Primary Audience
We decided that our primary audience should be those who's are fans of the Electronic/ alternative genre, mainly due to the fact that this genre is currently quite quiet within the charts, therefore is arguably a gap in the market in terms of maximisation of reach. Although quite niche, it is particularly popular within the UK and specifically London so we feel that we can still gain a lot of popularity within the community.
Secondary Audience
We decided that our primary audience should be those who's are fans of the Electronic/ alternative genre, mainly due to the fact that this genre is currently quite quiet within the charts, therefore is arguably a gap in the market in terms of maximisation of reach. Although quite niche, it is particularly popular within the UK and specifically London so we feel that we can still gain a lot of popularity within the community.
Secondary Audience
As a secondary audience, we picked out people aged from their late teens to mid twenties, as this is generally the predominant age group for listeners of both the electronic and indie genres, therefore we should use them as a model age group in order to guarantee audience consumption.
Tertiary Audience
Our Tertiary Audience are of a slightly older age group- aged from mid 30's to early 40's, hoping to appeal to a more niche audience, however, as a group we feel that the song choice is not too overwhelming for the older listener, and they could relate to the images of youth portrayed in the video in a sense of nostalgia.
This diagram shows further specific details of our audiences and how we aimed to target them:
Audience Theory
In an attempt to successfully target both my target audiences and also a wider audience, I integrated Blumler and Katz' 'Uses and Gratifications Theory' into my construction of the NTLS artist. Blumler and Katz argue that in order for the product to be a success it must enable at least one of four outcomes when consumed by the audience. I have created a grid below of the four factors and how we achieved them:
Stuart Hall
In his theory on Encoding and Decoding he said that the audience are not only active, but also are a group of people rather than an undifferentiated mass- this is based on his theory of the communication process:
Nothing has meaning when produced, only when recieved by the consumer- he called the stages of the communication process 'moments':
1) The moment of encoding- the creation of a text, when forms structures and codes and conventions are used to create a text with an intended meaning.
2) The moment of text - The symbolic existence of the task as it is published or broadcast- the focus of semiotics
3) The moment of decoding - When an individual with a unique set of values and attitudes encounters the text- regarded as more the moment of creation than the first stage.
We used this by created a very sculptable text for the audiences, but also opposed this with other rigid products
Audience research
Our Tertiary Audience are of a slightly older age group- aged from mid 30's to early 40's, hoping to appeal to a more niche audience, however, as a group we feel that the song choice is not too overwhelming for the older listener, and they could relate to the images of youth portrayed in the video in a sense of nostalgia.
This diagram shows further specific details of our audiences and how we aimed to target them:
RESEARCH AND PLANNING
Audience Theory
In an attempt to successfully target both my target audiences and also a wider audience, I integrated Blumler and Katz' 'Uses and Gratifications Theory' into my construction of the NTLS artist. Blumler and Katz argue that in order for the product to be a success it must enable at least one of four outcomes when consumed by the audience. I have created a grid below of the four factors and how we achieved them:
Stuart Hall
In his theory on Encoding and Decoding he said that the audience are not only active, but also are a group of people rather than an undifferentiated mass- this is based on his theory of the communication process:
Nothing has meaning when produced, only when recieved by the consumer- he called the stages of the communication process 'moments':
1) The moment of encoding- the creation of a text, when forms structures and codes and conventions are used to create a text with an intended meaning.
2) The moment of text - The symbolic existence of the task as it is published or broadcast- the focus of semiotics
3) The moment of decoding - When an individual with a unique set of values and attitudes encounters the text- regarded as more the moment of creation than the first stage.
We used this by created a very sculptable text for the audiences, but also opposed this with other rigid products
Audience research
By keeping audiences in mind throughout the entire project, we made audience research throughout the project to ensure hat we knew how to target, and also were effectively targeting our audience:
My first attempt at gaining real audience feedback was during the research and planning stage, where I surveyed a number of my peers and family to get a basic review of the music trends within society, here are a few examples:
Animatic Feedback
After showing our animatic to members of our target audience, we were told that overall, they were really interested by the concept of our music video, however, there were a few possible improvements which they pointed out:
1) Improve the cuts to match the beat of the song consistently.
2) show more f the artists i one shot than the narrative to make it clearer that they are the focus, also use the non singing sections to show the narrative.
3) Make the movements of the artists seem more continuous and logical- show them in their new positions as they move towards one another.
Taking all of these views into consideration, we created a new improved animatic 2.0, which we used to base our final real video upon.
Album cover Feedback
We created a basic mock up of the entire layout of the cover using sketches and stock images:
We then used this image to send to a quick audience research chat we set up- and were very happy with the results- with most of the subjects saying that they found the idea unique and very visually appealing.
The soundcloud clip below presents individual feedback of those questioned:
Furthermore, we also showed our audience the plans for the front of our cover, and as a result of the feedback we were able to make various changes to increase appeal and sales. The diagram on the left displays how audience feedback influenced our album cover plans. Using the feedback we were able to make various changes to increase appeal and sales.
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| Diagram showing how we used feedback to construct our digipak |
CONSTRUCTION
During the production stage, much of the focus on gaining audience feedback was not so much to aid targeting the correct audience, but more to do with the visual aspect of our products- we used various methods to gain real advice on how we could change our product to make them more appealing:
We asking fellow pupils for their views on the video and possible improvements in a video interview:
The subjects told us that:
As a result we made the following changes:
- We edited the structure of the timeline- cutting out some of the unnecessary footage from the break up sequence, and using more obvious signs of a deterioration in the relationship. This meant that the narrative now flowed better and made it more obvious as to the end of the love.
-We also added more performance footage in, as after reviewing the point made int the interview, we noticed that there was a lack of representation of the stars in the last 40 seconds. We cut the sequence so that the return to performance seems to indicate a speeding up of time in the narrative section, and when returning to it, the issues of the relationship clearly seem to have deteriorated over time- meaning that the narrative was now completely clear and no longer misleading.
The subjects told us that:
Positive - The story makes sense and flows well
Positive-The transition between old and new very effective and clear
Negative -The break up happens too quickly and is slightly confusing until the very end
Negative -Break up could be made clearer and seem more realistic if separated occasionally by a return to the performance.
As a result we made the following changes:
- We edited the structure of the timeline- cutting out some of the unnecessary footage from the break up sequence, and using more obvious signs of a deterioration in the relationship. This meant that the narrative now flowed better and made it more obvious as to the end of the love.
-We also added more performance footage in, as after reviewing the point made int the interview, we noticed that there was a lack of representation of the stars in the last 40 seconds. We cut the sequence so that the return to performance seems to indicate a speeding up of time in the narrative section, and when returning to it, the issues of the relationship clearly seem to have deteriorated over time- meaning that the narrative was now completely clear and no longer misleading.
WEBSITE
In order to gain audience feedback on our website plans, we conducted a series of reviews of our website plan with friends and family. We showed them the rough sketch of our website (shown below) and asked whether they liked the layout, and what they thought that the site was missing:
As a result, we learned that the audience were most interested by the use of displaying the same graphic as our album cover as the central image of the site. They said that the use of the same background across the products was also a unique twist on the conventional site. However, from their feedback we also realised that our original website plan lacked detail, therefore sought to add more interactive content- such as record label details and links to the NTLS social networks. We then took to website creator Wix to create a draft real website- this is shown below:
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| The initial template of our website which I created in Wix |
We then sought feedback on this structure from classmates and others of the audience demographics, and made the following voice recording to record their opinions:
ALBUM COVER
MUSIC VIDEO
In order to gain feedback on our finished video, we created an online survey using www.surveymonkey.co.uk- we proposed 10 simple questions- 8 multiple choice answers and two asking for written feedback:
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.
Overall, the feedback which we recieved has been really helpful in getting a genuine overall assessment of the success of our music video, as because it is an anonymous survey, people were able to give their honest opinions.Here is an analysis of the feedback we recieved:
The responses to the question on the overall rating of the video showed us that most people rated the video 7 out of ten or higher. However, three people who took the survey did not seem to enjoy it- rating it below 5 out of 10- hopefully these were just because they were not the targeted or wider audience, therefore our targeting did not fail.
The result which we were most surprised with was the genre identification question. We had estimated that when watching the video, the alternative nature of the video would confuse the audience as to the actual genre, however, we were wrong.
The results show that all of those interviewed successfully identified the indie/ alternative genre of the music, with 32% also noticing the electronic element of the artist, even though the song itself is not obviously electronic. This arguably highlights that our conformity to the conventions of electronic artists music videos was successful enough to present NTLS as one.
We also discovered that over 80% of those who watched the video rated it a clear and engaging video This confirmed to s that we had been successful in meeting the brief.
Overall, the feedback which we recieved has been really helpful in getting a genuine overall assessment of the success of our music video, as because it is an anonymous survey, people were able to give their honest opinions.Here is an analysis of the feedback we recieved:
The result which we were most surprised with was the genre identification question. We had estimated that when watching the video, the alternative nature of the video would confuse the audience as to the actual genre, however, we were wrong. The results show that all of those interviewed successfully identified the indie/ alternative genre of the music, with 32% also noticing the electronic element of the artist, even though the song itself is not obviously electronic. This arguably highlights that our conformity to the conventions of electronic artists music videos was successful enough to present NTLS as one.
We also discovered that over 80% of those who watched the video rated it a clear and engaging video This confirmed to s that we had been successful in meeting the brief.
We also included two questions asking for a written response, and although these were less frequently answered than the multiple choice questions- with 10 people skipping both questions 8 and 10- overall these responses were very useful as they gave personal opinions of the video.
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| From these responses the success of the video's narrative clarity and overall quality was confirmed- with many individuals referring to the professional standard of the video, which we were both surprised and pleased by. |
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| The fact that 72% of those questioned said that they were encouraged by the video to buy the album suggests hat our video was successful in selling the band image to our target audiences and encouraged them to consume other NTLS products |
Audience Reactions
We also recorded a couple of members of our target audience as they watched the video to see their initial reactions, and capture whether they truly liked or disliked it:
Video Analytics
Please click on the PowToon slideshow below to activate it and use the left and right arrows on your keyboard to navigate between the slides:
What I have Learned
Through analysing the results of the various audience research surveys I conducted, I was able to gain an understanding as to what kind of artist the audience actually wanted. From the earlier research, I learned that they wanted an artist representing a greater array of ethnicity, in particular their own specific minority as well as the ethnic diversity of London in particular. I was also happy to learn that my research suggesting that our indie genre of Electronic Alternative was on the rise in London, and the audiences later great interest in our final products highlighted this.
Furthermore, my analysis of audience behaviour enabled me to understand that in today's society, the majority of young people see the internet as a large part of their lives, so would prefer for the products of an artist to be completely online. Arguably, we succeeded in reaching our audience in this way- as the hub of our project was the NTLS website- where every product could be consumed and purchased.
Our reasonably high number of YouTube views and survey responses arguably reflected our success in targeting the correct audience demographics- especially the more niche secondary audience of London Teens as they seemed to be the biggest consumers of our video- not only this but we also managed to attract those less keen on the artist image with our VHS footage as planned- with an individual highlighting how it gave the video a nostalgic feel- showing how we offered both entertainment and escape for the audience.
Furthermore, my analysis of audience behaviour enabled me to understand that in today's society, the majority of young people see the internet as a large part of their lives, so would prefer for the products of an artist to be completely online. Arguably, we succeeded in reaching our audience in this way- as the hub of our project was the NTLS website- where every product could be consumed and purchased.
Our reasonably high number of YouTube views and survey responses arguably reflected our success in targeting the correct audience demographics- especially the more niche secondary audience of London Teens as they seemed to be the biggest consumers of our video- not only this but we also managed to attract those less keen on the artist image with our VHS footage as planned- with an individual highlighting how it gave the video a nostalgic feel- showing how we offered both entertainment and escape for the audience.
I feel that overall, our creation and promotion of a current, individual and multi-ethnic duo meant that we were rather successful in meeting the brief and reaching the audience. I feel that I have learned a lot from the marketing side of the project, and now understand how much effort must go into researching and targeting the correct audience in order to ensure an artist or product's success. In hindsight I feel that overall we were very successful in achieving our aims, however, one thing that we did not do so well on which stands out to me is our interaction with the Tertiary audience: I feel that in reflection, due to our devout focus on reaching the primary and secondary audiences- predominantly consisting of a Younger audience - therefore, there was not enoug material or outreach provided in order to reach the tertiary audience.
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