Thursday, 23 March 2017

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?


During the pre-production and editing process of making my video, I got advice from a lot of people who would be in my target audience, about what sort of things they liked and didn't like. The first thing that I did to get as much quality information, both demographic, psychographic, quantitative and qualitative information on my target audience that would help me to create my music video.

89 People took my survey, which was open for around 3 days. 



The first question asked “Are you male or female”. From the 89 respondents, I found that around a third were male, and round two thirds were female. This showed me that although my video had to be aimed at both a male and female audience, it should focus more on the female side.



The second question asked the respondent what their age was. The mean average age was 18.57 (so just over 18). The modal age was 18, and the median age was 18. The range was from 13 - 45. Around 75% (three quarters) of respondents were either 17 or 18. This showed me that my music video had to incorporate an issue/narrative that older teenagers would understand and find interesting. Transgenderism is a hot topic among youth at the moment, with issues like gender neutral toilets being in the news a lot, and transgender characters becoming more prominent on television shows like the hit Netflix original Orange is the New Black, which featured a critically acclaimed full episode about the issues faced by a transgender prisoner in an American prison. this is one of the reasons I chose the narrative that I did.



Around a third of respondents don’t watch music videos regularly. A fifth of them watch 2 to 4 per week. Through extrapolating the given data, I’d estimate that the mean average number of music videos watched weekly to be around three. This showed me that I need to make sure that my video was a conventional music video, as my audience are likely to be fluent in the language of codes and conventions of music videos. 



I asked respondents what they’d expect to see in an Electro-Pop music video, some of the common things that came up were:
  • Dancing
  • Animation
  • Drinking Alcohol
  • Flashing/Fluorescent Lights
  • Bright/Vibrant Colours
  • Something out of the ordinary
  • The artist
  • Spectacular Visuals
  • Singing
  • A Narrative
  • Eccentric Costumes
  • Expensive Things (e.g. luxury cars)
  • Drug abuse
  • Nightclub Setting
  • Sun and Partying
  • Groups of people
  • Music Festivals
  • LSD like hallucinations
  • Instruments
  • Acting
  • Flares
  • Symmetric shapes and illusions


This next question I think is quite important. I asked the respondents what they'd like to see in a music video. Some of the concepts that I saw come up a lot were:
  • The video relating to the song
  • Dancing
  • A story being told/Narrative
  • Famous people
  • People enjoying themselves
  • Abstract illusions/visuals
  • Drone/interesting shots
  • A story line that makes sense
This information was what I based my planning on, I tried to include as many of the things that my respondents said that they enjoyed watching in music videos, in order to make my music video as appealing and enjoying to watch for the target audience as possible. The video related to the song in many ways, which I explain in the video below. There is also dancing in the music video, there is a story told throughout the video, although there is no 'famous people' in the video. I included abstract illusions and visuals with the projector graphic. Although I didn't include and drone shots, as they wouldn't fit with the narrative, I did include macro shots which are on the opposite side of the scale. 


The next question asked people "What sort of thing do you NOT like to see in a music video?", their responses included:
  • Swearing
  • The video not relating to the song
  • Drugs and Smoking
  • No diversity
  • Bad mining
  • Lack of creativity
  • No story being told
  • Hyper-sexualisation of women
  • Product Placement
  • Sexual content
  • Irrelevant story lines that don't match the song
  • Club scenes
  • Fairytale perfect endings
    My music video didn't include any of the main points that people didn't like to see in music videos. I did this to make sure that the target audience would enjoy the video as much as possible.

    The last question asked people what their favorite music video was and why they liked it, a few of the more detailed responses were:

    Song Name
    Artist
    Reason the respondent liked the Music Video?
    Heathens
    Twenty One Pilots
    I like how the artist is in it throughout, and it tells a story but its not too over the top
    Thriller
    Michael Jackson
    The choreograph, how original it was at the time, the story, how well it goes with the song...
    St Anger
    Metallica
    Because the video was filmed in an active prison and there were no actors used so the entire audience were all convicted felons
    I Want You Back
    Take That
    Tells a story, nostalgic and happy memories. I can connect to it
    Rockabye
    Clean Bandit
    It tells a story and portrays the song in a different way to how it's heard
    What do you mean?
    Justin Beiber
    I like it as they is a story and a twist to it
    Touch The Sky
    Kanye West
    The editing and narrative match the genre
    Pumped Up Kicks
    Foster The People
    It is creative, unique and has a good narrative and heartful meaning
    High and Dry
    Radiohead
    Excellent filmography mixed in with a subtle storyline
    Snap out of it
    Arctic Monkeys
    Tells a story and keeps you interested, with everything that happens with in it, its fast pace and is eye catching
    Iron Sky
    Paolo Nutini
    The music video is very real it's very emotive and makes you think. It's relevant to the song
    Bad Day
    Daniel Powter
    Strong narrative, makes you feel something at the end
    If I Were a Boy
    Beyoncé
    The visuals are very stripped back so you can watch the video without the lyrics getting drowned as you would with an over powering video layout. It's almost like a short film in how it's produced so you get a feel for the characters in the video and their stories, the twist at the end gives you a surprise not all of them put the effort in to do. The twist gave it a powerful relatable theme , which complimented the song incredibly well.

    By doing this survey, I found out a lot of quantitative and qualitative data about my target audience. I found that the majority of the target audience were females (65%) ages 17-18. I found that the target audience was quite into music videos, watching around 3 per week - this showed me that they will be fluent in the language of music video codes and conventions, reminding me that I should be careful to either keep to them, or purposely break them. I also found out that the target audience expected to see dancing, singing and something out of the ordinary (among other things) in the music video. My survey showed that respondents felt passionately about there being a narrative to a music video, and it should be interesting to watch. I found that some of the things they didn't want to see hyper sexuality/exploitation of women, sexual content or irrelevant story lines. I also got a lot of qualitative information about people's favourite music videos, and what they liked the most about them. This information helped me with inspiration, and to get ideas about what to, and what not to, include in my music video, to make sure that the audience enjoyed it.




    Another example of getting audience feedback comes from when I created the first logo for my artist, although the name ended up changing, the first logo I made was for the artist I called 'nothing to lose'. I created the first logo and showed it to two of my friends that I felt were part of the target audience. I got their responses through text, and used their criticism to influence my next draft. 


    Later when I had changed the name of the artist from 'nothing to lose' to 'tame', I started designing new logos. Using the criticism from my audience feedback for the other logos, I designed dozens of logos and picked my favorite. I then sent a screenshot of it into a Facebook group chat of my friends that were part of the target audience. I asked them to tell me which logo they liked the most.




    Overall the large majority of the people that replied said they preferred logo 3 (60%), followed closely by logo 6 (27%) and finally logo 1 - the unedited font (13%).


    I developed the logo a little and ended up with this final piece. Besides the logo looking good and fitting with the genre, there are five hidden signs/meanings within the logo. The Chalice (V) and the Blade (Λ) symbols are in the logo in the A and in between the M, these are the original icons for male and female, and Blade is still used in military uniform today to signify rank, it connotes manhood and aggression. The Chalice, the original icon for female is also present. The use of these two symbols ties in with the gender identity theme of my music video. The line on the A has been removed, this symbolises that the character in the music video isn't fully whole, a part of their personality is missing, and this is because they have to suppress it. And finally the two lines, one above and one below the logo, represent the feeling of entrapment for the character, this is echoed in the music video by there only being one character. Finally the use of monospaced text reflects societies views on binary genders.




    I then created this video, in which I filmed two members of my target audience watching the video and talking about what they thought of it. I also asked them some questions about the promotional package as a whole. The responses I received from them were positive, and they understood the connotations I was trying to achieve in my video.

    I also created a survey and asked participants to watch my video and answer some questions about the promotional package.



    The first question I asked the respondents what what they would rate the video, I got 100% positive feedback for this question, and the surveyed audience obviously really liked video as they all rated it 5/5.



    My target audience all watch an average of around 3 music videos per week, this shows that they will be fluent in the language of music video codes and conventions. From my final audience feedback survey I found that the target audience agreed that my music video fit the conventions of real music videos.


    Above are a couple of the responses that I received from people about what they liked about the music video. This included specifics such as the colour isolation, as well as broader subjects such as the narrative. This showed me that the music video was successful in being interesting and appealing to the target audience.



    This question showed me what I could have improved if I were to shoot the video again. I found that one respondent didn't like the fact that it was all shot in only a few indoor locations, this showed me that this responded didn't understand the message of privacy that I was trying to convey, and therefore the audience as a whole may not understand this. The other response example didn't like the double exposure effect that I included in the video, this is a issue of aesthetic preference, and may not specifically mean that the audience as a whole agrees. During the creation of my video, I send clips of the video to my friends who I believed were part of the target audience, and asked them if they liked the effect. Here's an example of one of their responses:


    The average rating of my magazine advert was 4.5/5 , this showed that although my audience liked my magazine, there was still some room for improvement.
    My audience agrees that the magazine fit the conventions of a normal magazine advert for an album. This showed me that it fit the specification of being a functional magazine advert. 
    the feedback from my audience showed me that my audience felt all the information they needed to know about the album was on the advert, this showed me that if I was to re-create the advert, I wouldn't need to add any information.

    According to a sample of my audience's feedback, the audience enjoyed the consistency in the style of the advert, the fact that it matched the video and the colour scheme and house style. My audience felt the advert could have been improved through the use of a review/star rating and better image editing. This showed me, if I was to recreate the magazine advert, the sort of things that I should change, and the sort of things that I should keep the same, in order to make it more appealing to my audience.

    My audience rated the digipack a solid 5/5, showing that they liked it. My audience felt that it fit the conventions of a digipack. This showed me that the results from my audience survey may not me completely reliable, as the digipack actually didn't fit the standard conventions.



    The audience liked the consistent style throughout the digipack, album magazine advert and music video, they liked the professional look of the pack as a whole and its simplicity. They didn't like some of the creative decisions that I made, including having the album be self titled, (i.e. "Tame" by Tame) and also the way the text was written on the back. If I was to recreate the album digipack, I could use this information to make it more appealing to my target audience.


    My audience felt that the promotional package as a whole worked well together, giving it a rating of 4.5/5 for continuity. They felt overall that the only minor changes that they would make would be some of the fonts on the digipack, and a small section of the editing.


    The final, most important question in my audience survey asked the audience if the promotional package as a whole made them more likely to purchase the song. The whole purpose of the promotional package is to make the person purchase they song, and my audience unanimously agreed that it met this target. In spoken interviews, my audience focus group also told me they felt the promotional package was memorable, and would be something they would like and share on social media.




    Second Audience Survey

    After getting some in depth data from audience in the first survey, I decided to get some more data from a larger group to measure the response of my audience more accurately. I decided to create a new survey which focused on the promotional package as a whole and gathered more quantitative data.


    From the responses of this survey I learnt a lot about the work I'd done, and how my audience reacted to it. I got an overwhelmingly positive response to my promotional package as a whole, with 92.3% of respondents saying that they liked it. This showed that I had successfully designed each aspect of the promotional package to be exactly what the audience wanted to see. 85.7% of my audience agreed that the magazine advert, digipack and music video worked as one promotional package. I spoke to some respondents who said that it didn't work and asked them why, one of them told me that it was because in their opinion in order for it to be a successful promotional package it should make them want to buy the song, but it did not. 

    This links closely with my next question, which asked respondents if they are now more likely to purchase the song. In my follow up conversations with some respondents, they told me that they said 'no' because they either never purchase music, or use Spotify. I realise now that I should have worded this question to incorporate them as well. Even so, over 80% of respondents said that it would influence them to purchase the song, which I think is very successful.

    In order to measure my success, I compared the results to question 3 and 4 to a real music video. I showed 10 people Lorde's promotional package for her single Royals, and the digipack for its album Pure Heroin. 40% of respondents said that Lorde's promotional package would make them more likely to purchase the song, and only 20% said that the music video related to the song, When I compare this to my 81% and 87% respectively, I came to the conclusion that my promotional package was more successful than the professional one produced by Lorde in terms of audience feedback.

    Overall my audience rated the promotional package 8.7/10 - which I think is extremely successful as some of the respondents told me in the survey that the song wasn't of a genre that they'd usually listen to. The final question asked the audience for any comments on the promotional package. From this I learnt that the audience overall had a very positive response to the narrative of the music video and felt it linked in well with the ancillary texts. Here are a few of the responses:

    I like the story line
    I didn't like the song, it wasn't the sort of song I'd usually listen to
    I love the song, and the music video. The advert goes really well with the music video and the album design works really well with the other two products.
    music video was real good and it made me really sad for the character i fell bad for him/her so when i think of the song it makes me kind of sad but i think the song is meant to be happy
    I really like the way that the music video links in with the other things you showed me, there's like a really strong connection between the two. I probably wouldn't watch the video again as it seems like its aimed more at females and i couldn't really connect with it
    I thought that the cyclical nature of the narrative worked really well and I liked the way that the music video linked in with the narrative. If I listened to the song I wouldn't have thought that was what the lyrics were about, but after watching the music video and listening to the song again you can see how well it works.
    The music video looked completely realistic and if I saw it on MTV I would think that it was real. The advert was really realistic and I liked the way that you made it look real with 3D graphics of it in magazines and billboards. I thought it was a little bit simplistic though. I really liked the design of the digipack, and they way that it is unconventional with the front being two layers and holding the DVD. This is definitely a video that I would share on facebook because I think it has a really important message.
    I liked the music video, but I don't think it worked as a promotional package because it didn't make me more likely to buy the song.
    absolutely amazing, I loved it, this should replace the actual music video ahaha!
    very memorable and out of the ordinary, definitely stood out from music videos and adverts and CDs I've seen in the past. I like how the album cover is very individual, just like the character in the music video. I don't really like how the album is self titled but apart from that I love everything else.

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