Monday, October 27, 2008

Know Your Audience Part 2

After reading Laura's post about knowing your audience, I realized that this weekend I had a personal experience that emphasized to me even more, the importance of knowing your audience.

I went to Long Island, NY to visit a friend, and we went shopping at the Roosevelt Field Mall, which is one of the biggest malls in America.

It's a great mall, especially for those who love shopping....upscale shopping, at that.

I realized the differences between the Roosevelt Field Mall, which is located in a suburb in Long Island, and my local mall, the Willow Grove Mall which is also located in a suburb.

Many people who live in Long Island are well-off. The stores in the mall there rival NYC's shopping. The mall has stores like Betsey Johnson, Michael Kors, Armani Exchange, and Brooks Brothers. The most upscale stores in my local mall include Coach and Bloomingdales.

Just as it's important to understand a target audience while planning for a campaign, it's clear why it was important in deciding what stores to put in these two different malls.

A Michael Kors store in my local mall would just be out of place. It probably would not gain much revenue. However, many people seemed to be shopping at Michael Kors while I was at Roosevelt Fields.

Perhaps Roosevelt Fields has many upscale stores (it also has normal stores) because it is a very large mall and they simply have the space to place those stores. Pehaps it has to do with the statstics regarding income in the area.

I am not trying to make any broad generalizations, but I think this example paints a vivid picture of understanding the importance of knowing your audience.

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