
sanitary napkins but they may not be the target audience for a motorcycle brand. The same
stands for ideas too. A person residing in a gated urban society has no relevance for an
advertisement promoting the development and use of lavatories in homes.

Importance of identifying the target audience for ads

1. Cost Effectiveness: The cost of reaching a greater number of people is high. This cost
also needs to be effective. An ad might reach millions of people but only some would
pay attention to it, most wouldn’t. The target of every advertiser should be to maximise
people in the former category. Advertising to people who have slim to no chances of
acting upon the message is an unnecessary expenditure that would yield no results.

2. Creation of Suitable Ads: Knowing one’s target audience guides the advertisers to
create the most appealing advertisements for them. An ad aimed at children tends to
use simple language and expressions and often features cartoon characters or superhero
figures that would immediately grab their interest. Whereas, an advertisement for adults
 can include sarcasm or complex words in the copy and feature celebrities of their age
and above.

3. Determining the Media Plan & Schedule: Ad advertisement has to be placed in media
channels that are preferred by most people of the target audience. While the youth can
be reached through social media, older people are likely to prefer newspapers and
television. The media habits of target audience also help in scheduling when an ad
would appear. A general perception is to schedule ads for working urban men during
the prime time on news channels, and for homemakers the ads can be scheduled as per
the timings of television programs preferred by them.

Identifying the Target Audience

1. Demographic information: This includes the objective and statistical aspects about
the audience such as age, gender, income, ethnicity, marital status and so on. This
information is easier to gather as it does not require any analysis. The facts are plain
and simple and so is the classification. There is no use of advertising a luxury product
to people who cannot afford it or even aspire to afford in future.

2. Geographic Information: This refers to the place of domicile of a person. It can take
into account whether the person is located in an urban or rural area, defining the exact
city or state, and understanding the climate and culture of the region. For instance, a
person living in a coastal area does not require warm clothes and hence, there would be
less outlets offering such products and therefore, less advertisement for it in the region.

3. Psychographic Information: A very crucial classification for any advertiser, it refers

to understanding the psychological and sociological aspects of a person. This includes
the tastes and preferences, hobbies, lifestyle, values and attitude of a person. For
instance, a middle-aged man earning in crores through his business can afford clothing
from luxury brands and fits into the demographic segmentation. But if he prefers
wearing only cotton kurta-pyjamas, he cannot be classified as the target audience of a
luxury apparel brand.

4. Behavioural Information: This refers to the behaviour of a person as a consumer. The

frequency of purchases, preferred outlets for purchase (online or in-store) and what
 drives them to make a purchase are some of the questions that need answering in order
to determine whether that person is the target audience of an advertisement or not.

Once determined, target audience guides the path of an entire advertising campaign along with
other factors, needless to mention. Target audience for an advertisement is almost the same as
the target market identified by the marketing team of a company. It is, however, more specific
in nature. While the target market is decided based on demographic, geographic and
psychographic differentiation, determining target audience additionally considers their habits
with respect to media use and their behaviour as consumers.

References

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-target-audience-consumers-37173.html

https://clevertap.com/blog/psychographic-segmentation/