Advertising Demographic Importance!!!

The text lists some major demographic characteristics that advertisers want to know. Can you think of other demographic variables that would be important to advertisers? What would make these important in selling a product?

The major demographic characteristics that Stovall points of in his book “Writing for the Media” are age, gender, income, education, and marital status. Each is important to advertisers because, depending on the intended audience of the product, the ad copy may be very different. For example, you wouldn’t put an ad for Depends in a magazine for adolescents. Ads have to be attractive to the age group they intending to reach. Especially when dealing with young children. Young children are just starting to read so if you add too much copy to the ad they will be turned off. Most of the time children respond to lots of bright colors and pictures. Gender is also very important because if you’re advertising a product for women you have to make sure that the ad copy or dialogue in a TV ad is designed just for women. Women like to feel special also ads help women feel more comfortable even if the ad is about something uncomfortable. People need to feel like their problems are being solved. The third demographic that Stovall brought up was income. Income plays a big part in advertising because you don’t want to develop a product that no one can afford. Advertisers don’t want to waste money advertising for a product that certain areas can’t afford. They also don’t want people to be turned off by their product because they know they can’t afford it. Advertising in areas where someone might not be able to afford the product is bad for business because it reminds those people of their economic status. So advertisers advertise in areas were their product will be the most positively responded. Some demographics I thought of were race, culture, religion, location, occupation, hobbies, personality, and if you are a parent.