Advertisement Production for TelevisionStructures and Techniques of Television Advertisements – Part 2

Explain how audience research is gathered and discuss the role of BARB (British Audience Research Board)

Gathering Research:There are two kinds of data, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data deals with quantities and numbers, and is easy to measure. This type of data would be useful for statistics or to show clear graphs of audience behaviour. Qualitative data is in depth analysis into why your audience behaves in such a way. This data can’t be measured as easily, but is in-credibly useful as it will give context to a finding. You can mix these two types of data together – the quantitative data will help you define your findings, and the qualitative data can help you describe your findings.

There’s a wide range of methods used to carry out research on audiences, but it is advisable to choose the method depending on the kind of data you wish to collect:

1 - Surveys and QuestionnairesSurveys and questionnaires are a relatively easy way to gather data, and can provide you with quantitative (and on occasion qualitative) results that are easy to measure and analyse. They can be created online and distributed by email or social media and can also be created offline, with the questions being asked in person, depending on what kind of audience you wish to gather data from. Surveys and questionnaires are quick to send design and send out to large samples of people and are easy to mea-sure however they don't always ensure responses from relevant partici-pants and often lack detail in responses.

2 - Interviews Interviews are a conversation between two people, with the interviewer instigating questions to develop in-depth insights into audience behaviour. Interviews gather qualitative data, and can be conducted in person, via in-stant messaging or on the telephone. In order to analyse interviews thor-oughly participants are often recorded. Interviews are good for gaining in depth responses and ensuring that the participant is relevant to the re-search however participants can often become influenced by the inter-viewer or the interviewing environment when giving information, making it less reliable.

3 - Focus GroupsFocus groups are ‘group interviews’ with a twist. The researcher will ask a group of people relevant to the research a question, and the focus group then discuss it and share their opinions with each other whilst the re-searcher observes. focus groups are good for analysing large sample sizes and receiving extra information from group interaction however they are

not as easy to measure and analyse later on and they give less control to the researcher than in an interview.

4. ObservationThe final kind of research is observation, in which a researcher observes participants and collects quantitative data in a natural setting. Observa-tion can be carried out online, or in a situation like a focus group. It can retrieve useful data to compare what your audience says with what they do. This type of research is good for comparing different participants data and generates relevant data. However some people may behave differ-ently to how they normally would, knowing that they are being observed once again making the data less reliable.

BARB (British Audience Research Board)The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is the organisation that compiles audience measurement and television ratings in the United Kingdom. It was created in 1981. BARB is jointly owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Participating viewers have a box on top of their TV sets which tracks the programmes they watch.

Currently, BARB have approximately 5,100 homes (equating to approxi-mately 12,000 individuals) participating in the panel. This means that with a total UK population of 58,789,194, according to the 2001 census, each viewer with a BARB reporting box represents over 5,000 people. The box records exactly what programs they watch, and the panelists indicate who is in the room watching by pressing a button on a remote control handset. The data is collected overnight and published as overnight ratings at around 9.30 the following morning for use by TV stations and the advertis-ing industry.

BARB numbers are extremely important to commercial television stations. The trading model that is used by television companies and advertising agencies depends on the number of people watching the shows, and the commercial attractiveness of those people. The advertising agency will pay the television station a certain amount of money based on the num-ber of people watching a show. The BARB numbers are used to work this out. Higher BARB numbers usually mean more advertising revenue for the television station.

Audience ClassificationAudiences are classified in many different ways depending on various fac-tors. The most common ways of classifying an audience are through de-mographics, geo-demographics and psychographics as well as through so-cio-economic grouping.

1 - DemographicsDemographics are the socio-economic characteristics of a population ex-pressed statistically, such as age, sex, education level, income level, mari-tal status, occupation, religion, birth rate, death rate, average size of a family, average age at marriage. A census is a collection of the demo-graphic factors associated with every member of a population. Both gov-ernments, corporations and non-government organisations use demo-graphics to learn more about a population's characteristics for many pur-poses. It is frequently used as a business marketing tool to determine the best way to reach customers and assess their behaviour. Segmenting a population by using demographics allows companies to determine the size of a potential market. Finally use of demographics helps to determine whether its products and services are being targeted to that company's most important consumers. Demographic results are categorised into so-cial grades on the following table:

2 - Psychographics

Psychographics are the analysis of consumers lifestyles in order to create a detailed customer profile. Market researchers conduct psychographic re-search by asking consumers to agree or disagree with activities, interests, and opinions statements. Results of this exercise are combined with geo-graphic and demographic characteristics to develop a more 'lifelike' por-trait of the targeted consumer segment.

3 - Geo-Demo-graph - icsCollect- ing and

analysing in-forma- tion according to the physical loca-tion of the customer or other data source. Geographic seg- mentation is often used in mar-keting, since compa-nies selling prod-ucts and services would like to know where their products are be- ing sold in or-der to increase ad-vertis- ing and sales efforts the areas.