Effective Audience Analysis

Each day you walk by hundreds of ads and sit through countless broadcasting commercial, but how do companies know if they are just wasting their money. Accurately measuring the viewing of their product in the mass media is an important part of their company. Companies have since developed different ways of analyzing the viewership

With all the available principles and techniques for measuring the audience opinions, sampling provide the most accurate feedback. Probability sampling is done by interviewing a sample group of people. The book tells us that the number of people in the sample group is usually 384. They use this exact number of people to represent a larger population. When compared to other tests such as straw polls and evaluating surveys, probability sampling has the most accurate rate of 95%.

Another accurate way companies poll their audiences is magazine and newspaper audits. During this method newspapers and magazines keep track of the amount of their product that is in circulation. This allows the companies to track not only subscriptions but also how much of their product was sold in stores. They do this by counting how many issues remain in the stores.

Both sampling, and newspapers and magazines audits are effective methods of audience analysis. Each are efficient and easily carried out techniques providing the mass media with the information they are looking for to help businesses succeed.

Is Audience analysis Measurements Principles and Techniques effective?

There are many methods to measure audience analysis, but not all the results obtained by these methods are accurate enough to utilize the data that has been attained. One method that is usually very accurate when conducted right is probability sampling. According to the book The Media of Mass Communication by John Vivian, probability sampling is that everyone in the population being surveyed has an equal chance to be sampled. This method of measuring audience analysis is unbiased compared to the other methods mentioned in the book because it is essentially random. One does not sign up for it, they get chosen randomly, so everyone has an equal chance at being a part of the survey. Within probability sampling there are four components that make up this method. The first is sample size. Sample size is very important when conducting a survey. Having the proper sample size will make the survey more accurate. The next component is sample selection. The sample selection is the process of choosing whom to interview. With probability sampling everyone has a fair chance to get chosen to take part in it. Another important component is margin of error. For surveys to be completely accurate everyone in the population should be interviewed but that takes time and money to do. So researchers must come up with a margin of error (percentage that a survey may be off mark) in order to come up with a close to accurate answer. The last component is confidence level, which is the degree of certainty that a survey is accurate. Determining whether the confidence level needs to be higher or the margin of error needs to be lower must be able to correspond with the number of people being surveyed. This method compared to the others is the most accurate in results, but only when all of these components are taken into consideration.

Buzz and product placement

In advertising there are two types of mainstream ads that have worked for many years, and are still used in present day to appeal to audiences. These two types are buzz advertising and product placement. Buzz advertising can also be known as word-of-mouth advertising, which is a very effective way in getting a product known. Buzz advertising allows for an individual to gain their own opinion about a product, and if they decide to, pass that information off to family and friends, advertising for that product for free. This is effective because the product is becoming more known in an audience, and the testimonials are coming directly from the users of the product, giving them more merit than a traditional television commercial. Product placement has been a productive form of advertising since the start. By putting a product in the hands of actors and actresses that are loved by their audiences, the product is having a celebrity endorsement and is being associated with positive happenings. Product placement is used by associating their product with a movie or television show allows for the advertising of their product to be done by itself simply by being seen within the media.

Placement and Buzz

There are two classic types of advertising that have worked for years, and are still used today; they are buzz advertising and product placement. Buzz advertising can also be known as word-of-mouth advertising, which is a very effective way in getting a product known. Product placement by associating their product with a movie or television show allows for the advertising of their product to be done by itself simply by being seen within the media.

Buzz advertising allows for an individual to gain their own opinion about a product, and if they decide to, pass that information off to family and friends, advertising for that product for free. This is effective because the product is becoming more known in an audience, and the testimonials are coming directly from the users of the product, giving them more merit than a traditional television commercial.

Product placement has been a productive form of advertising since the start. By putting a product in the hands of actors and actresses that are loved by their audiences, the product is having a celebrity endorsement and is being associated with positive happenings. An audience may think if it’s good enough for my favorite celebrity, it should be good enough for me.

-Michael Bouchie

Today polling is a major part of media. With such a great amount of media options for viewers, corporations need any obtainable edge they can get to draw more customers. One very efficient way to do this is Audience analysis. With the onset of tacticians, a quantity of prevalent and effective ways to get information from the public has come about.

Another way involves probability sampling, which has been a quick and non-technologically dependent medium for polling since about 1940. This works because as by choosing the perfect number from a group demographic, statistically they are able to narrow down percentages to within five percent, a very respected number in the general public. Another method is quota sampling, which although significantly less effective is still a decent form of polling; however, n terms of accuracy and efficiency it is not as effective as probability sampling.

With the advent of more powerful computers and technology processing, metering has proved itself very capable in the TV and radio mediums. This process includes a small unit in every TV that monitors channel viewing every 2.4 seconds. The company Nielsen who monitors the use of these selected TV units across the country mostly does this. Overall it gives a good idea of what the entire country thinks of programs, ads, and more.

Audience Analysis measures principles and techniques

Researchers rely on various audience measurement principles to measure audience opinions in order to gauge the general mood of the audience about a certain subject. The most effective measurement tool is the survey method. Everyone has heard of the Gallop polls and for good reason, because these survey polls have proven to be the most effective. These polls rely on the “probability sampling” method to gather valuable information about public views. Within this survey method four components factor in. Determining a “sample size” of people to be surveyed needs to established with 384 people being the most accurate number to work with, guaranteeing that everyone has had an equal opportunity to be surveyed. Then a “sample selection” provides that a correct representative sample of people are chosen. The “margin of error” takes into account any misleading results in the survey and the “confidence level” indicates the accuracy of the survey results. By manipulating these 4 factors up or down, the researchers can be assured of an accurate and representative survey of the population. The audience measurement techniques most effective in measuring broadcast audiences are by using electronic metering devices where broadcast use can be most accurately measured. Neilsen devised an “anytime anywhere media instrument” called the A2M2 to try and capture all forms of electronic media use accurately. This device measures TV, PC use, video games, Ipods and cellphone usage of media broadcasts regardless of where they are being used. So clearly, the future of media broadcast tracking is with the multimedia meter systems. The importance of tracking mass media usage is such an important tool to the media industry to continue providing the mass audience with the media content they are looking for.

Accurate Measurements

Throughout all of the analysis principles and techniques, probability sampling and newspaper and magazine audits seem to be the most effective. This is because probability sampling is where everyone in the population surveyed has an equal chance to be sampled. This is the most effective in that they aren’t just pulling statistics from a certain group of people every time. They are able to mix it up once in a while and chose from another group of people and see what their results are. As shown in the book a population size of 500,000 or more have a sample size of 384, which define the number of people in a properly selected sample for results to provide 95 percent confidence that results have less than a 5 percent margin of error. Newspapers and magazines being as popular as they are now allow for more accurate analysis of results. You are able to find out how many people read a certain magazine or newspaper by the number of subscribers they have. Through this you can find an accurate number of people that use the product. They can also calculate this through circulation, which is the number of readers of a publication.