From media audiences to algorithmic audiences

Abstract

One of the main areas of the wide world of advertising is media planning. In media planning processes, audiences are usually the central and initial variable. In other words, the first question a media campaign planner should address is how to reach the desired audiences. This question has several possible answers, and each of them involves a different conceptualization of the audiences. This paper seeks to systematize and define these conceptualizations; for this aim, four categories are proposed. The first of them, the media audiences, corresponds to all traditional mass media, and even includes a certain operation of digital publishers. The other three –segmented digital audiences, look alike audiences and algorithmic audiences– correspond to digital media; they have emerged consecutively over time, without the new ones replacing, at least for now, the previous ones.