What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Slide 2
Questionnaire for Target Audience
The first ever piece of research into our target audience Billie and I conducted was a questionnaire. In this we wanted to find out our participants favourite genre of music and what they preferred to see in a music video. We asked our target audience which genre they preferred of music and gave them the option of Rap, R’n’B, Pop and House and and the most popular answer we got in return was ‘Pop’ and ‘House’. This really prompted us in finalising the decision for our song choice which was ‘Places’ as we realised this song fell into the popular genre of music in which our target audience liked. We then asked our target audience if they preferred watching narrative or choreography based music video and the majority of the answered narrative based as they liked to follow a story throughout watching the music video and preferably something that linked with the lyrics so that it is easier to follow. This was a positive thing for Billie and I to hear as this is the type of road we wanted to go down with our music video, so we were pleased to learn that our target audience liked this sort of idea for our music video as this was our original idea.
This piece of target audience feedback helped us a great deal as it clarified a few uncertain decisions for us and answered a few questions which we did not know in terms of what our target audience liked and disliked or preferred in general. By conducting this research and gaining audience feedback it broadened our knowledge into what the audience we were appealing to liked and it allowed us to make the best decisions as to what would satisfy them which was our initial aim and goal. In the next slide is an example of the questionnaire Billie and I created.
Throughout our process we tried to get as much input from the outside and target audience as possible in order to create a final product that would not only satisfy our target audience but also keep within the conventions of a modern day Pop music video. We thought that this was the most important factors in order to gain key success throughout the whole process and for the final piece. Billie and I conducted a focus group where we went through our moodboard, different song choices, costume ideas, our initial ideas and more with 5 different participants who included: Jemma, James, Charlotte, Martyna and Jack. The focus group agreed with that they liked our initial idea of having different locations which would link to the song which we wanted to choose being ‘Places’. Charlotte stated that she liked the idea of wearing festival clothing and also having the idea of festivals being included in certain locations and the idea of different locations would link with the song lyrics and the costumes and actual location would link with the music playing in the background of the lyrics to ‘Places’.
This focus group was helpful as it enabled us to discuss certain topics on which we was unsure about before we even made the music video and we liked this because it gave us a deeper insight into what our target audience may want to see as possible ideas in the future of the production of ‘Places’.
Slide 5
First Draft of ‘Places’ Focus Group
Our final piece of feedback came from a focus group of male and female participants whereby we showed them our music video and asked them questions as to what they thought of our first draft. We gained negative and positive feedback, however the majority of this was mostly positive and entailed us to actually better and improve our music video. The focus group all agreed that they liked the different effects and transitions that we used and thought they were very typical of a Pop music video genre. However they decided to give us some criticism which Billie and I took onboard and we decided that we were going to put this into action as we wanted to please our target audience and just go with what we were happy with. The criticism in which Billie and I received was along the lines of ‘use the black and white filter for all of the flashbacks.’ At first Billie and I did not agree nor did we particularly like this idea at the start but we later realised that this made the flashbacks and memories more evident and we grew to like this idea.
In this sense, this set of feedback from our target audience was extremely helpful as it enabled us to make some minor changes to our music video before the whole thing being finalised and in the long run, it did indeed improve the whole look of the video as the black and white effect could be conveyed to show negative emotion when Nina Rae is missing her boyfriend and that is why the flashbacks are being shown. Overall this was very useful as it gave us a deeper understanding into what our target audience wants to see as opposed to what Billie and I thought was best for our music video as we are the ones who created the ideas, therefore know what each of them mean, whereas our target audience can only interpret what the narrative of our music video is, therefore anything that they say from an outside point of view means that they are more able to understand what the narrative means which is why we put their ideas into play.
Slide 6
Focus Group on Final Draft of ‘Places’
We finally conducted a focus group made up of male participants whereby we asked them what they thought of the final draft of our music video. We got very positive feedback from them, and even if they did dislike anything within the music video and give us suggestions to change certain parts, we would have been unable to do this as we showed them our final draft; luckily however, this was not the case. We asked the boys what general feedback they could give us and they agreed that they liked the use of colour and the fact that we used the black and white effect to show flashbacks, and they also thought that it fitted the genre of the song very well. We were pleased with this feedback as we felt that we had fulfilled our initial aims with the whole idea of fitting with the genre. They later went on to tell us that the black and white effects used of flashbacks looked better showing memories, than they did in the first draft which showed us that we had made the right decision by putting the flashbacks of different scenes in black and white.
We were extremely pleased with this feedback which we had from our focus group, however, we could have made the genders more even to make the sample of participants more representative when we chose who we wanted to be in our focus group, as they were all male, yet I do not think that this affected our outcome in results.
Slide 7
Overall
Throughout this whole process, it was vital that Billie and I checked what our target audience thought about different potential big decisions that we were to make. This was so essential as we wanted to create a product that mainly satisfied our target audience, therefore we had to get their feedback, this was a very important factor. I think that Billie and I did extremely well in listening to what our target audience had to say and we done our best to put their thoughts and suggestions into place which is evident throughout their feedback correlating with our final piece. We took the positive criticism on board and this proved to be a good decision as it was what our target audience wanted to see, which was our main focus.
Overall I am happy with the feedback Billie and I were given and I feel that by taking time to listen to what our target audience had to say, this actually gave our music video a better and more positive finish which I am very pleased about.
