Our song (Feeling Good by Muse) falls in the Rock genre so when describing a target audience it is important to know the genre as other facets of information can be blanketed with this either fairly on unfairly (i.e. occupation, gender). However, it is likely that the age bracket for our target audience will be 16-25 as they are the people who are more likely to listen to this type of music. The rock genre can have both genres but this song (and, by definition, band) are aimed almost solely at the male audience.
Because the age bracket is 16-25 the occupation of the target audience may simply be students so that would group them socially but they are also unlikely to partake in the lower end of the audience scale (for example, labourers) so their grouping is more likely to be BCD. Rock has always been the antithesis to more popular music such as dance and pop and this also has to be taken in to account when looking at their interests in other media as they are far more likely to not be ‘following the crowd’ and they would also be interested in more independent products.
Independent films (or films with a limited showing) may be popular as may noir films be of a particular interest. TV shows can be a mixed bag but, if I were to generalise, satirical comedies and thought-provoking documentaries and dramas would be high on the agenda- if you were going by the BCD scale. For example, the audience may enjoy Monty Python more than another comedy because of the way it is presented and how it doesn’t shy away from intelligent comedy.
If I were to follow John Hartley’s theory of grouping audiences it would seem that the target audience would be very creative, either in the arts or some other form of academia. The class we would be aiming at would most likely be middle-class, verging on working-class as there is a sense with this type of genre to ‘rebel’ against someone or something, stemming back from the 1960s/70s.
Because the entirety of Muse are Caucasian males this may be something we have to look at when targeting our audience as they are most likely to be Caucasian males aged 16-24 as it is instantly relatable.
Going by Richard Dyer’s Utopian Solutions theory it may be necessary to show our target audience they are a part of an ‘indie’ crowd to avoid isolation but also to provide social networking and, most importantly with a music video, to provide excitement to prevent boredom. Blumier and Katz’ Uses and Gratifications Theory lends more to this by proving reasons as to why an audience would consume certain media pieces and avoid some entirely. Entertainment, escapism and identification can all be portrayed effectively through a music video but this must also be shown to be a major part of our audience so a great deal of work must go in to providing all three of these whilst also following on to something more basic and primal which can be seen in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
The song title ‘Feeling Good’ bluntly sums up the top three levels of the Hierarchy as all of those things are needed to ‘feel good’ whether we are aware of them or not. Our audience are bound to be high in creativity and spontaneity (as reflected upon earlier) so our video needs to reflect this but something more basic such as friends and family can also be included.
Overall, our audience are likely to be BCD (possibly bordering E with B being at the lower scale) with their ages around 16-24 and the ethnic group likely to be Caucasian with the gender being male. This is only the tip of the iceberg as our audience needs entertainment, escapism and a chance to identify themselves.
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