Target Audience

Target audience is a major factor in the encoder’s minds when creating a media text. You have to be sure of who you are aiming your product at before you begin so you can know exactly what they are likely to want, even though encoders can never truly know what their audience want, they try to empathise with their audience but at the end of the day try to make an insightful guess into what they want or need. If you get knowledge of your target audience, your product will be more successful as you are providing what that target audience want, or at least what you think they want, so in turn your audience will want your product.

Although the Electropop genre first flourished in the 80’s, it had since gone out of style and only recently has it immerged into mainstream popularity. The majority of new electropop has a young fan base, normally between the ages of 14-25; Owl City is no different with its main target audience being mainly teenagers and young adults. I found this out through researching on the internet the target age of electropop and Owl City and also found this information on Adam Young’s (creator of Owl City) website. Although Owl City’s music is liked by both men and women I found that it has a main target audience of females, again through research on his website; this is obvious through his playful and innocent lyrics and also through his simple, stylish and more feminine CD covers, for example his ‘maybe I’m dreaming ‘CD cover has curved writing, providing a more female feel and baby pink and blue stars, giving a very feminine approach to his artwork. The ethnicity of Owl City’s target audience is predominantly White, European and American, Owl City has only recently found mainstream successful and hasn’t branched to other areas yet so his main target audience will be within Europe and American. I also found in an interview with Owl City him talking about his sound and he said that the majority of his fans are either American or Europian. Researching into social classes I would say that Owl City’s target audience fell within the ABC1 category of social stratification.

Throughout my planning and development of my music video and my ancillary texts I will constantly refer back to my target audience through my own thoughts of what the decoders may what seeing as I fall into Owl City’s target audience so I hope I will have a good sense of what they want and also through my focus groups to receive feedback from my target audience.