Target Audience

Ed Sheeran

• Ed Sheeran’s target audience ranges from young teenagers to adults in their late 20’s (specifically 13-27 years old), his ‘down to earth’ and ‘back to basics’ melodies/rap songs even may win over an older audience. Being 23 himself allows him to connect with his audience on a more personal level.

Sheeran is greatly influenced by grime and rap artists such as Eminem and Ghett’s as he is intrigued and inspired by the way the lyrics flow together and how emotive the product can be. This is evident in his music which is a mixture of acoustic pop, folk and hip hop.

Another influence of Sheeran’s is the Irish born singer/songwriter, Damien Rice who combines indie, rock and folk genres.

Ed Sheeran is rated highly for being self-promoted and continuing to remain ‘down to earth’ even after finding fame. After earning an estimated $6 million in 2012 he still continues to wear jeans, tee shirt and trainers to his concerts proving to his fans that he is still in touch with his fans, and the fame hasn’t affected his personal values, this is an artist whose only desire is to sing and play his guitar. This attracts audiences that are more interested in personally inspired music instead of mass produced ‘made for revenue’ music, which appeals to the audience involved with indie rock which means he opens up his music to many different genres, as his products fall under the indie rock, pop and singer/songwriter genres and as a result of all this, he is successful and popular so his products often find the top 10 in the charts so this opens his music out to a broader audience, as he and his music becomes more well known. This allows his target audience to be very broad as it appeals to more demographically broad audience.

• Ed Sheeran has collaborated with several world wide famous artists in his career which has impacted and expanded his fan base. Since beginning in his career as a support act for Example, he has worked his way up through the musical industry, allowing him to work with artists such as: Taylor Swift, Devlin, Dot Rotten, Wiley, Wretch 32, Just Jack, Iglu and Hartly, One Direction, the list goes on. By working with all of these artists, he is expanding his target audience through having songs with different artists in different genres which gives a broader audience the opportunity to listen to Sheeran and admire his music.

• These collaborations have also allowed Sheeran to gain fan bases across the world, particularly in the USA and Australia where he has been touring with Taylor Swift. Being a unique, well known English artist, and without many similar competitors in the USA, has allowed Ed Sheeran to start his career with a competitive edge and gain a large fan base.

• Ed Sheeran’s self written songs are all about love, life and loss, delivered in soothing melodies and catchy rhythms, he wins over the heart of girls all over the world. The majority of his fans are female, especially teenage girls who find his voice audible pleasing.

However his captivating music isn’t limited to just a

female market, males too are engaged by his soulful songs, because they find his narrative relatable to their own personal experiences. This is important from a artist’s point of view, as they will enjoy this close engagement with their fans and ultimately become more successful.

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The above image is a screenshot of the statistics of the youtube video for ‘U.N.I’, which is the music video we will be using for our product. Based on these results above, as we discussed earlier, you are able to see that the target audience is females 13-24 and males 18-24. As this is the same product we are using, we must set our target audience roughly around the same brackets. This has been a useful practice for us, as this has given us a real insight to what our target audience should be. By doing this, we found the age and gender of the audience, allowing us to survey a sample within these brackets to find their interests, and then include these interests in the final product, to make the video more pleasing for the consumers.

Target audience questionnaire.

Male/Female 46% M 54% F

Age Ranging from 15-26 years old

Race 65% White British 15% British Black 15% British Asian

5% other

Favourite Genre 43% pop 18% indie rock 27% singer/songwriter

12% other

How many concerts do you attend per year?

10 or more - 12% 5-9 - 54% 1-4 - 29%

None - 5%

Do you watch music videos? Yes - 66% No - 34%

Do you feel affectedby these videos?

Yes - 48% No - 31%

No preference - 21%

• Ed’s music is widely available on digital technology. It can be downloaded via iTunes, Spotify and similar software which is easily accessible on laptops, computers, iPad’s, phones, and other digital technology. His CD’s are also available to buy in store and online. Sheeran’s songs are frequently featured on several radio stations, he also makes TV appearances, YouTube interviews and his videos are played on music TV stations. He has Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and an official website, all this media attention allows his fans to keep up to date with his upcoming concerts and projects. This keeps fans of Sheeran’s satisfied and also as a result of this bring success to his career.

• The advancement in digital technology has allowed our final product to be widely available across digital technologies, ultimately potentially leaving our final product being successful.