Christopher ONeill

Ciaran McElhinney

UNIT 6: CRITICAL
APPROACHES TO
MEDIA PRODUCTS

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is used whenever you want to find a measurement

from a numeric point of view.
For example, if you wanted to find out which television show is more
popular, you would ask people in a survey, break up the people you asked
depending on their answer and then compare the 2 shows together in a
graph to see which has the highest number. This is a great way to find out
results conclusively.
Questionnaires and surveys will be the most popular way of gathering
Quantitative research.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative Research is used by people looking for the reasons why they
make decisions, qualitative research is focused on the who and what aspect
while qualitative is focused on the why.
Companies would use qualitative research to study how audiences use their
product, why they prefer them over other similar products and what would
turn them off their product.
These types of surveys would be sent out via e-mail by companies f you
have ordered for them in the past, for example, EA (electronic arts) sent out
survey to EA origin users to find out about their buying habits, what type of
games they enjoy, and what turns them off from their services.
Organizations may also have focus groups, these groups are made up of
people from all different backgrounds, these people will be asked a
questions similar to a survey.
Qualitative research is vital for companys wanting to engineer a product to
succeed.

Other ways of gaining research would include face to face interviews, where
somebody will be sat down or asked by chance on the street by a marketer
and asked the same questions they would be asked in questionnaires and
focus groups.
It could be sad that both focus groups and face to face interviews are more
reliable than surveys and questionnaires as the marketer would have a
better understanding of the person as to their background, you wouldnt be
able to find out honestly in a internet survey.

Audience Profiling

Audience profiling is very important as it allows companies to find out what is

the best way of spending their money and generating a profit. A company will
choose what their target audience is and whats the best product to aim at that
audience thanks to audience profiling.
There are several categories that companies have to keep in mind whenever
they profiling their audience, these include:
Economic status: Companies will decide who their media product is targeted
at by their income
Age: Different age groups will be interested in different things and this is no
exception in media, companies will design a media product targeted at a
certain age group, for example, a antique show which airs during the afternoon
on weekdays is more than likely targeted at older people while a sitcom which
airs during the evening would be targeted at teens and young adults.
Gender: Media products would be designed to appeal to a certain gender, for
example, a reality show like keeping up with the Kardashians would be
aimed at females while something like WWE Raw would be aimed at male
audiences

Psychographics: This is the study of personality, values, opinions, interests,

attitudes and lifestyles. This is very important as you need to have a good
understanding of your audiences character if you are going to create a
media product for them.
Sexual orientation: Products would be aimed at people depending on their
sexual orientation, as certain sexual orientations might not be common they
can also be considered a niche.
Regional identity: Shows aimed at people living in Saudi Arabia would be
much different then shows aimed at a Japanese audience, media
companies would implement certain things from cultures into a product if its
aimed at someone living in that culture.
Mainstream/niche: Media products would be aimed at the mainstream as
this is the safest way to guarantee success, however companies will take
advantage of a niche audience if theres money to be made, its also
worthwhile as many things which were considered niche have now become
mainstream.

Research Organizations

Good examples of organizations that conduct audience research would be

BARB, RAJAR and ABC.

BARB (Broadcasters Audience

Research Board)

BARB is a organization that collects data on what people watch on television,

they do this be selecting a few people across Britain and monitoring what they
watch on tablets, computers and televisions throughout the year, they are
called the Barb Panel. They have rules and regulations for the people they
monitor, for example, if BARB feel they are not taking the survey seriously they
can be removed from the programme, to measure this BARB se regular
checkups and investigate strange viewing patterns. There also has to be
secrecy as members of the panel are not allowed to publically say that they
are part of BARBs research.
Their are limits to their research however as they dont know who exactly in a
family is watching what, to tackle this challenge BARB use a remote, the
remote is given to people in the family, and whenever someone in the family is
watching a certain show they press their name on the remote, and if someone
enters the room to watch the same show they must also press the button.
There is exactly 5100 selected for the survey based on family and geography.
BARB finds out what people are watching using their meters through sound.
http://www.barb.co.uk/resources/barb-facts/how-we-do-what-we-do?_s= 4

Rajar (Radio Joint Audience

Research)

RAJAR is similar to BARB only instead of finding out what people watch
they find out what people are listening to usually thru the radio.
Rajar was established in 1992 and is owned by the BBC and the
RadioCentre.
Rajar collect their data through a seven-day listening diary. Which 110,000
people from the age 15 upwards are asked to fill out over 50 weeks of the
year.
There isnt any way to tell if the people are sincere because they dont use
meters like BARB
http://www.rajar.co.uk

ABC (Audit Bureau of

Circulations)

ABC do research into web articles and newspapers, there research is very
helpful for advertisers who want to have a good understanding of where
would be the best place to put their advert, they are also used by Media
agencies and Investors.
ABC does their research by using a team of experts who uphold data across
a wide range of media channels, these channels include print and online
articles.
ABC would have a census approach to their research, which allows them to
have granular details.
http://www.abc.org.uk

Quantitative data

The average purchaser of a advanced ticket to the force awakens was a 34 year old male.
70% of the advanced ticket holders were male between the ages of 18-49 (some websites
bring that statistic down to 44)
This group of people however spend 2.6 times more at the box office than a typical movie
goer.
58% of ticket holders on opening weekend were men, adults represented 71% of the
crowd and families accounted for 20% of consumers.
3D ticket sales:47%
Imax ticket sales:12%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2015/12/16/luke-skywalker-star-wars-fan-in
sights-from-demographic-data/#
34e65994375b
https://www.quantcast.com/blog/the-fans-behind-the-force /
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/26/star-wars-the-force-awakens-jj-abrams-avera
ge-fan
http://variety.com/2015/film/news/star-wars-the-force-awakens-ticket-sales-breakdowngender-average-age-1201625277/
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/majority-of-star-wars-the-fo
rce-awakens-goers-are-adult-men-with-no-kids-a6781341.html

Qualitative data

Disney would use focus groups to find out who their target audience is and
what the target audience wants, they also do focus groups for plans outside
of the media films such as rides as Disneyland.
It can be very difficulty to find surveys and questionnaires from Disney
because of confidentiality reasons.
Thanks to the internet Disney can research what people like thru web series
in which people would talk about star wars and what makes it good,
although this may not be the main focus as they would only be from a
certain audience profile and not the mainstream, it can still be worthwhile for
Disney to look into this, YouTube channels that may talk about this product
include screen junkies and redlettermedia.

Disney can also find out audiences opinions thru the internet without having
to see questionnaires, websites such as imdb and rotten tomatoes allow
audiences to share their opinions on a particular product, what they enjoy
about it and what they dislike about it. Although it can be difficult to audience
profile these people due to the anonymity of the internet.

Audience classification

Social economic status: Not relevant as its in many ways universal

Geodemographics: statistics have shown that the majority of star wars fans are
based in the west, as it broke box office records in the us, it didn't have much of
a effect in China or Japan.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2016/01/12/box-office-star-wars-the
-force-awakens-not-catching-fire-in-china/#f4730ae4b118
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan
Age: Majority 18-49
Gender: Majority male
Psychographics: Targeted at people into science fiction and adventure films, or
the average movie goer who wants to be entertained.
Sexual orientation: Not relevant
Regional identity: Not relevant as its a science fiction adventure films which
takes place in a weird alien galaxy different from the reality that we live in today.
Mainstream: Average movie goer would be interested in seeing this blockbuster,
star wars has never been a niche as the first film has actually the highest
grossing film of all time at one point, this is unusual since it is a science fiction
film.