Models of audience segmentation

Models of audience segmentation

This quiz by Channel 4 attempts to place people in specific subcultures based the answers they give. There are around 10 short questions and only a limited range of answers available to the person taking it. This is therefore quite subjective and bias from the people who created the quiz suggesting that people belong to a specific group based on the outlook of life and consumption of different brands. This model is effective at identifying a range of different groups and interests and generally makes valid conclusions e.g. if you answer about alternative lifestyle choices every question, your tribe will be part of the alternative body (Goth/Emo/Seapunk).

Overall, I don’t particularly like this model of audience segmentation mainly from the subjectivity and reliance on people being honest in their answers.


Young & Rubicam asked what brands people bought and how they felt about them.The 4 C's- This stands for Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation which divides people into 7 separate groups, depending on their “core motivation”.The 7 groups are the:Explorer- These people look for challenge and discovery and look to be different from other people.Aspirer- They focus more on people’s opinions and perceptions of them rather than their own values- appearance over personality.Succeeder- They have self confidence and are very organised.Reformer- They value their own judgement; they do what they want to do and core motivation is for enlightenment.Mainstream- A daily routine is fundamental for them- the largest of 7 groups.Struggler- They “live for the day”.Resigned- Predominantly older people with unchanging values and enjoy tradition.

This model is good because it acknowledges the global nature of media audiences and accepts that people from different countries are influenced by their differing cultural backgrounds. Although it suggests that there are only 7 types of people in the world which can be seen as reductionist theory.


YouGov is a global market research and data company. The more people who take part in giving data, the better the results will be. YouGov Profiles is a segmentation and media planning tool for agencies and brands collected from 250,000 GB YouGov members.I think this is a good method of audience segmentation mainly because of the wide people who take part in providing data. This large sample provides higher validity because the data can be more generalised to the wider population. It also provides many different segments such as demographics, lifestyle and brands certain people are into.


‘Last.fm is a music website which builds a detailed profile of each user's musical taste by recording details of the tracks the user listens to, either from Internet radio stations, or the user's computer or many portable music devices.’When I search for our chosen artist ‘Eyes Like Switzerland’ on the website, I shows me two people who listen to his music the most. The first top listener (peepsie112) has a profile picture of

singer Lana Del Rey. I viewed the profile of peepsie and found the artists (she/he?) listens to most- this includes Kid Cudi, The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey and Childish Gambino. The second top listener is ‘helloiamzach’ who looks to be around 18-22 years old. He listens to different music, such as metalcore bands Issues and The Ghost Inside, but also listens to The Weeknd. Considering our chosen artists audience is so small its hard to gather a clear idea of an audience profile. Interestingly, these findings do correlate with my music taste. I would consider myself a fan of our chosen artist and also a fan of the bands and artists peepsie112 and helloiamzach listen to. This is therefore quite confirming that last.fm is a good way to find music taste of a target audience. However, it lacks important data such as age, gender and location, therefore relies on myself guessing.


SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform that enables its users to upload, record, promote, and share their originally-created sounds. Soundcloud is the platform ‘Eyes Like Switzerland’ released his EP ‘Midnight Orphan’, which includes our chosen track ‘f e v e r’. The track has 57 likes and 2 comments. I can click on the profiles of people who liked this track and

research into how old they are, their gender and other music tastes.

By the looks of these people, they generally look young and could be aged anywhere from 14-25 years old. There are also more females than males but this is by a small margin.The two people who left comments on the track are both male on the other hand.Most of the fans are from the UK and US. This helps us understand the culture of people who may watch our music video, and allow us to include certain cultural references these people will relate to.

Our audience profile• Age – 14-25• Gender –both male and female.• From UK or US- (or other English speaking places where technology is

advanced and large portions of the population use a computer.)• ‘Explorer’. Discovering and enjoying music that is not well known, but

also enjoying mainstream music at the same time. • Likely to be part of the alternative body.

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Models of audience segmentation