Notes on Music video audiences - Katy Perry audience profile.

A music video should be entertaining and interesting as well as appealing to the target audience of the music genre. One of the most important aspects of a music video is finding out who the target audience is. Music videos appeal to different demographics based on the content within them. Characteristics such as age, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, location and sometimes education and lifestyle all have an effect on the type of audience who would view the music video. Psychographics are based on the viewers own personal lifestyle, a model of this was developed by Young and Rubican. There are 7 stages to this model which are;

• The Explorer: driven by a need for discovery and/or challenge.
• The Aspirer: materialistic/ care more about what others think about
• The Succeeder: self confident/ strong goal orientation/organised
• The Reformer: values their own independent judgement/anti materialistic
• The Mainstream: Largest group/core need is security/live in a daily routine.
• The Struggler: seek escape/live for today few plans for tomorrow
• The Resigned: aim to survive/ predominantly older people.

Audience profile: Katy Perry

Born: October 25th, 1984. Santa Barbara, California, United States.

Occupation: Singer, songwriter, actress, philanthropist.

Net worth: $125 million.

Age: 13-25. Teenagers may relate to Katy Perry as a role model however, the young adults may relate to her dress code and attitude as opposed to her being their role model. The later adults may have heard her songs in clubs or remixed versions on social media or music apps/websites, (such as Spotify…) and therefore relate to her music but not necessarily buy her album.

Gender and sexuality: Pop music stereotypically appeals to heterosexual females. These females may like Katy Perry based upon her dress code and style within her music videos. Most females aspire to be like her as she is attractive and successful in her line of work. Heterosexual men may find Katy Perry sexually attractive causing her to appeal to them, whereas homosexual men may like her because of her beauty and fame.

Ethnicity: The majority of Katy Perry’s audience would be white, as the population of her home town and local areas are mainly white. However, people from ethnic minorities may like her too as she has backing dancers and vocal singers who help her from ethnic minorities who may attract people from ethnic minorities to listen to her music.

Class: Most people who listen Katy Perry’s music would be working class or lower class as they usually are seen to listen to music at the top of the charts for a short period of time and then stop listening to it when replaced by something new.

Uses and Gratifications: The target audience of Katy Perry’s music would use representations of her for information about fashion and beauty. They may wish to look like her and therefore buy the same items of clothing or beauty products to boost their own personal identity. They may talk about Katy Perry when socialising about her and listening, singing and dancing along to her songs.

From completing this audience profile, I have learnt that different artists portray different things to their audiences based off their, appearance, fashion sense and the song itself. Therefore, I will need to think of what I want to portray to my targeted audience. Therefore I will take this information to help me with my music video.