Question 3: What have you learned from your
audience feedback? -
Audience feedback is incredibly important throughout the
production of media products as it makes sure that the product is
targeting the correct demographic of people. I found that this was
very true when creating my media products so that it was successful
with my audience.
Initially to find my target audience I created an audience profile which
involved me creating a questionnaire to ask a large amount of people to get
their feedback. I used both Survey Monkey and paper questionnaires to find
out this feedback. I also researched on Twitter and Facebook, looking at chill
genre artists to see what sort of fans there were that supported these artists.
Through this research I discovered my target audience was
slightly more female at around 55% (female) to 45% (male)
which meant I would marginally tailor my products towards a
female audience but at the same time not forgetting that the
split of the genders was near to 50/50. This assisted me in
choosing to cast a girl for my music video as this would allow
them to relate more to the video.
I placed a statement saying "You like to express your style and fashion", I found
people who liked the chill genre agreed less and stated they do not care more
than those who did not like the chill genre. This shown to me that my audience
were most likely more involved and interested in more meaningful events and
matter in their lives, assisting me on my choice a concept music video (refering to
Lynch's theory of music video types) because concept music videos tend to be
filled with more meaningful.
I found that my target audience used social networks and sharing based media
frequently, especially more than those who did not like the chill genre which
helped me learn to add social media links to my artist's pages to further appeal
to my audience.
I discovered my audience who like the chill genre use digital platforms (such
as YouTube and Soundcloud) more often that other people so I added a
Soundcloud link to my Digipak and music magazine to the artist's webpage,
so the song "Aerial" can be listened to as well as other tracks that may
interest my audience. Referring to Blumler and Katz theory of uses and
gratification, when creating my promotional package I was fully aware of the
way audiences use media for their own personal uses and to get
gratification out of it. So in having additional content for my audiences to
access it makes my promotional package overall have a longer shelf life and
allows my audiences to entertain themselves further than the package
intself.
1
My next feedback that I gained was in regards to my music video which assisted
me on realizing both strengths and areas for improvement with it. This was done
through hot desking which was with my class of media students. This means the
feedback was on an individual level so it would be very direct and they would be
be able to analyse it more in terms of conventions and with an audience in mind,
rather than a non-media student who would not understand this. I created an
array of questions in relation to my music video to cover any possible areas that
could be improved.
From this feedback I learned that my editing was clean and that the build of the
editing pace was good. The build up I used in my music video was important to
link with the energy and volume in the music to reflect the energy and ideas of
life in my music video. Another couple of strengths I found was that my theme of
exploration was clear and the visual effects worked well. This helped me to know
my idea was clear for an audience to follow and that the visual effects that are
conventional to the chill genre were working well.
Some areas for improvement I learned were to sync the footage closer to
the rhythm of the music which I did so that my music video would have a
more professional look to it.
It was suggested to have more footage of my actor near the end with a more
conclusive ending, which I also chose to do, as it did seem as if my actor
suddenly disappeared half way through the video. This helped to make my
music video have more of a flow and would appeal to chill genre (and other
close related genres) better.
In this feedback I was recommended to decrease the overly
repeatative footage. I chose to do this because even though the chill
genre music videos that I analysed had a feature of repetition of
shots, I did agree that I repeated shots too much in comparison to
the videos I looked at.
There are however a few limitations with hotdesking, this is because hotdesking is only
singular people making comments. They are not prompt to discuss their thoughts with
other people or expand to much detail on their thoughts, which means some of the
comments were a bit short and did not supply much detail for me to respond to in my
work.
2
I had another session of hotdesking, this time it was for all of
my three products in my promotional package. I again set-up
questions so that the students in my class could think of
possible aspects that could be improved in my promotional
package.
I learned that the scenes, shots and editing suited the chill genre and
made the idea of exploration clear. I found this promising that this was
still seen by other students, as I had previously asked this. The light leaks I
had implemented were said to compliment the colours and added
emotion to the music video, which was positive as my target was to
impact people on a deeper level, as appose to mainstream genres, such as
pop which have very on the surface and obvious music videos.
The artist's note gained positive views, I used the note because
my artist is independent so they can connect to their fans more
closely than mainstream artists, this influenced me to keep the
note. I learnt that the Digipak inside panels looked "lovely" and
the contrast of the black and white spines with the front panels
worked well, this also influenced my decision to keep them like this.
I learned that my idea of creating a morning to night transition within
my Digipak inside panels was not very clear. Referring to Stuart Hall's
reception theory, I did not encode my message clear enough in my
Digipak, so it was not decoded in the preferred way by my audience,
which is what I wanted to do. From this I chose to follow the idea to
fade the photographs together to encode the idea of transition more
clearly.
It was suggested to take a photograph of the
same scene so that it was clear that it was a
transition of morning to night however I was
against this Idea as it meant that there could
only be a sunrise image and not a sunset or a
photograph with artificial lighting. So I chose to
go against this to better link with my music
video.
I learnt that the artist's note text across the panel looked too "bulky",
which I understood as it was not equally spread across the panel, so I
chose to take this advice which improved the balance of my Digipak
inside panels.
3
I organised a focus group of my target audience so that they could discuss my whole
promotional package and give detailed opinions. I asked questions I had prepared that
were open ended to allow my group to give valuable and detailed responses. I chose my
target age range and I made sure I had a reasonably balanced gender ratio to have my
products judged well as they are targeted to both genders. I also chose non-media
students so that my group had a natural reaction that an audience would have and so
that I could see if I had encoded my products correctly to be decoded in the preferred
way that I wanted.
From the comments made on my music video I learned that my
target audience understood what my music video was about and
that the audio, visuals and effects reflected the chill genre enforcing
that I had encoded my idea and related it to the chill genre to get the
preferred response from my audience.
With my inside Digipak panels I learned that I had encoded the transition
through a day idea well with the fading photographs from morning to night, as I
received comments saying they understood this as "three pictures blended into
one" and saying " it;s a sort of blurring through a single day". In inspiration of
real chill genre album covers, I found that their work was very minimal and had
made good use of space. I learned I had reflected this well in my Digipak with
my group saying it looked "Minimalistic" and "Simplistic".
There were some conflicting views in my focus group when I asked whether there was
a good amount of detail on my magazine advert and does it catch their attention.
Someone commented "it is simplistic but not so much that it is lacking information",
however two others said there "Could be more information on the music itself" and
"Yeah, like it could have reviews or ratings on it". I learned that two out of the three
people in my focus group thought there could be some extra information, however I
chose not to follow this recommendation as I thought the simplicity of the magazine
advert worked well to look interesting and link to the chill genre. Also adding extra
information would mean obstructing parts of the image which I did not wish to do
because the image is so important to the product and brand identity.
I succeeded in creating a strong brand identity throughout my promotional
package which I learned from my focus group. I asked whether
there was a clear link between the three products and they commented
"definitely", "the peaceful atmosphere and use of colourful lighting links the
three", "I also think the font links the Digipak and advert" and "it looks like
you've almost used the same shots used in the music video". The brand
identity is strong and features I added to my products have also stood out
which is very positive, such as the modernistic font and my focus group
realized the link between the music video visuals and the Digipak imagery.
I asked the expected audience that my products would appeal to and my focus
group said "late teenagers", "young people" and "people who like music like chill
or calm style music". My target audience was thus correctly identified throughout
my promotional package and appeals to them well.