Advertisers Speak Of "upscale" And "downscale" Audiences

By Author: blown
Total Articles: 39
Comment this article

Demographic shifts have influenced advertising. In the 1970s, there was a shift away from "shotgun" advertising, aimed at the largest possible audience, to advertising targeted at specific audiences, such as homeowners, children, teenagers, Hispanics, or working women. For large national advertisers, the most desirable audience is women between the ages of 18 and 49, who make the largest number Thomas Sabo Bracelets(http://www.thomassaboclub.com/bracelet-c-1.html) of consumption decisions, followed closely by men in the same age range, who are believed to make more of the decisions about such durable goods as automobiles.8
"American television is not philosophically racist or ageist," writes media critic Jonathan Storm.
It's just that there's more money in catering to younger folks, and even more money if you can find the affluent ones. . . . Depictions of older Americans are even fewer than usual this season [1999-2000]. While CBS caters somewhat to older viewers, fully one-fourth of the other networks' 32 shows are set in high schools or feature teen leads. Nine shows feature characters over the advanced age of ...
... 30 (half of them act like they were 22 or even 15). Characters over 50—in even minor roles—can be counted on one hand.

Advertisers speak of "upscale" and "downscale" audiences. An audience is upscale if its members are above average in education and disposable income and in the prime age group. An audience is downscale if it is older, less affluent, less well educated, rural, and blue-collar. The size of the audience, in other words, is not as important as its com-position. Thus, for example, the CNN show that charges the highest rates for advertising time is Money line, which "gets higher advertising rates than any other show on the network, even while its actual viewership is half that of, say, Larry King Live. The reason is that the viewers of the money shows tend to be those with money. So money shows get high-end advertising—brokerages, expensive cars, luxury items—that generally don't appear on prime time television."

Psycho demographics—the study of the interests, attitudes, and activities of specific population groups—is becoming increasingly important, although such ratings are still relatively new. For instance, Ronald Frank and Marshall Greenberg have done an extensive study of television viewers; they divide them into fourteen different audiences based on interests and activities. As they demonstrate, there is little relationship between traditional demographic analysis of television viewers and the fourteen interest groups that they identify. Advertisers and programmers are very interested in such studies because activities and interests may be better predictors of viewing habits and consumption patterns than age, sex, income, or location.

Many advertisers promote products in more than one medium; they buy a "mix," which may be composed of billboards, direct mail, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Because ratings are subject to error, advertisers frequently shift their mix to discover, for example, whether advertising in newspapers and regional magazines is more effective than advertising in national newsmagazines. Some advertisers, though, are limited to certain media; for instance, by law cigarettes cannot be advertised on television.

Media also cross-advertise themselves and their products. Newspapers herald their accomplishments on billboards.12 Radio stations promote themselves to television viewers.

Internet providers advertise their services on billboards, radio, and television. Television stations also use advertising to promote their prime-time and daytime programming to viewers of news, and vice versa. For example, when CBS fell from first place in news viewership, the network responded by Thomas Sabo Charms(http://www.fashionthomassabo.com/charms-c-1.html) creating and airing a half dozen promotional spots on news anchor Dan Rather. The spots showed rather addressing high school audiences across the country and bore the tag "More Than Just an Anchorman."

Cable television and videocassettes expanded the number of options for advertisers. The advent of these outlets and the decline in network audience levels translated roughly into a 5 percent decline in network ad revenues in 1989 over revenues in 1988.In more recent years, network ad revenues have rebounded. Revenue in 1998 was $13.93 billion, up 10.5 percent from the previous year, and the 1999 figure was expected to reach $14.5 billion.

Each medium differs in its system of ratings and revenues. In this chapter, we examine the ratings and revenues of television (commercial and public), radio, newspapers, and magazines. Once again, we focus on the dominant media and on those media most directly involved in news and political communication.