Captive Audience - Definition, Importance & Example

Published in Marketing and Strategy Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Captive Audience?

Captive audience is the audience who don’t have any option but to consume the advertisement as they are 'captivated' in a situation. Captive audience are a good audience for companies to advertise as people are engrossed in their activity and hence leaves an impression on the audience's mind. Situations like watching a movie in a theatre during which advertisements are played create captive audience. This audience has no other option but to watch these ads.


Importance of Captive Audience

Marketers use this captive audience opportunity to a great extent to reach out to its target market. Whether it is promoting a new product or describing about the features and benefits of using a product or a service, these ads are watched by every captive audience. They also make sure that the ads are not too much force-fed and are subtle so that it doesn’t create a negative impact among the customers as their main aim is not to watch these advertisements but to do something else. Usually these ads are tested before being launched in the market. The marketers test these ads on a sample of audience and record their behavior and use the feedback to modify the ads. This effort is made so as to provide a good experience to the target audience and get positive returns for their product.

Example of Captive Audience

A few examples of captive audience are as follows. There are many other situations like watching a cricket match during which the break between overs is 1-2 minutes. During this break not many of the viewers leave their seats and they have to watch the advertisements. Some other examples are waiting in queue at a supermarket, radio ads when listening to songs, ads inside a taxi, bus when you are travelling etc.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Captive Audience along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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