OUGD405 Studio Brief 01: John Lewis Target Audience Consideration

Because the designs for this project are for the John Lewis brand a reasonable thing to take into consideration is the market profile for a usual John Lewis customer and therefore what they might look for in a photo frame.

After analysing the John Lewis brand, its website and its shops the conclusion drawn is that the target audience for most of John Lewis' products is a middle aged professional, both male and female. this means that not only will they most likely have enough money to afford quality, and therefore look for it, but also that they quite likely are home owners. Home owners need to decorate and can often pay a lot of attention to the appearance of their home, giving a motivation for buying a photo frame.

After identifying this the next step seemed to be to talk directly to someone who falls into this category and is a John Lewis customer, to see what they would look for in such an object and give an idea as to what the frame filler should aim to communicate. My findings are below.

-Size of writing should be large.
This is because the majority of middle aged people have problems with having to take glasses on and off according to the distance they need to focus on. This could be helped by having large text where possible to allow easy communication of information.

-Awareness of many areas of history.
Generally just well educated. This opened up the idea of playing on John Lewis' established brand by eluding to the eras through which it has been present, and the audience is aware of. This plays back into the idea of picture frames being used to preserve memories i.e. a sixties black and white photo would have more personal relevance to the target audience.

-Appreciation of the John Lewis Brand.
Those who shop at John Lewis usually do so because they trust and like the values represented by the John Lewis Brand as well as its products. This suggests that the final designs need to be tangibly connected to the existing brand and identity that John Lewis have because this acts as a selling point in its self.