Hello, in this video, we will discuss what it means to target an audience. Why advertisers need to know and understand their target audience. And why it is important for you, as a consumer, to understand target audiences. First, let's discuss what it means to target an audience. In advertising, to target means to aim or direct something towards a certain group of people. An audience is the group of people that are going to buy the product or service being sold. So targeting an audience means finding ways to direct advertisement to a specific group of people. When targeting an audience, advertisers must think about who they created the product for. To do this, companies ask themselves some of the following questions. How old is the audience? Are they mostly male or female? What interests or hobbies do they have? What do these people need? What media do they use most often? These are some of the first questions that an advertiser must think about, but they are not the only ones. Advertisers also think about where their audience lives. For example, people living on a farm need different products than people living in a city. Advertisers also want to think about the values and culture of the people. In unit one, we said that a value is something that a person or organization thinks is very important. The word culture means the beliefs and customs of a specific group of people, often from the same country. What a person thinks is important, and their beliefs and customs will determine what they will or will not buy. For example, in some countries, as part of their culture, the people do not eat beef. Trying to sell hamburgers in these countries will not work well. Now, let's move on to why advertisers need to know and understand their target audiences. Knowing the target audience helps advertisers reach them and appeal to them. Appeal means to be very interesting or attractive. In other words, the target audience will determine how an ad looks and what type of media is used to spread the ad. Let's think of an example. Pretend you are looking through a magazine and you see an ad for running shoes. The ad shows a woman about 30 years old. She's wearing bright purple shoes and running through a city. Next to the picture are the words, stressed, rry running. Who do you think the advertisers are trying to convince to buy their product? Probably women between the ages of 25 and 35, who like to run, live in a city, and are very busy and stressed. You would find this advertisement in a magazine that many 25 to 35 year old women read. If this was a television commercial, It would play during a show that many 25 to 35 year old women watch. Now, pretend this ad was for men's running shoes instead. How would it be different? Would the ad be in the same magazine as the women's ad? Would a commercial for men's running shoes be played during the same television show as the women's advertisement? Finally, think about how an ad for children shoes might be different. As consumers, we must understand who the target audience of a product is. This will help us understand the choices that advertisers made on what people, information, values, and points of view are represented in an ad. So let's review. To target an audience means to direct advertisements to a specific group of people. Advertisers need to know and understand their audience so they can appeal to and reach them. Finally, as consumers, we must understand who the target audience of a product is. This will help us understand the choices that advertisers made in their ads.