Advertisement pre-production : Research

Audience Information

Audience measurement Panels measure how many people are in an audience normally in relation to television  viewers or radio listeners. A measuring device is normally installed into a television or set top box in order to see who is watching what programme and when. Sometimes a 'peoplemeter' is installed which monitors viewing patterns. Each family member is then assigned a button to press to log in so the audience research board can see who is viewing what. Audience measurement panels are important as they can help television companies see who is viewing their programme and see the number of people who are viewing their programme. This enables companies to adapt their programme so it appeals to their audience or viewers. Audience measurement panels also help channels to see how many viewers that they're pulling in, if a programme isn't getting enough viewers it can be pulled off air. BARB stands for Broadcasters' Audience Research Board who provide official viewing figures for Uk television audiences. Ratings means the estimate of the size of a television audience. You can tell how popular a programme  is by its ratings. Forming focus groups, using questionnaires, and completing face to face interviews are all good ways to get feedback about a programme/advert. Also you can use these feedback methods to find out whether there are any problems with your programme/ad, which can potentially be changed and could lead to getting more viewers. A programme profile is a way of detecting who watches your programme; what sort of people. A good example is the popular show 'South Park.' The kind of people who would watch South Park are generally not easily offended as 'South Park' can be rude, also viewers normally enjoy black humour, and viewers are probably fans of cartoon shows like 'Family Guy.' This way of profiling helps programmes to continue to give  viewers content which they enjoy. A television research company researches audience habits in order to find trends/patterns. An example of a television research agency could be TRP (www.televisionresearchpartnership.com). TRP 'have been working with television audiences for 15 years and are experts at manipulating and analysing data to extract insight and meaning.'


Sources of information

A rate card is a document which comprises of prices and descriptions for borrowing equipment from a media outlet. When renting camera equipment from a company the rate card will have the prices for renting the equipment on the rate card. An example of a company who rent out camera equipment are 'Filmscape media' (filmscapemedia.com) .'Filmscape Media was established in 2005 by two independent filmmakers who wanted to create a company that supplied the latest digital technology to a new generation of digital filmmakers. An advertisers information packprovides insertion fees, rate cards and other relevant information/ resources that are required to plan advertising.  Some examples of research companies could be TRP as mentioned earlier, and sparkler (www.sparkler.co.uk)

Audience Classification

The Standard Occupational Classification System (SOC) is a US government system of classifying occupations.  It was originally created to allow the government and other industries to compare data. SOC could be useful when looking at demographics, for example, when conducting audience research a researcher could find a trend like ' generally builders like to watch DIY programmes.' This could be helpful as different programmes can continue to create footage which there viewers will like. Demographics are defined as: 'statistical characteristics of a population.' Examples of demographics are: class, ethnicity, sexuality, age, gender,religion etc. These are all aspects which can effect what people generally like to watch. Psychographics are an analysis of consumer lifetsyles which help create a detailed customer profile. A researcher can gain a  more life like picture of the target populati0n by looking at psychographics. For example a researcher can see what kinds of people like to buy their product then they can target their product directly at them. Geodemographics is a word for saying where somebody lives. We can often see what people will probably buy/watch depending on where they life.

Regulation

The ASA or Advertising Standards Authority(www.asa.org.uk) are the Uk's regulator of advertising. They investigate into potential breahces of advertising codes. They monitor adverts to ensure that they are legal, honest, decent and truthful amongst other things. Ofcom are similar to ASA but they regulate the television, radio and fixed line telephones, mobiles etc to make sure users are protected from scams and other illegal activities.