Advertising-relevant target group

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Advertising-relevant target group is a term from radio , television advertising and marketing that describes the most important audience and audience groups for this mass media when pricing advertising spots . The advertising-relevant target group only makes the services of broadcasters comparable, but is neither decisive for marketing nor for programming. It is the second important measure in addition to the total range. The main target group in Germany today is the 14 to 49 year olds. This cut is set arbitrarily from a demographic point of view and was originally based on the wish of the RTL broadcaster to position itself better with advertising customers compared to the competition. A shift to the 20 to 59 year olds is now noticeable.

General

As long as market shares or audience ratings were of little importance in the times of public service broadcasting for program planning and design, an advertising-relevant target group was also irrelevant. It was only with the introduction of private broadcasting in Germany in January 1984 that this term first received attention in Germany as the private broadcasters work exclusively with advertising funding and therefore had to examine all revenue-related criteria. Due to their typical cost structure, private television broadcasters in particular have to achieve a large critical mass in order to be profitable. One criterion of this is the group of viewers / listeners who, due to their age, have the highest consumer power and must therefore be confronted intensively with radio and television advertising. The age group that has sufficient funds to consume the advertised products should be recorded. Another criterion was the airtime, during which the majority of this audience can be reached every day, namely prime time . In the case of commercials, the broadcasters must also take into account that over 50% of television viewers and radio listeners switch off as soon as there is advertising; only 9% do not change programs by zapping .

In Germany, the advertising-relevant target group “14 to 49 years” from the beginning did not include a specific generation or a population group with similar consumer behavior. Well-known representatives of the advertising industry confirm that the target group “14 to 49 years” is nothing more than a convention that primarily serves as the basis for billing television advertising and has no scientific basis. In addition, the advertising-relevant age group is not the same in every country, but depends on the demographic situation and the consumption habits of certain age groups.

The advertising-relevant target group of adults aged 14 to 49 is relatively “broad” with a potential of around 34 million people. If the potential is severely restricted by a lower age range or gender, one speaks of “top” target groups , especially in media planning . Less-used broadcasting slots are more likely to be predestined for special programs of little interest. Your audience response can be increased through the phenomenon of audience flow . After that, programs with a large number of viewers trigger a kind of magnetic effect for the following program, because experience has shown that a large proportion of viewers neither change channels nor switch off.

history

In the USA, an age-based definition was first developed by Leonard Goldenson in December 1957. At that time he was head of the television station ABC and wanted to position his station better compared to the higher-rated competing networks CBS and NBC . His advertising strategists determined good ratings among 18 to 49 year olds and from then on declared that age group to advertisers as the ideal basis for successful marketing. To distinguish it from CBS and NBC, Goldenson confirmed that the ABC would primarily reach an audience of “young families”. This definition of target group prevailed in the 1960s due to the demographic development at the time in the USA and became the “quantitative basis for planning decisions”.

With the introduction of private broadcasting in January 1984, the advertising-relevant target group was also a topic in Germany. In an interview with a magazine, the former RTL managing director Helmut Thoma claimed that RTL's age boundaries in 1984 were purely arbitrary. It was supposed to serve as a demarcation to the major public broadcasters - similar to the previous one in the USA - and was largely based on the classification by the US network ABC. From the beginning it was a "convention that primarily serves as the basis for billing television advertising".

Prime time

In particular, the private channels focused mostly on the prime time ( "prime time") because the time slots meet at this time to the highest television viewing with the greatest number of spectators. The purchase of film rights is based on the expected advertising income within a planned broadcasting slot. A purchased film will therefore fail if it achieves a lower than the average channel market share on a broadcast slot. As a result, no television broadcaster will consciously show a film at a slot that is significantly below the typical audience average and advertising revenue for the intended slot. If the broadcasting slot is therefore in prime time, it will attract the greatest possible number of viewers and should generally generate a profit. A large part of this target group can be reached especially during prime time because they are in their free time after their workday.

criticism

In an article in the media magazine Zapp of NDR television in 2008, the former RTL marketing director Uli Bellieno described the target group definition as a “wonderful marketing trick” of his program director in the knowledge of the mostly older viewers at the significantly higher-rated competing channels and as a “act of desperation” for commercially successful to stand against the other broadcasters. This arbitrarily introduced yardstick for the "success" of television programs had artificially increased the audience share of the then small Luxembourg broadcaster. “It's actually a pretty nonsensical target group”, because 49 years is “not a real cut at all”. After all, people usually work and consume considerably longer, so they are also relevant to advertising “and between 14, 25, 36 (years of age), etc., there are huge worlds.” In the same article, advertising expert Bernd M. Michael from the Gray advertising agency has his say and names them Creation of the advertising-relevant target group an "arbitrary demarcation from the predominant part of those who see the public law", a "wonderful lie" and "could not be justified seriously". By limiting the audience to this age, RTL hoped to be able to better market the generally below-average audience numbers to the advertising industry, as this young audience group was more likely to switch to its own program than the general audience and the broadcaster was thus able to generate higher market shares than the audience in a limited age spectrum Public broadcaster established for decades. The cited Zapp article was viewed critically in the industry and sometimes described as one-sided.

In the delimitation, among other things, the very high disposable income of older viewers is deliberately left out. A survey from the 1990s assumes that this group is too small and too unwilling to change product brands, whereas other surveys show no differences. The demarcation is therefore highly controversial in the advertising industry. Also, since the Demographics of Germany by the demographic changes resulting in the elderly an ever smaller proportion of children and sharp rises in the age structure shifts so strongly in favor of the elderly.

Due to the controversial definition of advertising relevance up to 49 years of age, there have also been attempts in the past to circumscribe the limit that is largely accepted in marketing. For example, the ARD reports on the market share quota of a television program on VOX : "In the 14 to 49 year olds, an important target group for the Cologne private broadcaster ..."

Other states

The demographic change also has an impact on the Swiss population pyramid. This fact fundamentally changes the markets and thus the considerations of advertisers. On the one hand, the young age segment is getting smaller and smaller and is losing purchasing power; on the other hand, those over 50 are often found in high income classes and, because they have fewer family obligations, treat themselves to more. A large part of the Swiss population is already missing the focus on 15–49 years. In 2007 publisuisse - marketer for the Swiss TV advertising market - expanded the basic target group for price calculations from “15-49” to “15-59”. This takes account of the change in the age pyramid in Switzerland. Other TV marketers in Europe have also expanded their basic target group. Nowadays, the 50-60 year olds in many western countries are keen to consume and, above all, have purchasing power. In the case of the British ITV1 , the advertising-relevant target group is largely not reached, because 48% of viewers are over 55 years of age, while only 36% are in the relevant age group; It is similar with BBC1 . In Austria, the age group is also focused on the 12 to 49 year olds.

Future development

Due to the demographic development in Germany and other countries, the consumption behavior of people over 50 is becoming even more relevant to consumption. Years with poor births and the steadily growing proportion of people getting older has deformed the former age pyramid and made it more age- heavy. Demographic change will therefore also affect the definition of the advertising-relevant target group. In 1993 it was still in the majority with 51%, in 2008 it was already in the minority with 48.5%. 77% of the ZDF viewers are over 50 years old, 62% are at ARD . Even with private broadcasters like Kabel eins (53%) and Sat.1 (51%) every second viewer is over 50 years old. It has RTL Television reacts as one of the first transmitter. At the suggestion of the advertising marketer in April 2009, the age group of 20-59 year olds has been the target group relevant for advertising since March 2013 at the RTL family of channels. The marketer of ARD, Sales & Services , already shows the market shares among the 20 to 59 year olds. Measured in terms of market share, the public broadcasters would primarily benefit from such a change, whereas the private broadcasters - with the exception of Sat.1 - would lose market share. In contrast, ProSiebenSat.1 with its marketer SevenOne Media is against such a change. In a conversation with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , the station boss of Sat.1, Andreas Bartl , spoke out against a shift in the target group. This would have a significant impact on the market shares of the sister station ProSieben , which is currently the second strongest station in the target group and would lose around three percentage points of market share if it were relocated and would drop to fourth place behind Sat.1 and Das Erste .

literature

  • HJ Strauch: The New Middle Ages - The future of an advertising-relevant target group. In: Jahrbuch Seniorenmarketing , 2009, pp. 159–178.
  • HP Gaßner: Advertising-relevant target groups are changing. In: Media Perspektiven , 1 (2006), pp. 16–22.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kati Förster, Strategies for Successful TV Brands , 2011, p. 13.
  2. ↑ Tobias Gereth / Björn Bedey, Age Power 2010: Successful Best-Ager-Marketing , 2006, p. 134.
  3. ^ Herman Land, ABC: An Evaluation , in: Television Magazine, December 1957, p. 94
  4. ↑ Horst Stipp, Media Planning in the USA: TV Advertising and the Over 49 Year Olds. The discussion about advertising and older target groups , in: Media Perspektiven 10/2004, pp. 483–488.
  5. ↑ Guido Hunke, Best Practice Models in 55plus Marketing , 2011, p. 181.
  6. ↑ a b Dieter K. Müller: Purchasing power knows no age limit - a critical contribution to the advertising relevance of age target groups ( memento of the original from August 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF, 182 kB; accessed on August 5, 2010) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.media-perspektiven.de
  7. ↑ Stefan Fuchs, Feature Films on Television: Audience Forecast and Monetary Assessment of Broadcasting Rights , 2009, p. 92, footnote 137.
  8. ↑ Stefan Fuchs, Feature Films on Television: Audience Forecast and Monetary Assessment of Broadcasting Rights , 2009, p. 150.
  9. ↑ Sebastian Bellwinkel, Timo Großpietsch: Private broadcaster - Billion deals by invented target group , Zapp contribution from September 17, 2008 on the video platform YouTube (accessed on August 20, 2010)
  10. ↑ Thomas Lückerath: »Zapp«: Failed attempt to expose RTL , September 17, 2008 on DWDL.de (accessed on August 20, 2010)
  11. ↑ ARD teletext panel 411 from September 1, 2010: Quotas: Good evening for ARD with a mention of the highly successful music casting show X Factor on VOX
  12. ↑ Publisuisse, Switzerland - new findings on the structure of the population and consumption by age group (PDF; 424 kB)
  13. ↑ Kati Förster, Strategies for Successful TV Brands , 2011, p. 100.
  14. ↑ Thomas Lückerath: IP Germany for new advertising-relevant target group , April 18, 2009 on DWDL.de (accessed on August 5, 2010)
  15. ↑ Thomas Lückerath: DWDL now also shows the target group 20-59 , July 15, 2010 on DWDL.de (accessed on August 5, 2010)
  16. ↑ a b Uwe Mantel: Target group 20-59 years: This is what the TV market would look like , July 15, 2010 on DWDL.de (accessed on August 5, 2010)
  17. ↑ Michael Hanfeld: ProSiebenSat.1 Board Member Andreas Bartl - Is Forty Really the New Twenty? , July 23, 2010 on faz.net (accessed on August 5, 2010)
  18. ↑ Timo Niemeier: Bartl: 0.14 to 49 is our currency ' 25 July 2010, on Quotenmeter.de (accessed on August 5, 2010)