Media Institutions and Demographics

Kate Miller Heidke is fairly unknown in the UK and in America when compared with other artists we have talked about before. However she has not taken this approach to the music industry and is in fact very popular in her home country - Australia.

This is clearly shown with the number of nominations in the 2007 ARIA awards.

Kate further shows her talent and popularity in Australia in the 2009 International songwriting competition where she won the grand prize.

Year	Event	Award	Result
2007	ARIA Awards	Best Female Artist[9]	Nominated
2007	ARIA Awards	Breakthrough Album (Little Eve)[9]	Nominated
2007	ARIA Awards	Breakthrough Single ("Words")[9]	Nominated
2007	ARIA Awards	Best Pop Release (Little Eve)[9]	Nominated
2009	International Songwriting Competition	Grand Prize (with Keir Nuttall) ("Caught in the Crowd")[10]	Won
2009	APRA Music Awards	Best Song (with Keir Nuttall) ("Can't Shake It")[11]	Nominated

Kate has become very successful in Australia and therefore is under a major record label -Sony Music.

The Music industry has 4 Transnational Corporations - Known as The Majors .

• Universal 
• Sony BMG
• Warner Bros 
• EMI

Due to Kate's record label being one of the majors she has clearly had a lot of success in Australia. Her popularity in Australia is further shown with the number of live shows and touring that she does with and without her band.


Her target audience is also an important factor to look at while researching due to the fact we will need to choose our own target audience and demographic for our music video.
We will therefore look at these socio economic demographics and the four C's for our video. When looking at Kate's target audience it is also important to look at the fashion of the artist and how she promotes herself.


These demographics are based on the National Readership Survey's socio-economic grades:

A: Higher Managerial, administrative or professional - doctors, sollicitors.

B: Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional - bank managers, teachers.

C1: Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional - 'white collar' office and bank staff.

C2: Skilled manual workers - plumbers, builders.

D: Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.

E: Casual labourers, unemployed, on state benefits.

However we cannot use these categories for choosing our target audience, there are problems with these categories especially because of our age demographic will probably be the younger generation due to Kate's quirky attitude and upbeat vibe. Therefore we need to look at the 4C's (see below) to choose what type of personality our audience will be, which in turn will also be the target charter of Kate's target audience.

The 4Cs: Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation

Resigned	Rigid, strict, authoritarian and chauvinist values, oriented to the past and to Resigned roles. Brand choice stresses safety, familiarity and economy. (Older).
Struggler	Alienated, Struggler, disorganised – with few resources apart from physical/mechanical skills (e.g. car repair). Heavy consumers of alcohol, junk food and lotteries, also trainers. Brand choice involves impact and sensation.
Mainstreamer	Domestic, conformist, conventional, sentimental, passive, habitual. Part of the mass, favouring big well-known value for money ‘family’ brands. Almost invariably the largest 4Cs group.
Aspirer	Materialistic, acquisitive, affiliative, oriented to extrinsics… image, appearance, charisma, persona and fashion. Attractive packaging more important than quality of contents. (Younger, clerical/sales type occupation)
Succeeder	Strong goal orientation, confidence, work ethic, organisation… Support status quo, stability. Brand choice based on reward, prestige – the very best. Also attracted to ‘caring’ and protective brands… Stress relief. (Top management).
Explorer	Energy – autonomy, experience, challenge, new frontiers. Brand choice highlights difference, sensation, adventure, indulgence and instant effect – the first to try new brands. (Younger – student)
Reformer	Freedom from restriction, personal growth, social awareness, value for time, independent judgement, tolerance of complexity, anti-materialistic but intolerant of bad taste. Curious and enquiring, support growth of new product categories. Select brands for intrinsic quality, favouring natural simplicity, small is beautiful.(Highier education)

When looking at these different cultural categories it is clear that Kate's genre of music fits into 2 clear groups - The Explorer and The Reformer. This is due to the quirkyness and independence seen in Kate's music and her overall energy found in each song and music video. Therefore explorers will definitely be interested in Kate's style of music - they have energy and are not scared to try new things, also are mostly students which further links in with her target age group. Reformers will also like Kate's music not only because of their independent judgement but also for their feeling on favouring natural simplicity and show support to new product categories. Therefore because Kate is seen as quite a small independent artist they will appreciate her work.