For an institution to make profits, it is important that they are targeting the right people- therefore institutions tend to segment the market and focus on fulfilling the needs of more niche groups of people. The music industry in particular focus on this segmentation, in order to market to their correct potential listeners.
One way that an institution may segment a market is through creating assumptions based demographics, focusing on a person's socioeconomic position in society. This way of marketing can be effective in certain markets- for example, more high end media institutions may look at marketing towards a wealthier and more socioeconomically established group of consumers. The technique is easily measurable and can portray the links between disposable income and consumerism. However, especially in 2017, where most media is accessible by anyone, this structure can be deemed unhelpful, as it doesn't take into account the complexity of people's lifestyles. It also misses out a large chunk of consumers- people who aren't in full time employment for various reasons. Possibly one of the most predominate group of people would be teenagers and kids when looking at media consumers- these aren't accounted for in a socioeconomic demographic measurement. It limits the understanding of individuals whilst also making very broad assumptions.
Media institutions also tend to look at tribe or subculture models. In the past 50 years, youth subcultures have proliferated massively- this sees a whole group of people ranging from 55+ to below 16 who all have the large variety of cultures to associate with. Therefore the use of tribe models is very useful as most people have some sort of associations with said groups. Media is responsible for the development of these subcultures and some medias have strong links to cultures, where usually they become lifestyle signifiers. For example, music plays a massive role in cultural identity. With the punk subculture, music is responsible for the whole movement itself essentially. This model also allows for much more in depth segmentation of a market as it using these links in order to create these different segments. However it stills stereotypes people and doesn't allow us to specifically target individual demands that efficiently.
The use of lifestyle profiling is more efficient at doing this. Using YouGov's survey system, we are able to link together individual tastes surrounding specific products and the average person's similar likes. This allows us to take into account a more specific taste of media. Whilst subculture models allows us to take into account the stereotypical tastes of subculture groups, it doesn't allow us to visualise the complexity of individuals and their, not necessarily, labelled tastes. It also allows us to link together similar individuals who might have similar interests, and thus be interested in your media. However this method can sometimes prove ineffective- the survey system isn't necessarily always reliable as people don't follow average trends. Each individual has their own complex tastes that don't link to the average person's likes. It is also unreliable as some interests shown aren't actually an interest and more of something that may come up out of a person's lifestyle- for example, when looking at Peppa Pig, the average consumer was a 55 year old woman. This suggests abnormalities in the data and could be a hindrance when gathering data for segmentation in this way.
Young and Rubicam came up with a way of segmenting consumers- they suggested that consumers were split into 4 categories; mainstreamers; aspirers; succeeders and reformers. Although it takes a more in depth look at lifestyle rather than income, it still has a very vague category for people. People with completely different tastes may fall into the same category. Or with the proliferation in identity exploration, people may fall in different categories or may be in more than one.
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