Understanding your audience is crucial when creating a piece of work, especially for commercial use. An artist has to know who their work is going to appeal to in order for them to get the ideas and meaning of the project across and understood. For example it’s pointless for an advert for a new state of the art car to be printed in a fashion magazine as its not appealing to the audience the product is intended for. If an artist understands and has knowledge of their audience they can enhance and focus their work on communicating with that specific group of people.
A successful piece I believe that’s in the media at the minute is Banksy’s title piece for The Simpsons. Although very controversial he has taken key issues in society today like sweatshops, child labor and animal cruelty and included them in his own title sequence for the show. The extended sequence apparently being inspired by reports the show outsources the bulk of their animation to South Korea has created a lot of debates within the media. Banksy has never been one to conform to societies expectations and is successful in his work because he knows that he is appealing to a wide audience some of which scrutinize and others that applaud his ability to bring social issues into the forefront of the media and get people talking about subjects that would otherwise be brushed under the carpet. The Simpsons is one of the most successful TV shows of our generation and is broadcast all over the world. Banksy would of known this, he would of researched past shows and known how to appeal to the shows audience whilst still portraying his point. He is communicating with over thousands of people but because he has done his research and has a knowledge of who these people are and what entertains them he has been able to successfully pass his message along to them.
