Audience Case study- imagine Dragons
Imagine Dragons – The band Imagine Dragons are classed as a Rock band but have indie elements to their music. They are an American band who are best known for their singles 'Radioactive' and 'Demons'. They have been active since 2008 and the band consists of 4 members. They are signed to two different labels which are KIDinaKorner and Interscope which allows them to reach a wider target audience in more than one country. – Imagine Dragons have been nominated for several awards such as billboard awards. They have won a Grammy award for best rock performance as well as 2 AMA'S (American Music Awards).
Target audience vs Actual Audience –
Their target audience is males and females and is aimed at the ages of 16-25. This can be shown through the nature of their songs and the different genres that they are included in. Since imagine Dragon's are classed as a rock band, they are included in a few different sub genres such as indie rock, Pop rock and Alternative rock. This reinforces their target audience of 16-25 as children of a younger age have been shown to prefer more mainstream music, pop music.
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But Imagine Dragon's target audience is different to their actual audience that they may have accumulated over the years. Imagine Dragon's actual audience is properly a few years younger than what they had depicted. The reality is that their actual audience is 13-25 as younger teenagers are influenced by older people and other bands that they listen to. Therefore, the younger teenagers want to appeal to their older peers as they want to be like them to fit in.
How do Imagine Dragon's appeal to their target audience – Imagine Dragons appeal to their target audience by singing about relevant things that their target audience may be experiencing such as their song 'Radioactive' which one of the band members has said ''it's a song about having an awakening; kind of waking up one day and deciding to do something new, and see life in a fresh way," which could appeal to their target audience as they are at the age in which they start new chapters of their life such as starting a new school like university or gaining their first job. – By singing about relevant problems or events it allows for the band to relate to their audience and for the audience to view the band as relatable and one that understands their trivial problems in which other adults such as parents may not understand. This appeals to a target audience as it allows their audience to feel closer to them and presume that they have gone through similar problems.
Target audience – As Imagine Dragon's Target audience is male and female this allows for them to have a broad target audience therefore allowing them to conduct various actions that can appeal to either one or the other or both genders at the same time. An example of this is that the members of the band are all male which stereotypically appeals to a female target audience where as if the band were all female it would appeal to males. But this could be questioned with Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory in that, said hypothetical band could possibly have been constructed by a recording label which aimed to include all females members purely for males.
Target audience – Imagine Dragon's could also have appealed to a wider male audience rather than a female audience due to the bands that are similar to them. – Bands such as; X Ambassadors, Twenty one Pilots, Coldplay, Fall Out Boy and Ed Sheeran are apparently similar to Imagine Dragons which could be because of similar target audiences or music styles. This shows that as these bands are all of similar styles, they could possibly share similar target audiences due to their similarities.
Target Audience – Lastly, Imagine Dragons could appeal to their target audience due to their mise en scene such as clothing. – In a majority of the pictures that involve Imagine Dragons, the band members are seen to be wearing black which could widen their target audience to a darker, more punk rock audience who also share similar clothing styles. This allows for the band to target a different audience which is different to the gorup they would normally target their music and merch towards.
– This shows that Imagine dragons target their audience using different methods such as their clothing and music genre as well as the bands that they share similarities with.