Audiences

Audiences are the human recipients of messages.

Audiences Are Groups Of People

Audiences are groups of people with ideas and characteristics in common.

Who is reached? In talking, the audience is the person or group you are talking to. In broadcasting, it is the numerous receivers of your message, be they readers of your magazine cover, street billboard or email message. Audiences of recipients interpret the messages they recieve and react according with their own ideas in agreement and disagreement.

Targeted Audiences

Audiences get singled out and targeted by messages through media. A lot of research and planning goes into targeting specific desired audiences for messages. Defining specific audiences for marketing purposes is an entire industry involving complex statistical and demographic analysis. Audiences are thus to be considered.

Audiences are Generalizations

Knowledge of an audience’s ideas is always an imperfect overgeneralisation of what people think.

Targeting Audiences

“The real test of a protest is who your audience is and if they can do something about what you’re addressing.”

—Noam Chomsky

Target audiences are groups of people you can direct your messages to. Audiences can be united by common ideas.

Targeting

Targeting ensures that your promotional campaign is reaching out to the right audience. In politics targeting is usually designed to reach the most responsive or influencable citizens. In marketing, targeting is often designed to reach the richest or most profitable consumers.

Targeting Powerful Audiences

“If you could fight anyone, who would you fight?”

—Chuck Palanchuk, Fight Club

Sometimes your target is a powerful person or group who does something you oppose or whose attention and support you need.

Unintended Audiences

Target audiences are rarely the only ones to receive your message. Anything you broadcast can find its way to unintended audiences. Because your message is likely crafted to appeal to your target, unintentional audience reactions are likely to be different from that of your intended audience. Sometimes an unintended audience will react with unexpected enthusiasm and become a surprising source of support. Sometimes a message that plays well with supportive audiences will alienate opposing audiences, especially if it is seized for blogging, digging, hyping and mocking.

Create An Audience

Define a target audience of your own 

Audience Examples

Audiences are distinguished by many criteria:

• Economic
• Age group
• Participation level
• Technology access
• Education
• Ethnicity
• Culture
• Religion

Firefox For Retired People

Firefox For Retirement Villages

Creepy Tobacco Targeting

"Problems with self-esteem", "Has menial boring job", "Emotionally insecure", "Passive-aggressive", "Probably leads fairly dull existence", "Grooming not a strong priority", "Lacks inner resource", "Group conformist", "Non-thinking", "Not into ideas", "Insecure followers". These are all terms take nfrom Big Tobbaco's files that have been used to describe different groups of potential customers for their deadly addictive products."