Target Audience of Artist/Band.

There are many different ways that Lady Gaga can communicate with her fans and where fans can voice their opinions about practically anything to do with the artist. There are some pictures below that show some of the different methods she uses:



By having all of these different Lady Gaga fan bases and websites, it allows the fans to be more in touch with the artist and possibly get exclusives on things like new songs and tour dates etc. Also by having these different types of web pages and forums she widens her range of fans and increases her audience. This is because there are many different people that use the different sites which therefore increases the audience's variety. You can also see from the lists of fans on the sides of the web pages ( facebook and twitter etc.) you can see, from their profile images, that there is variety of ages within her fans.

There have been many arguments from different people saying that Lady Gaga is similar to Madonna, and even that she has the same kind of iconic status as Madonna has. Also that she can reinvent herself multiple times, which could be compared to maybe the ways that Madonna has reinvented herself. There was a quote on this website that I found the quote, which is placed below, http://www.bestweekever.tv/2010-03-29/biggest-pop-culture-controversies-lady-gaga-vs-madonna/, that states that comparing Lady Gaga to Madonna is like comparing apples to much older apples. Therefore saying that these two artist are very alike. Also with there being comments like these that say these artists are so similar that, and the fact that there music is quite similar, that they could possibly well have the same types of target audience and fan base, however just in different generations. It has also been said that Lady Gaga is the Madonna of our generation, which again increases the similarities and comparability of the two great artists. The image below shows a screen grab from the website that has been linked above showing a comment from a fan about Lady Gaga and the whole Lady Gaga vs Madonna saga. I picked up and used the quote as I believe that it will help us in finidng ou t the traget audience of Lady Gaga, which should hopefully help us when it comes to decision making and actually creating the music video. The quote was written by a 17 year old, which is stated by the comment writer, at the beginning of the comment, this therefore can tell us that there may be a lot of teenagers and young adults that contribute to her her fan base and target audience. Also the commenter says the she is part of the Lady Gaga era, and I believe that this could increase the amount of people around the age of the comment writer becoming fans as they may in some way relate to her. However although she may have a lot of young adults fans I believe that we cannot pinpoint a specific age group for the target audience of Lady Gaga, as like Madonna, she has such different styles used in her songs that it could be liked by pretty much anyone. I think that because she is so comparable to Madonna and because there have been many people that have compared the two artists, that some fans of Madonna's have become fans of Lady Gaga, even if they were in the era of Madonna. And because of this i don't think that we could nor would it be right for us to pin point a specific age group or limit, and say that that would be Lady Gaga's target audience. I think that we would have to say that maybe she doesn't really have a target audience as she has a varied audience/group of listeners/fans. Although if were really had to pick Lady Gaga's target audience, I think that we would have to say that it would be teenagers to young adults, the reason that I think we would have to say this, is because that I believe this kind of age group probably dominates the fan base and audience of Lady Gaga.

Although we have said that there could possibly be a way that we could determine, if needed to, a target audience for Lady Gaga, due to the ages/age group that dominates her fan base, with the help of comparisons between herself and Madonna, we can come back to square one and saying that Lady Gaga doesn't really have a target audience when it comes to publicity and specifically the magazine covers that Lady Gaga has appeared on. Usually artists appear on possibly on a couple of different types of magazine covers, if that, however Lady Gaga has been featured on the front covers of many very different magazine types, and this doesn't really help us at all when it comes to determining her target audience. Some of the magazine covers that Lady Gaga has appeared on can be seen below:

There are many different types of magazine covers, above, that Lady Gaga has appeared on, ranging from lads magazines to music magazines as well as, glossy fashion magazines. This therefore, again proves that it is quite difficult for us to determine what Lady Gaga's target audience is, as the different magazines obviously have different target audience themselves and with Lady Gaga appearing on the cover of all the above magazines, therefore, it becomes very difficult for us to determine a target audience of specific psychographics, demographics and socio- economics.

Also the fact that she has appeared on all these magazine covers, shows the level of her popularity and how much, she is kind of, in demand and wanted by all aspects of the media. With her appearing on these covers she boost her own image and becomes even more noticed, and eventually turned into a bit of a household name. There could be many different reasons as to why Lady Gaga has appeared or chosen to be featured on the covers of these different magazines. She could have chose to appear on the magazines that could be a little more aimed at men, such as the above FHM magazine and also possibly Q magazine, to boost her name and image within the male audience. This could be because of that fact they it would be thought that they might be less likely to listen to her music unless it is played on the radio, therefore by appearing on these magazines and also ones similar to these she gets herself noticed with the male readers ( as well as the possibly readers of magazines such as Q), which could then lead to them being intrigued by her and possibly resulting in them listening to more of her music etc.

She has also featured on many fashion and glossy (fashion related) magazines, which can also be seen above. There are many different styles and different looks of Lady Gaga on the different magazines, therefore showcasing that there may be different sides to her. And this new style of outstanding clothing is something that the industry hasn't really seen before, or for a long time at least, and it could be thought that these magazines all want a piece of this new icon and her style and therefore want her to appear on their magazines, so that it is seen or thought that that magazine is really up to date with all the new fashion and trends and things that are going on in the fashion world. Also on some of the magazines she is wearing quite outrageous outfits that range from the meat suit to the bubble outfit. She is also well known for some of her strange and outgoing outfits that she will wear nearly what seems like all the time, these outfits, as well as her growing popularity and chart topping music could be just some of the reasons that she is on these magazine covers.

It could also be said that she is a style icon for other musical artists and celebrities. The reason that I say this is because, when we were doing some music video research only Lady Gaga, we came across the video for 'Paparazzi'. At one point during this video, she is wearing a suit that is or looks like it is made out of a gold metal. This same kind of outfit can then be seen in the Beyonce music video 'Sweet Dreams', throughout this video she wears a similar kind of outfit, made out of a similar looking gold metal, however the difference with the outfits is that Lady Gaga's, I believe, is more like a dress, whereas Beyonce's is a sort of corset/bodice item. Therefore, this could possibly mean that Lady Gaga has influenced other artists and celebrities with new and intriguing sense of style and fashion.

Another thing that I did to try and get a little bit closer to finding out more information on the target audience of Lady Gaga. We logged onto the social networking site Facebook, and found a page that is a group that is made in favour of Lady Gaga by some of her fans, which people can join and leave comments about or to do with Lady Gaga. So, we thought that it might be a good idea for us to post a comment or message onto this Lady Gaga group page, so that we ticked the box of making a questionnaire type thing in order to help us find out the kind of target audience of Lady Gaga. You can see a print screen of the group page as well as the comment that we posted below:

You can see that we stated that we were doing a media project and that it would be helpful if we could get some information on some of her fans, such as age gender etc. We posted this message/comment on September 30th, I believe it says on the group page, and over a week later we checked it to see if anyone had commented. Unfortunately no one had commented and nothing had been added to our comment/message. So we are no closer into finding out more information on the target audience of Lady Gaga, other than the information that we have already gathered, through research. However, I will definitely be keeping an eye on and checking the message that we posted on the group/fan page to see if there are any comments added at a later date. Which could then increase the knowledge that we already have on the target audience of Lady Gaga.