Audiences February 20, 2008

In class we talked about specialized audiences and how it is important in media. What I got out of it was that this concept is very important in marketing products because advertisers need to analyze programs to understand what type of people are more likely to view them in order to target their ads to potential or current users of their product. Using Barbie Doll as an example, advertisers are not going to broadcast their ad on channels like CNN or ESPN. They would advertise it during shows like Lizzie McGuire or during a channel that young girls would be more likely to watch. We talked about how advertisers have a problem advertising their product during commercial since things like TiVo and downloading programs online are becoming increasingly popular. When we were talking about that, it reminded me of the movie, The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. The movie is about a show where the main character, Truman, is unknowingly being taped and broadcasted 24/7 for a TV audience. Because the television show records and broadcasts his life nonstop, with no commercials, it makes money through product placement. In order to market their products, the advertisers would have the characters in the program drinking Folgers coffee for instance and describing the wonders of it through the script. Similarly, in order to solve the TiVo problem, advertisers use product placement as a way of marketing their products.