UK Tribes: Target Audience

What is UK Tribes?

UK Tribes is a project, commissioned by Channel 4 and created by Crowd DNA which "takes you to the heart of young Britain." It is a categorization technique, putting all different types of young people into groups depending on their social interests, preferred brands, and countless other qualities.

"Tribal alliances are less hard and fast than they once were. The exchange of ideas is more fluid the social glues that unite people more varied - you might disagree on which band is best, but you could still share a loyalty for Topshop, Sony PlayStation or Channel 4." This is what the UK Tribes website states is the way they create a Tribal categorization and therefore, allowing them to understand the dynamics of tribal UK and gain key information for brands who wish to engage with the youth market.

The results look at UK youth culture from the teenagers perspective. The website also states "So if they're saying nasty things, don't blame us! We just wanted to create an honest, uncensored expression of young people's attitudes and affiliations." Showing the genuine opinions which are stated in the websites findings.


How did UK Tribes start?

UK Tribes was constructed in 2005, when Channel 4 commissioned Crowd DNA (then called Ramp Industry) to run a project called TV Glue, which looked to measure how TV could continue to remain a unifying force within not just youth culture, but a wide variety of people in general.

One small aspect of this project looked at youth culture and offered a breakdown based on the shared social interests (music, sport, fashion, technology etc.) around which young people find common ground over. When this research was presented to the media and marketing executives, this section proved a big hit; conjuring up real interest.

The idea of UK Tribes was born from this, with a brief to extend this research; to explore youth in honest terms and compile information based on young people themselves; to acknowledge that whereas once it was about monolithic youth tribes that seemed to out shadow all others (punk, rock ‘n’ roll, acid house are key examples) now the categorization of youth tribes is more commonly acknowledged, providing a wide variety of options.  

UK Tribes wanted to make sure their research was real, genuine, close-up and to ensure they effectively got the information from a young persons perspective whilst avoiding the generalisations and glossing over which often provides data for similar studies. They state that "there are times, perhaps, when findings may seem derogatory or negative, but this is all about youth culture as described to us by young people themselves. We didn’t come up with the title Street Rats, for instance. They did!" Summing up just why the survey was conducted; to provide an accurate representation of the youth market as it currently stands.

How They Did It 

UK Tribes used both a collection of Qualitative research techniques as well as Quantitative research to ensure they have a widespread collation of information and views as well as ensuring they reach all types of young people in all of the different Tribes. The techniques used for both are as follows:

Qualitative Research

Desk Research

Online Forums

Depth Interviews

Video & Picture Diaries

Expert Interviews with Marketers, Media, Event Promoters, DJ's etc.

SMS-derived insight

A UK network of young people providing regular trend reports

Quantitative Research

An online survey called Find Your Tribe that was distributed through relevant blogs and online media. The incentive for young people was in "the fun and talk value of having your tribal identity defined". The benefit for Channel 4 was in gathering data on youth preferences across over 250 brands and media, along with their lifestyle attitudes and habits. Find Your Tribe first ran in 2006, gathering data from over 50,000 respondents. Version two ran in August 2008, with the response count at 38,000 and rising. 

So, Basically....

The current count stands at 25 tribes (they started with 23 and have gained four and lost two along the way) but that’s almost sure to change. The key objective to the UK Tribes project is that they ensure they keep up to date with all the most recent trends, using constant updates, allowing them to identify new tribes whilst also allowing them to note changing behaviour among existing tribes. In doing so, they are  building up an extensive archive of the ever-developing landscape of young Britain. 

So how do they do categorize the tribes?

The study categorizes the 25 different tribes into groups, these groups are collated by looking at the shared interests between the different groups. The 5 main groupings are:

Aspirant Mainstream

Mainstream

Urban 

Alternative

Leading Edge

Below is how the 25 different trends are categorized within these groups:

Aspiration Mainstream:

• Trendies
• Rahs

Mainstream:

• Ravers
• Townies
• Chavs
• Boy Racers
• Sport Junkies
• Street Rats
• Casuals

Urban:

• Get Paid Crew
• Blingers
• DIYers
• Trackies

Alternative:

• Gamers
• Emos
• Scene Kids
• Skaters
• Metalheads
• Young Alts

Leading Edge:

• Hipsters
• Geeks
• Craft Kids
• Indie Scenesters

How can I use this information?

Using this website, I can determine who is my target audience by looking at the various tribes that are categorized within the research. It allows me to see the icons of the said tribe, meaning I can base my features in my magazine accordingly (the artists I feature will be based around what my target audience like). This is mainly centred around the Clubbers/Ravers.

The various brands they wear, use and associate themselves to are shown along with the persons consumption of different media types.

 According to UK Tribes, these are the characteristics of my target audience. At first you will note the types of media they buy, use or interact with. The first is a Dubstep/Drum & Bass Magazine called MixMag. I shall be doing a post on this shortly. Next is the less successful magazine called DJ Mag. It has the same views and similar features to MixMag therefore I feel it is unnecessary to review this. Next is FHM. This magazine is found to be popular with my target audience. The FHM Media kit below fortells of a majorly based male readership. It can therefore be assumed that my target audience will be males, or at least the vast majority will be. 

MediaKit-FHM

Moving swiftly on, my target audience seems to listen to Kiss Radio. This radio station, from my knowledge plays a variety of dance, hip hop, and R&B music. The radio station also frequently features up and coming Dubstep artists. Galaxy Radio, now known as Capital FM, does not feature Dubstep as much, focusing mainly on mainstream pop music now after its merge with The Hits. They also listen to BBC Radio 1. This was expected as it is stated that during the origin of Dubstep:

"A very early supporter of the sound was BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who started playing it from 2003 onwards. In 2004, the last year of his show, his listeners voted Distance, Digital Mystikz and Plastician (formerly Plasticman) in their top 50 for the year." (wikipedia)


It is also shown that they use facebook (once again expected due to the increase in popularity of the dubstep genre over the internet & forums) MTV Dance a dance music channel found on SKY (focusing mainly on dance music therefore may not be entirely relevant). Finally there is the slightly confusing conclusion that many read a magazine called attitude. From what I've gathered this is a gay lifestyle magazine for men....perhaps the confidentiality agreement of some peoples surveys could not be stronger here. 

Another section they focus on is brands, showing the most purchased brands by individuals who rest within this tribe. Key names involve Diesel (the clothing brand) generally high quality, rather expensive clothes, All Saints (clothing brand) sells fairly ordinary, modern chic clothing, Miss Sixty (a womens clothing shop) aswell as well known brands in terms of clothing such as TOPMAN, urban outfitters and River Island. There are also 2 popular clubs/events mentioned:

Godskitchen : A worldwide company specialising in electronic music events. Popularly known and are responsible for the increase in popularity of electronic artists.

Cream : Perhaps the more well known club is mentioned, along with this, news on the website indicates that Swedish House Mafia are headlining the Milton Keynes Bowl on Saturday 14th July for a 9 hour set. This sort of news is what I would expect my target audience to want to know. 

Finally there is a link to Sony Playstation. This is suprising, evidently my target audience are keen on technology and like the newest gadgets and games, I shall be sure to include a story about gadgets in my magazine.

From the media consumption level chart, it is clear that my target audience use the internet a lot and read magazines fairly frequently. Due to this I shall combine both and offer a digital copy of my magazine. This will be a simple way of allowing my magazine to be available to the masses. 

Clothing/Model Research

Obviously I cannot just put any old person on my front cover. The results would be disastrous! I needed to discover just what type of person fitted in with the Dubstep genre (clothing, appearance, attitude) and then find a model (term used loosely for fear of the 'model's' ego getting any bigger!) which would fit this criteria. After looking at various images of Dubstep artists in photo shoots & at gigs, some clear similarities started to show:

Headphones

 A repeated find amongst all of the pictures was the appearance of headphones. Due to the frequent appearance of headphones, it is clear that they are associated with the Dubstep genre. This aided me in coming to a conclusion that I should try and use headphones in my pictures for the front page, contents, and double pages spread. Seen above to the right, Skrillex is pictured with the popular Dre Beats Studio headphones. With such a well known figure in Dubstep wearing them, it would be sensibly assume these headphones could be used.






Clothing

To find out what sort of clothing my model would wear, I started to look deeper into image searches as the majority of results at the top were either irrelevant or album covers. After once again looking through the typical artists (Skrillex, Chase & Status, Magnetic Man, Nero) I soon discovered that although there were various different images with different shirts and jackets, a continuous pattern emerged. 

This was that there was at least one picture within the first 2/3 pages of results where the artists were wearing leather/material jackets. This is shown above to the left with Skrillex, directly left with Nero and directly to the right with Chase & Status. As I continued researching clothing, I kept seeing a leather style jacket appearing, bringing me to the assumption that I will try and get my model to wear a leather jacket or at least some type of clothing resembling this.




Stance/Attitude

This is perhaps the most important part it determining how my magazine will ultimately come together. The stance and attitude of the person featuring in the magazine must look realistic and suitable for what I'm using them for which in this case, is Dubstep. It is therefore key I get a good understanding of how the various artists within the genre act and how they look when they appear to the public. 

This was perhaps the most influential picture in me deciding on the stance my model would be trying to imitate. When you ask people about Dubstep, whether in a good opinion or bad, Skrillex is almost always mentioned. I wanted my model to capture the Skrillex mannerism and this was fairly easy to discover. This picture shows Skrillex in front of a wall (I'm so good at this analysis stuff!). He has his legs close together with his hands in his pockets. This would usually be considered as an insecurity or just bad posing however for this genre it does appear more frequently than you would think. Along with this picture, the image of Skrillex above under clothing shows him with his left hand in his pocket, indicating this pose perhaps would work on a front cover or on a double page spread.

In terms of a pose for the contents or perhaps even being used within the double page spread story, I liked the way a publicity shot of the upcoming artist Gemini was taken. It showed him sitting down with his arms laying on his legs, looking like he is in deep thought. I personally thought that this not only looked extremely effective, but could also be imitated quite easily. It would also allow me to reference my decisions associated with picture choice to my research and show the reasoning behind picking certain stances. 






Props
Due to my decision of picking Dubstep as my genre (much to my teachers disgust) I felt props were not needed as much as if I were to pick Indie music, Hip-Hop or Rock. This is due to the fact no real instruments are used in the creation of a Dubstep track and the majority of the work is done by computers. Nevertheless I looked into various images and noticed something which I knew I could use in at least one of my pictures. Vinyl records kept appearing on the results pages when I was searching Dubstep Artists. I quickly decided I wanted to try and use a vinyl record as a prop in my pictures as it would give a clear indication of the genre based magazine.


I shall shortly be putting my collection of photos on this blog, allowing you to draw comparisons between my attempts of recreating and altering some of these techniques.

Possible Fonts

For my magazine I must decide on a font to use for the front page and to possibly use on the contents. Referring back to my website research and from my knowledge of Dubstep Artists and their style, I collated some fonts which I think will work well. The font names are underneath the titles.

Magazine Genre

DUBSTEP


So, What is Dubstep?
Dubstep is one of the fastest growing types of music in the world, Dubstep is a form of electronic music that combines heavy bass with samples, synthesizer, keyboards, turntables and drum tracks. Dubstep originated in South London in 1998, but has quickly spread to other areas of Western Europe and North America after it originally started to gain publicity on BBC Radio. and is fast-becoming a mainstream form of dance music around the world. 
It's early roots are found to be closely linked with UK Garage producers who were wanting to incorporate elements of drum and bass into their typical garage sounds. Dubstep is generally instrumental, showing similarities to grime, the feel of the genre was originally dark and featured frequent use of minor keys however, as it has become more popular and entered into mainstream music listeners, some Dubstep artists have chosen to change this early representation of the genre and altering it slightly to form variants such as Skrillex, who appears to have become the figure head for a new, perhaps more popular sub-genre called Brostep.


Popular Dubstep Artists
Since the creation of what is now known as the Dubstep genre, many artists have come to light and really headlined the rise of the now popular music scene, Artists include:


Rusko

Skrillex

Magnetic Man

Nero

Chase & Status

Okay, so give me a bit more info...

SBTRKT

With the genre only now entering the mainstream music scene, you would be forgiven for thinking the genre has only been established within the past couple of years. It has infact been round much longer than that, as stated earlier, the genre originated within late 1998 to early 2002. With many "underground" garage artists opting to use the sound of Dubstep within their tracks, it was not long before it started to get publicity and in 2002, an XLR8R (music magazine) cover story helped this genre of music earn it's name. The term Post-Dubstep is used consistently to describe songs and artists which, although use features associated with Dubstep, do not solely focus on it and instead combine various musical influences together. A well known name in this style is the musician SBTRKT (pronounced Subtract)

Although commercially, this style is perhaps the most popular (teamed with Brostep), many how they've come to been known "Dubstep Purists" dislike the direction Dubstep is going in, with the emphasis more on a "heavy drop" (when there is a build up in a track leading to a deep bassline) than the actual merits of the music. Some artists are also supporting this argument such as Rusko. shown in this interview.



However Skrillex, in a recent interview, disagrees with this view and states that "I love all types of music" along with his statement that instead of Dubstep music moving in the wrong direction, he feels it's "in it's prime". This is of course expected as he is pioneering Brostep and in his opinion, Dubstep has never been better. 

Dubstep Magazine Name Poll

I decided that I would ask my target market what they thought the best name for my music magazine would be. After making a decision to create a Dubstep genre-based magazine, I then followed by selecting the names within my choices that best suited the Dubstep genre. After doing this, I felt I needed to create a poll to ensure I pick a suitable name which my target audience (TA) will approve of. 


After considering using my classmates to select a name, I thought it would be more suitable to find people who all listen to and have knowledge on the Dubstep genre. If I had used my class, there is a strong possibility that some people who would have taken the poll will not listen to Dubstep and therefore will not give accurate results of my TA. After thinking about this point, I went around to a few friends to ask them to give an answer for the polls but I ensured that they listened to Dubstep, asking them this before they gave me an answer to ensure accurate results however this only gave me 11 votes. I felt I needed more to ensure a worthwhile poll but did not know who else I could ask.


I finally decided that I should find and ask more of my TA to decide which name they thought was best. To do this, I visited my cousin who was having a gathering with a group of friends at her house. She along with her friends listen to Dubstep and are familiar with the various artists and labels which exist, making them ideal candidates to fill out my tally chart. I went round asking everyone their preferred name and pictured below are the results:

My results show that UNDERGROUND appears to be the preferred choice with DUBLE TAKE a close second, ESOTERIC third and GA-RAGE being the least popular choice. In percentage terms these are the results:
UNDERGROUND: 44%
DUBLE TAKE: 41%
ESOTERIC: 11%        
GA-RAGE: 4%
Although UNDERGROUND appears to be the preferred option, I feel it may be too long-winded to be a music magazine title and I am therefore deciding to use the second most popular option, DUBLE TAKE. There is only one vote between the two options therefore allowing me to ensure that DUBLE TAKE would be well received and understandable as a Dubstep/Drum & Bass genre-based Magazine.

Website Analysis - Dubstep Websites

As there are no Music Magazines that are based around the Dubstep Genre I have looked elsewhere to gain necessary research into the colour schemes and general preferred design of people who listen to Dubstep.

I decided that I should firstly look up the popular and well-known UKF Dubstep website. This re-directed me to the UKF youtube page.

This was the youtube page linked to UKF Dubstep. The striking UKF Dubstep logo is present along with an advertisement for the new Modestep song. The colour scheme for the page is slightly difficult to determine as it is themed around the album art to Modestep's song, however this in my opinion can still be useful as Modestep is a big name within the Dubstep genre and will  inevitably use a style and colour scheme which is popular with Dubstep listeners.


Along with the UKF logo looking fairly prominent in the corner in Blue, the background is a gradient of purple, blue, orange and yellow and is effectively used alongside an almost space styled template. the font used for the UKF logo is a bold font whereas the font of "Modestep" has slight hints and similarities to graffiti.I concluded that Bold lettering is most likely going to be included with whatever font I choose for my front cover.

I then proceeded to look for some websites which are associated with Dubstep Music.
 I first came across dubstepmusic.biz which is a website promoting unknown Dubstep Artists as well as all the latest news on the pioneers of the Dubstep genre, download links to newly released tracks & a forum allowing users to talk about their favourite tracks. 


I wanted to use this website mainly to get a good understanding of just what font I should be looking for both the titles and the text I will be writing. This websites colour scheme appears to be using green with various tones of black and white. This coincides with my prediction that green will be a suitable colour to use as well as dark colours being the base of the websites layout. 


The font used is once again Bold lettering however it appears to have a slightly eroded effect to it, almost distorting the text. This shows slight similarities to the font used to advertise Modestep and it can be assumed that this type of font may be what is associated with a Dubstep themed magazine or website.

I then searched for more websites to gain a better understanding of what people generalise a Dubstep style to be. I came across the website dubstep.co.uk. I was surprised to discover that exactly the same font had been used for the title as my previously found website however I found that the colour scheme was quite different. It included warm colours of red, yellows & oranges. This is not what is generally perceived to be the colour scheme of something relating to dubstep however referring back to the colour scheme of the UKF youtube page, it is possible to stray away from this stereotypical dark blue/green/black colour range.


There are circular graphics in the background surrounding the title of the website which I think are most likely trying to resemble sub-woofers, which are affiliated with bass and therefore, Dubstep. Finally, there appears to be paint splats surrounding the title, giving a rigid look along with scratches, enhancing the background from being just a solid colour. This along with the beams coming out behind the text may make me consider using similar graphics behind my front cover or contents titles.