Audience Research

The target audience for my product will be around the 16-25 age. Predominantly males will be drinking it, however women will also drink during sports. This is because most athletes train at their hardest and most frequent during these ages, and therefore will be looking to use the best products to provide carbohydrate fuel such as isotonic based drinks. The social class which I will be aiming my product at would be mainly the middle class, and also the lower class. This is because the middle class will be playing sports quite a lot for recreational purposes and would be competitive. Also the lower class would be playing sports a lot in their free time and therefore would be drinking a lot of sports drinks. People who have a lot of spare time on their hands would appear more likely to play sports and drink sports drinks. I am looking to aim my product at people who play sports a lot, at any level, as it still has the effect which they want. People who don't take sport very seriously will benefit from the flavour, and carbohydrate fuel boost. People who play sport seriously will benefit more with the effects of the drink, providing them with carbohydrate fuel and energy to maintain their performance.

I will look to base my TV advertisements inbetween programs such as football matches, highlights, as well as Sky Sports channels including Sky Sports news. This is because my target audience are most likely to be watching these programs/channels and therefore the advertisement fees would be well distributed. There wouldn't be much benefit from advertising during day-time TV such as Bargain Hunt and Countdown as most of my target audience would not be watching these types of programs.

I created a questionnaire in order to find opinions of people in my target audience, regarding my product. Here is the questions which I included.

Questionnaire

1) How old are you? <15/16-19/20-25/25-40>

2) Are you Male/Female

3) Do you play sports? Yes/No (move to question 6)

4) If yes, which sports do you play REGULARLY?

5) What level of athlete do you consider yourself to be? Amateur/Recreational/Top

6) Which sports drinks are you aware of?

7) How often do you drink sports drinks?

8) What flavour sports drink do you prefer?

9) What would persuade you to buy a sports drink? Think about slogans, brand name, claimed benefits, sports personality, advertising packages, design, and ingredients.

10) One of the leading sports drinks is Lucozade. Based on the design and ingredients of Lucozade (not the taste) how likely would you be to purchase the product? 1=Highly unlikely. 10=Almost definitely

11) What do you expect to see on a sports drink design label?

12) The popular energy drink ‘Relentless’ has the slogan “No half measures”. What do you think this means and how effective do you see this slogan?

Here are my findings question by questions on the questionnaires I handed out.

1) 8 out of 10 of the questionnaires which I handed out fell into the age category of 16-19. The other 2 were aged 20-25. This reflects well on the majority of my target audience as I feel that most people who will be attracted to my sports drink will be aged 16-19.

2) I handed 5 questionnaires to females, and 5 to males, to get an even spread of gender.

3) 9 of the 10 people which completed the questionnaire play sports regularly, with only 1 not playing sports. This is helpful, as I have the majority is my main target audience. The anomolie was a male.

4) Out of the 9 people who play sports, 2 play Netball, 1 plays badminton, 1 dances, 2 play football, 1 plays volleyball, and 1 plays hockey. This shows that I have found a range of sports athletes.

5) Out of the 9 people who play sports, 6 considered themselves to be amatuer athletes, and the other 3 as recreational athletes. No-one seen themselves as top athletes.

6) The sports drinks which people were aware of generally included Lucozade and Powerade. Gatorade and Isotonic appeared a couple of times too. Some people mentioned Red Bull and Relentless. These drinks are not sports drinks as they are energy drinks. This shows that some people do not understand the difference between the two types of drinks. I am going to try and differentiate the difference in my adverts.

7) There was quite a mix for how often people drink sports drinks. Most of the females who completed the questionnaire answered 'not very often', however 1 answered 'often'. Most of the males answered 'often' however 2 answered 'not very often' and 'rarely'. This is quite surprising as I would have thought most people who compete in sports would drink sports drinks, however the male who answered 'rarely' was the anomolie who does not play sports regularly. The only healthy alternative would be if they were drinking water.

8) Most people answered Orange to their favourite flavoured sports drink. There was an answer for blueberry and summer fruits. Orange seems to be the most popular flavour to a lot of people as it is a common taste which almost everyone loves. I think I will produce an orange flavour sports drink.

9) A lot of people didn't seem to understand this question. as they wrote down answers which were suggested in the question, however I was looking for more detail. Some answers appeared such as 'bright slogans' and 'less fizz/sugar'. These were the type of answers I was looking for and will bear them in mind for my final product.

10) Males answered = 7, 10, 8, 10, 10.
Females answered = 8, 8, 8, 6, 10.
Males seem to rate Lucozade higher than females based on the appearance of the product.

11) Most people stated the obvious on this question, with the most common answers appearing being 'name' 'ingredients' and some people wanted to see athletes, and slogans on the label.

12) A couple of people got the idea of the slogan 'No half measures'. Some people said it was very effective however some people stated that it was confusing. A confusing slogan is not highly effective as it is quite pointless is some peoples minds.