What is Vice?
Launched in 1994, Vice has offices in 35 cities across the world and makes 1700 pieces of content every day through five key lines of business: Vice.com, an award-winning international network of digital content; Vice Studios, a feature film and television production studio; Vice tv an Emmy-winning international television network; a Peabody award-winning news division; and Virtue, a global, full-service creative agency with 21 offices around the world.
It promotes itself on its coverage of “under-reported stories” Unlike other broadcasters that are referred to as old fashioned, stuffy, formal and don’t break stories, giving out ‘beige’ news, Vice is up and coming, brave and honest telling stories as they are, unvarnished or unmediated as they happen, live reports, there is no cover-up and they are not afraid to upset the audience with the truth. Vice is radically different in its approach and content too to traditional broadcasting news channels such as the BBC and Channel 4. They use younger reporters because older presenters tend to resonate with their target audience (millennials). The audience viewer prefers to listen to a 23 or 24-year old that they can relate to. Perhaps this is why Vice is aimed at a specific demographic. Graphic images are often used in Vice Media reports, for example, ‘ The Islamic State’ broadcast, where severed heads were shown, there were no warning messages given of content to be shown. It is very raw and real what they show and the millennials seem to love it.
Its main focuses are lifestyle, arts, culture, news, and politics which are created by journalists, columnists, fiction writers, graphic artists, and cartoon artists. Since the digital age, they focus on youth and young adult digital media via website, news broadcast units, publishing, record labels, and film/tv production.
Vice has an audience, which is audiences aged 18-34 and they are mostly male. Its target audience is around 20-35
Vice has 5 business lines, which are:
Vice Media: Online Digital content channels
Vice Studios: Feature-length documentaries since 2007
Vice Tv: Documentary style shows for Millennials
Vice News: Global news that premiered October 2016
Vice Virtue: Multi-Platform branding creation since 2006
In groups, we researched Vice’s business lines: My group were assigned Vice Studios
What is Vice Media?
Vice media overall is a general presence online, as a news platform that is not typically mainstream media, they touch on subject’s head on that other stereotypical news companies wouldn’t dare touch on. Vice exists on many platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, & many more. Their place within vice as a whole is up there, and after the main vice company (the founding magazine company) is the most popular/well-known platform of theirs as of this day and age.
Target Audience:
Mainly focusing on an older age bracket between 20-35. As mostly vice media is generally surrounding the way they produce their content, via social media platforms, i.e. YouTube, Twitter and others, so their videos are posted on YouTube with content that isn’t targeted towards teens or any younger. Their audience for this branding is mainly older, as a younger audience wouldn’t tune into this kind of thing. Why? Vice Media is generally the type of brand that doesn’t cater to PG, and just “tells it like it is, no-nonsense.”
Here is an example of a Vice Media article:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx8jz/conor-mcdonnell-kim-kanye-wedding-photographer-interview
What is Vice Studios?
Since 2017, Vice studios is a global tv and film production company that surrounds the development, production, financing, and distribution of multi-platform content. Vice Studios is a part of vice that is dedicated to creating feature-length documentaries. Films like The Mountain which was aimed for the 18-34 bracket.
Target Audience:
The majority of their audience are males and an age gap of 25-34, 60% of their audience view their content on mobile.
an example of a film they have made is The Mountain: A movie about America’s experiments with lobotomy, The movie wasn’t very well received by many as it was very confusing and tedious. It made people leave very miserable and disturbed.
What is Vice TV?
Vice TV is a documentary tv series created and hosted by Shane Smith of Vice magazine. It is produced by Bill Maher and uses CNN journalists as consultants. It covers topics using an immersionist style of documentary filmmaking. The channel launched on February 29th of 2016, with the intent of creating lifestyle-oriented documentaries and reality series aimed at millennials.
Target Audience:
Viceland is mainly targeted at an older age of vice’s millennial target audience (late 20s-late 30s) because Viceland is a TV channel that is more popular with adults. The TV shows and documentaries they show on Vice TV are very intense for example there is a documentary about a Satanist being suspected of multiple murders. This wouldn’t appeal to younger adults and/or teenagers due to them not watching TV and the content being quite depressing and heated topics.
What is Vice News?
A part of Vice Media which reports on current affairs. It is one of the fastest-growing channels on YouTube. It gets promoted by its coverage of “under-reported stories”. It has covered events from around the world, such as the Syrian Civil War, the protests in Turkey and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are locations around the globe, but the headquarters are based in Montréal. The news has a leftist bias, and the reporters are young. They upload their articles and stories to their website and their YouTube respectively. It is radically different to traditional TV saw news channels like BBC News or Channel 4 News.
Target Audience:
Vice News is mainly aimed at a younger audience, that is made up of mostly millennials. The same audience to which its parent company. As the news is made by leftists, other leftists are more likely to read/watch this because it stands for what they believe in.
Nothing is hidden in Vice News, they say it as it is. Here is an example of a Vice News article:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkby3k/derek-chauvin-trial-closing-arguments-george-floyd-edited
What is Vice Virtue?
Vice Virtue want to share what inspires them and in so doing, arm the consumer with intelligence and insights from around the borderless, global network. As the agency born from VICE, they have access to some of the most insightful thinkers and makers impacting the world today.
Target Audience:
Young people, mostly late teens or in their twenties, that enjoy brands such as clothing and other things. It’s also aimed at those that are seeking information and insights into current matters. Since it is quite informative, Virtue is looking to grasp the interest of people that enjoy learning new things.
An example of an ad made by virtue: this advert shows a good representation of a happy and colourful home life where Vice has used both black and white people in the advert to make it not racist.
My idea:
My chosen idea is theme parks and my idea could be relevant to Vice by having my vlog at Alton Towers like a documentary as Vice make documentaries, my vlog can fit in with their work due to the age group being very similar. For each of the 5 business lines, my idea fits into Vice Media as it is about learning new things and my vlog will be about learning new things like the attractions for example. Media is targeted towards late teens or in their twenties, so my idea would fit in nicely as my target audience is 18-24-year-olds.
Vice could look at various roller coasters around the world and compare them to find out which one is the most thrilling and scariest. And making a documentary about them or a theme park’s newest attraction and how it has brought the crowds in.
SMART Target:
Specific: make client research blog
Measurable: set a time period (few hours per day) to do the blog post in and make changes and do research
Attainable: yes as long as I put my mind to it
Realistic: yes as long as I have time each day dedicated to the blog post.
Timebound: complete this week by the next lesson