Audience Profiling

Within any media industry, targeting the correct audience is critical to the success of the products sale values; a good media producer must know, represent and target the right group of people for a product to succeed.

There are two key ways of finding out key facts about your potential audience, one is primary research (such as surveys and focus groups) while the other is secondary research using existing theories. Key theories that are referred to include Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, NRS social value groups and NRS super profiles. . This research is very relevant to my main products because I am creating adverts. I believe that the target audience of These two charts below are used to explain what the different social groups are and also what the different super profiles are:

There are also several types of generalised target audiences. One of these is a 'mass' audience, which is a large mainstream type of audience. These audiences are usually very vast and can usually apply to specific social grades, such as the working class. For example, a company may aim a film they make more specifically at women. The second general type of audience is the 'niche' audience. This type of audience is usually much smaller than that of a mass audience, but can still be very influential. For example, white middle-class British males could be seen as a niche audience, as it is a lot more specific towards a certain type of person. Finding the best type of audience to aim for when making a product can be very stressful, as choosing the wrong target audience could dramatically affect the sales of that product.

Also in terms of theory, professionals refer to representation theory because the primary target audience need to see themselves and their needs reflecting in the product. One example of this is how the Uses and Gratifications theory (Katz & Blumer) can relate to target audience. In this theory, they stated reasons as to why audience members consume the media products, such as diversion/escapism, personal interactions, personal identity and surveillance.

Laura Mulvey is another media theorist who relates to audience profiling because of the way in which characters are represented. For example, a film may be much more male orientated if many of the female characters were very attractive and feminine. This relates to her 'Male Gaze' theory where the female audience would have to view the product from a male perspective. Stanley Hall is another theorist that relates to audience profiling, because he stated that young people had 'a lot of time on their hands'. This could mean that younger people would have more time to purchase and use my product. In addition, professional producers of media products use audience theory to guide them when tailoring their productions to specific groups.

In terms of primary research I conducted a Survey Monkey to find out if my initial thoughts based on my secondary research were correct and find out more specific details regarding what they would like to see in my adverts. To view the questions I put on my initial survey, here is a link to the blog post:

Survey Monkey Questionnaire

Based on my secondary and primary research I have developed the following audience profile for my target audience:

Age group: 15 - 21 years.

I made this choices because, through my research, I have found that video games in the side-scrolling beat 'em up style of genre are mostly played by teenagers. Therefore, I decided to follow this convention,  as I thought that the people who would be more likely to play a specific genre would be more likely to purchase the game.

Gender: Mostly male.

I also found through research that the gaming community seems to consist mostly of the male gender. I also found that the style of genre that my own game categorises into is mostly played by a male audience. This shows how I came to the decision of aiming my game mostly at a male audience.

Class: Lower class/working class.

I chose this class of people to aim my product at because these types of people are likely to have more time to play video games than much higher classes. This means that aiming the product at this class could mean a potentially better amount of sales, as this class of people would be able to spend time to enjoy the game.

Social Value Group: Most probably Traditionalists, as the game strays from the common conventions of modern games and more towards a much older style.

Through my research, people of a Traditionalist nature are more likely to follow common conventions of video games with a similar genre. This is a very good social value group to aim my product at, as I think that my product does follow a large majority of fantasy genre conventions.

Race: White/British (by default) as they would be the most common people to play my game.

As my product will be produced and released in the UK, it makes sense to aim the product at a British target audience, even if it is released abroad as well. I also decided to aim this product at white people because the majority of people living in Britain are white. This would be aiming my product at the mass audience, which can mean more potential customers.

Sexuality: Heterosexual.

Again, because the majority of people living in Britain are heterosexual, it makes sense to aim the product at the mass audience, as there can be a lot more potential customers from this.

Similar Games in terms of Gameplay

The game-play style for the game that I have designed fits into the "side-scrolling/beat 'em up" genre. During my research into these, I have created a small checklist that contains the major:

• This style of game is almost always played within a 2D environment
• Players move their characters to the right so that they can progress to the next area
• The player must defeat all enemies in one area before moving to the next area of the level
• In most games, a flashing symbol appears to tell the players that they can advance
• The HUD (Heads Up Display) will always show the characters life bar, how many lives the character has and what the player's current score is
• The players will usually have to defeat a boss enemy before moving to the next level
• The characters will usually be able to use a variety of attacks (which may also include special attacks)

I have decided to implement these into my game, as it will make it more relative to the genre and also may mean that the target audience will be able to recognise the genre better. While researching into this genre, I found several real life examples and specific guidelines that they all seem to follow. The first example is a famous game created by the large gaming industry Sega in 1991. It was called 'Streets of Rage'.

Streets of Rage is a game that seemed to appeal to teenagers at the time of it's release because, at the time, 2D fighting games were one of the more popular styles of games. During my research, I found that the most popular games produced at the time of this game's release tended to be side-scrolling games and shooter games. Because these genres were popular among gamers at the time, this game caught on fairly quickly.

The second game that I looked into for similarity was a more recent game. 'Ragnarok Battle Offline' is an independently-made game created by the Japanese game company French-Bread in 2007.

It's characters, setting and style is based off of the famous Korean RPG called 'Ragnarok Online'. The game is also animated very smoothly, which makes the gameplay much smoother. Because of it's unique art and animation style, this game looks very colourful and gives the gameplay a generally happy mood. This is very uncommon in many other games of this genre, because the majority of the other games contain very dark colours. This in turn gives some games of this genre a more serious mood. Another important element about this game is that the characters can level up, in which the players can choose specific skills to make them stronger. This relates to the RPG style that the game was based off of, as lots of RPGs allow players to level up their characters.


The third game I looked into for similarity in conventions was a very recent game which was released in 2010. It is another independent game produced by the company Klei Entertainment called 'Shank'.

It is a very good looking game, as the animation is very smooth and it has a 'comic book' style of art, which can make the game look as if it's aimed at mainly teenagers. This is also the more violent of the three games that I analysed, but I decided that my game would not be as violent so that there will be a larger target audience. If a game contains large amounts of gore or harsh violence, the target audience could be much smaller. Usually, if a game contains a 'fantasy' style of violence (i.e. no blood), the game could be played by a slightly younger audience.

Sometimes within gaming, the characters can act as idols for young people. Many gamers have come to idolise a wide variety of video game characters, both good and evil, for many different qualities (i.e. the gamer can relate to the character, the character may have a lovable personality, etc.). One main example of this is Mario (the Super Mario series), who since his creation in 1981 has become a globally famous mascot to the video game company Nintendo. Another example could be that with these games, the target audience could come to idolise the main protagonists because they are trying to fight against evil. This is usually one quality of a main character that brings the target audience to like them. In comparison, one quality that usually brings the target audience to like the villains of games is if they have a comedic or have a funny personality.