1. Question 3 – What have
you learned from your
audience feedback?
By Beth Warne
2. Types of audience feedback
It was vital that throughout the completion of my music video and ancillary pieces that I had carried out a
vast amount of audience research and used the findings to shape my products. The customer is always
right, right? Well as I had a specific target audience, having both positive and negative opinions from the
specific audience would allow me to create and edit my pieces to suit their likes. What types of audience
feedback did I use?
1) Audience Profile through audience research – by delving deep into Southlakes current fan base, I
was able to begin creating a picture of whom exactly I was appealing to. Yet also, as Southlakes
listed their influences, this enabled me to explore those different band’s audience to gain a wider
understanding of the genre’s audience. The ideas collated from this would help shape my products
for Southlakes so that they would appeal to future audiences.
2) Online Questionnaire – Using the site ‘SurveyMonkey’, I was able to create a short questionnaire
that I could post on many online forums and social networking sites to gain a large amount of data
from a wide range of individuals – not just people who enjoyed Southlakes, but also those who had
similar demographics as my target audience and so I could manipulate these results for my own
products
3) Focus Group Feedback – I used physical questionnaires and an open discussion type method in
order to gain feedback on my first draft video and also ancillary texts. Using this feedback, I would be
given positives and negatives of my products and therefore would be given ways to change and
improve my products to make them specifically more appealing for my target audience.
I tried to include a method of feedback in each stage of my production as this would constantly be able to
guide me with any changes that were needed.
3. Audience Profile Research
Before I even began creating any ideas for my end products, I completed a lengthy
amount of audience research to create a detailed audience profile. This was highly
important as it would shape all my future choices and would be the post I constantly
referred back to.
I found out from my audience profiling exactly;
- what age range my target audience were
- what music were they mainly interested in
- what type of music videos they enjoy.
Because I received a wide range of details for my target audience, this would allow me
to chose specific people to act as participants in my focus groups. Also, by completing
this audience research, I would be able to see first hand how the media theories
worked. Such as the hypodermic syringe needle theory in which it is claimed an
audience see an act and without hesitation almost suck in all the information and
absorb it. Which would be effective if I were showing an individual my video as they
would absorb all the details and information and would enjoy it without being passive.
Yet also, if someone did not just absorb the information they would actively resist and
hopefully offer me methods of improvement.
4. Online Questionnaire Analysis
In order to gain an insight into whom exactly was going to be my target audiences and
what their preferences were, I conducted an online survey on SurveyMonkey. I created
7 questions some of a simple nature, such as asking their age and some asking for
more detail such as what kind of music videos they enjoy. Completing this survey
helped me to understand a considerable amount of details about my target audience so
it was incredibly helpful.
When completing question 1, to find out what age range were answering my survey, I
discovered 85% of responses were from people in my specific target audience and so I
believed this would enable me to use my results as they were valid for the task ahead.
The second question of gender abled me to see if there would be any distinct
differences amongst males and females, as I wanted to engage both genders and so
was important to consider both opinions
5. My third question allowed me to see if I was right in assuming that the respondents of my survey
would also make up the credentials of the individuals within my target audience. I decided to keep to
very generic music genres with the option of 'Other' for the respondents to add their own categories if
needed. I was keen to keep to very generic genres as I was solely interested on seeing how music
tastes have changed and if my target audience are drawn to unexpected music genres. This was
supported this as the clear winner was "Pop-Punk", followed by "Indie". Southlakes have had
influences in their music by bands that feature in both of these genres and therefore I believe that the
respondents of my survey truly are reflective of my target audience. This also suggested that these
individuals would be the sort of people I would want to contact to be involved with my focus group.
When asking my next questions, I heavily focused on asking questions such as “How often do you
attend gigs?”. This was again to find suitable individuals for my focus group as I thought that using
individuals who attend a lot of gigs was more effective as they were probably more interested in
music than someone who did not attend any.
6. My final two questions were created with the intention of finding out what type of music
video my audience prefer. When the majority all said narrative, I decided this would be
the most effective route to take when deciding what I was going to do for my own video.
The other question asked what draws an individual to a music video and most
responses simply claimed that an interesting story that has elements of mystery is what
they enjoyed. And so using this information it suggested to me that I should focus on
using an engaging storyline for my own video, which is what I ultimately tried to create.
I believe this audience survey was incredibly helpful and enabled me to learn what
aspects my target audience would truly enjoy to see within my piece, rather than going
in blindly and not having sufficient evidence as to what would make an effective music
video. All this information was what gave me the inspiration and ideas to create my first
draft for my video and therefore I believe just from this simple survey I learned a lot in
which I could work on for my planning.
7. Focus Group Feedback - Video
When my first draft had been completed, I was able to get a few individuals from my target audience involved
and discuss my video and ancillary texts. The group consisted of; Jacob Warne (20) whom has a strong
interest in the Pop-Punk genre, Caleb Warne (16) who enjoys Easycore music, Charlie Satchell (17) who
studies music producing therefore I thought it would be interesting to get his opinion, Abi Jones Pitt (18) who
enjoys Hardcore, Lili Ward (17) and Harriet Biss (17) who enjoy pop music but also some Emo artists, also. I
believed my focus group was reflective of my overall target audience, but also had some interesting qualities.
I wanted to have both males and females of different ages to see just how much different demographics
enjoyed it. The positives of using this focus group was that I could personally interact and this meant I could
delve deeper into answers or get them to clarify if I was unsure, negatives that occur when using
questionnaire methods.
After a long group discussion with these individuals about my first cut video, and as any time I had to edit my
video was short, any large negatives I received I would change. The feedback I received was relatively
positive, with both the girls enjoying the emotional side of the story and the males enjoying the harsh,
boldness to the track. The group got into a discussion about Goodwin’s Theory and the fact that I had
purposely decided not to add the notion of looking, especially with females, and said they liked that idea.
However, both Charlie and Lili pointed out that in a few sections of my video, there were prolonged gaps.
Although I had purposely put them there, they suggested adding in transitions which would result in them
becoming a lot smoother and more enjoyable for the audience. Also, Jacob suggested that I delete a previous
scene I had which showed the male character’s face. “As he is of a younger age, I don’t feel as though I can
relate as well, whereas when his face was covered I felt more engaged as a viewer”. I believed this was an
incredibly valuable point, especially when looking at the pluralist view that in order to be successful, you must
give the audience what they want and so by making them feel as though they can relate, this engages them
more. Therefore I completely removed the scene in which the character’s face was shown. These were the
only huge changes which I was constructed to do and so I was pleased that the video had been received so
well!
8. Focus Group Feedback – Ancillary texts
After showing my focus group my video, I then showed them my ancillary texts. I decided to do it in
this order as they were able to hear Southlakes sound and then see the visual representation I had
created for them. The main question I had was about the magazine advert, what did they think? Could
they tell I had edited the image? Was it too simplistic? All of the members did not realise I had edited
the image as they felt it had been done so well and they liked the simplistic design, one of them said
they could see it being on a billboard in a city and I was incredibly proud. However Abi made a
suggestion that the image could be lighter as it almost was too much of a contrast with the white
background. And so after taking this advice I simply used the brightness tool on Photoshop and made
the picture a lot less dark so it coincided with the background a lot more smoothly.
We then discussed the digipak cover and to begin with I was concerned as the group seemed slightly
confused by the different elements. But once I had explained them they reported back on how they
loved the front cover and told me not to change it as it was a clever, unique idea and truly something
that would be seen in the shops. They also liked the back cover and the synergy created between that
and the magazine advert. Likewise with the characters in the central panel. However I did receive
some criticism that lead me to make a complete change to one panel. To begin with, the panel where
the desk sat was just a picture of the two models. Yet the group thought it was too much and if I chose
a subtle image instead that would sit next to the panel of the characters, it would be a lot more
effective. So I decided to change this image to one of a photo of a grass area that was next to the fire
in my video. After doing so I decided this was a lot more effective and the focus group were completely
right in saying that it was too much previously. When I changed it to a subtle image, the left panel
stood out a lot more and the main focus was then on the model characters and it was a lot more
engaging than previously.
9. Conclusion
What did I learn from my audience feedback?
From my overall audience feedback I learned that with every single step of creating a product, it is vital
to refer to your target audience and what THEY want. They are the ones who are deciding whether
your product is successful and so it is vital to keep them in mind constantly. In addition by using my
target audience for my focus group they were able to give me valuable improvements which resulted
in me changing my products to suit them as I knew it would make it more engaging for the viewer.
Also, by working alongside individuals within a focus group, I was able to see just how media theories
work and further appreciate that there is not just one opinion/view. Instead there are an unbelievable
amount and it is incredibly important to constantly consider Goodwin’s theory when creating products
as this does have an enormous effect on the audience. It made me consider the theories a lot more
intently and consider how to incorporate them into all of my products. Which after completing my
products I tried to add to appeal to the theories.
The main thing I learnt was that it is imperative to consider the right target audience straight away and
the more detailed your audience profiling is, the easier it is to come up with ideas to appeal specifically
to them. What I have learnt and will take away from this task is that if you create a detailed insight into
your audience profile, then this will make every other stage a lot smoother to work with, as the more
details you have, the easier it is to shape your product around your target audience.
