QUESTION 3:

What have you learned from your audience research?

 

 



 

Firstly, before deciding on a method to use to communicate with my intended target audience, I did some initial background research on the people who represented my target audience. From this initial research I found out that our indie pop target audience were of the age between 16- 24 years of age. I also found out that the disposable level of income was minimal was due our target audience only being students. Therefore, this was something to consider when thinking about how simplistic and cost less our video should be made to look e.g. by setting it in somewhere such as a warehouse, to reduce costs.

When carrying out our audience research, we initially thought of the idea of creating an audience feedback video. This decision was decided upon the fact we thought it would create a more reliable and non-biased opinion of the individuals being questioned, rather than them having minimal choices of what to answer and them using a ‘right answerism’ approach (a sociological approach of the survival strategy E.g. Involves pleasing the questioner by giving or appearing to give the right answer). This could be also known as preferential answers the candidate feels they need to give to satisfy the questioner.  Therefore, this would lead to valid results that we could analyse to create correct representations of our target audience.

 

I also thought this idea would be successful due to the fact it would enable each individual to expand on their ideas and opinions instead of just simply stating one or two  words to describe what they thought would work/what they expected to see in an indie pop genre video. When selecting whom we aimed to question, as we had already established our target audience would be 16-24 year olds, with not excessive disposable income, we chose to question 17-18 year old students who attended out college. We interviewed two girls and two boys so we could compare the variation in gender difference to establish if they had similar expectations of the indie pop genre and to see if they expected and wanted to see the same connotations.

The following questions below are what we asked our interviewees:

 

 

 

However, the only possible problems with this method is due to ourselves knowing the individuals being questioned this could lead to biased answers. Therefore, this  also links to as we are only questioning 17-18 year olds there opinions could not be relevant and significant to those of say 23-24 year olds that are also included in our target audience.

Although this method gave some understanding as to a broadened assumption of what our target audience wanted and expected, the sample we interviewed was not a sufficient amount of people to represent. Therefore, I then decided that we would carry out other forms of audience research to clarify and conclude that our findings from the video questionnaire were correct and would lead us to valid results/findings.

 The methodology I then went on to use was to give ten individuals of mixed gender, five of each genre, a questionnaire for them to fill out. The reason for using this method is due to we aimed to not give them a choice of answers to select. However, we would leave a section for them to fill out their opinion. Therefore, we would then classify the findings into relevant categories to sort out the different variation in answers to find which was most chosen.

 

This method involved giving the individuals the questionnaire to fill out, while staying with them to answer any queries or questions they had. This led to if they did not understand the question; they were able to ask rather than just guessing therefore, this not leading to un-reliable data which would not be accurate.

However, the problems which surfaced with this method would be due to the option of having a completely open section for the interviewee to choose their selection of answer to the question, this was then tricky to  compromise results together in sections.  Although due to all results being similar in some formation this led to all options fitting into a particular section.

 

From my research undertaken it was clear to see that our intended audience expected a variety of elements that they thought was essential in an indie genre music promo video.

Firstly, the demographics such as colouring they wished to see were of gritty colours mixed with bright colours. Therefore, by putting our artist in front of a monochrome bleak background, this enabled our artists and their bright but causal clothing to stick out from the action behind their lyrics within the song.  Another result which I found interesting was the young people related section, this could have been chosen due to fact that our target audience are of 16-24 years old. Therefore, this is classed as the younger therefore, by stating this choice of colouring they are saying they want to see clothing and colours which they would wear, which would relate to them.

When creating our music promo video, we did exactly this, we chose costumes which would fit out target audience, and we also chose actors of the age of our target audience, so our target audience could reason with them and feel on the same level as them.

 

 



 

The second instalment of feedback I took into consideration after analysing my results from our target audience was what props our intended audience expected to see in our music promo video.  The most chosen opinion was instruments at 50%. Therefore, after doing initial audience research before we interviewed and then asked a selection of people to answer our questionnaire, I had knowledge that instruments were a key factor to be used. Therefore, it was essential when filming that we took multiple close ups and extreme close ups to show of the skills of the band members and to broadcast their talents. However, one surprising result was the 30% that stated they expected to see ‘street objects’ in the mise-en-scene. This was surprising as I did not know how to generalise this option due to the statement being so vague and not distinct on what that percentage of our target audience expected to see.

After producing all material of our promotional package, we then interviewed 5 candidates, 3 boys, 1 girl and 1 women (whom of which was a teacher).

 

 

From this interview it enabled ourselves to find out what our target audience really thought of our overall music promo video and if it stuck to the conventions and the expectations we had gathered from our original initial audience research. Therefore, this meaning that we will have realised if we had met the overall aim of this project.