Overview of Demographics and Psychographics

Overall of Demographics and Psychographics

Demographics and Psychographics refer to the specific audience of a medium. A medium has to have a target demographic or it won't be commercial enough to sell. Usually, demographics and psychographics are split into levels associated with number and letters, as shown on the graph below, in concordance with the class, age, gender, race, income, level of education and occupation, to name a few factors.

Demographics focus more on the economic and occupational background of an audience and, as such, are organised by class, job and income.

The typical chart used when thinking about demographics, in terms of occupations, is as follows:

Psychographics

Psychographics, alternatively, are tailored to the common personality traits of certain groups and the trends amongst them. Often, this technique relies on stereotypes and can be somewhat offensive or presumptuous.

The typical chart used when thinking about psychographics, in terms of social groups, is as follows:

Demographics and Psychographics play a huge part in the development of a medium. If a film or television show does not adhere to the conventions and level of the intended audience, or make note of the general social opinions of the era, it will be ineffective (i.e. become a flop) and therefore not sell. Additionally, material needs to be appropriate for the audience so if the demographic is young children, like our film, then every aspect of the film must be age appropriate or be worded in such a way that children will not understand it, e.g. many of the jokes made in the film franchise Shrek are tailored for adults but are subtle enough to missed by the primary audience of children. On this note, filmmakers need to consider not only the primary audience, but whether or not there is a secondary or tertiary audience that their medium could appeal to, which can widen the audience, possibly creating a global reach, as well as the income and commercialism of the film itself.

In our film, we made an effort to include aspects that would appeal to our target demographic of children by adding superheroes, child actors around the approximate age of the audience, an outside/exploratory setting and an exiting, action filled opening and plot.