Target audiences and segmentation: R093 revision

A product made for everyone usually appeals strongly to no one. Once a producer knows exactly who the product is for, every decision can be matched to those people: the style, the content, the language, the platform it is released on and even the time it goes out.

The benefits are practical. The budget is spent reaching people who are likely to respond, not wasted on everyone else. Research can be aimed at the right people. Adverts can be placed where the audience already spends its time. And the client can judge whether the product worked, because there is a defined group to measure it against.

Learn each category with an example of how audiences are grouped by it:

• Age: children, teenagers, young adults, over-65s, or bands such as 16-24. Age affects content, language, pace and platform.
• Gender: some products target one gender, many deliberately target everyone. Explain the design choice, not a stereotype.
• Occupation: what people do, such as students, teachers, nurses or office workers. Software sold 'for teachers' is aimed by occupation.
• Income: low, middle or high earners. Income decides what people can afford, so it separates a luxury watch advert from a budget brand's.
• Education: the level of education reached. It affects how much knowledge the product can assume and how technical the language can be.
• Location: local, regional, national or international, or urban and rural. A café targets people within a few miles; an international release may need different languages.
• Interests: hobbies and passions, such as gaming, football, cooking or cycling.
• Lifestyle: how people live and what they value, such as busy commuters, young families or eco-conscious shoppers.

Age, gender, occupation, income, education and location are measurable facts, often called demographics. Interests and lifestyle describe behaviour and values. OCR simply calls all eight categories of segmentation, and an exam answer can use any of them.

Audience characteristics drive the design and production of a product in five main ways:

• Style: the colours, fonts, imagery and music. A product for young children might use bright colours and rounded fonts; one for professionals, a restrained palette.
• Content: what is included. The same bank might promote fun features to students and security to older customers.
• Language: formal or informal, simple or technical, in the vocabulary the audience uses.
• Platform: where the audience will see it, such as a teen audience on short-form social video rather than a newspaper.
• Accessibility: text size, captions, pace and clear navigation, especially for older or less confident users.

Some producers choose a narrow, specialist audience; others aim for the widest possible reach. Neither is better on its own: the right choice is the one the client's purpose needs.

Section B gives you a client and asks you to use what you know. Take a climbing centre that wants more customers for its new evening sessions. A weak answer says 'target young people'. A strong one segments precisely and links the segment to design: 'The audience is 16 to 25 year olds (age) who live or study near the centre (location) and enjoy fitness and outdoor sport (interests). Short vertical videos on social media will reach them, because that is where this age group spends its time, and an informal, energetic tone will make the sessions feel social rather than serious.'

That answer names the categories, applies them to the scenario, and explains the effect on the product: the three steps that earn the marks.

Where does a producer get this information? From research. Secondary sources, such as published statistics on who uses which platforms, give a quick picture of an audience; primary research, such as a survey of the centre's current customers or a focus group of local students, shows what this particular audience wants. The findings then go back into the brief and the planning documents, so the segment is based on evidence rather than a guess.

Audience segmentation on its own was worth between 0 and 3 marks on each of the four papers we analysed. The audience matters far more than that suggests: nearly every Section B question asks whether a choice suits the client's audience, so precise segmentation strengthens answers on media codes, platforms, documents and the extended questions.

For how the long answers and pre-production documents are marked, see how R093 is marked.