What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The target audience for the media products would predominantly be females aged 16-25 from the social class C2DE. This is due to the fact that the majority of the audience would either be students or workers who have time to watch music videos and pay attention to the release of a new album compared to busy professionals from higher social classes whose focus would be on their careers. The decision was made to target these products at a female audience as they are the ones who are more likely to relate to a young female artist who sings about her love life. Even though older audiences and male audiences may also enjoy listening to the music, a female audience of 16-25 year olds are more likely to anticipate the release of the music video and buy the digipak. Additionally, the innocence and authenticity of the artist is another reason why she would appeal more to a female audience as neither she, nor the products, have that sex appeal that would usually attract a male audience to a female artists work. Taking psychographics into consideration, the majority of the audience would fit into the Explorers category, which is defined as: Individuals who seek discovery. An emphasis on energy, individualism and experience. Values difference and adventure. Typically a younger demographic (students). As an authentic artist, Monique Todd is different from the typical, mainstream pop star, which would appeal to an audience of explorers. They would appreciate her individuality and quirkiness which is shown throughout all of the media products and is an important part of the entire Monique Todd Lovestrong brand. In order to ensure that the products met the expectations of my audience, audience feedback had to be generated throughout the process of creating the products, for example once the first drafts of all of the products had been completed. It is crucial to receive audience feedback because, at the end of the day, whether the producer likes the product or not is irrelevant if the audience are not being influenced by the magazine advert, or arent willing to pay for the digipak or watch and download the music video. Therefore receiving this feedback allows media producers to ensure that the product is of the high standard expected by their audience to ensure that sales targets are met. By gaining feedback at this stage, once the first draft has been completed, audiences are able to understand the concept of the products and the direction that they are going in. Their feedback is crucial at this stage as it allows the producer to make any necessary changes which will help to produce the final versions of the products that will meet customer expectations. Feedback for the products created as part of this coursework was generated using several different media platforms. As soon as the ancillary products were created, peers were asked their professional opinions as Media Studies students. This feedback was given through interviews and resulted in qualitative data such as suggestions for improvement that helped to alter the magazine advert and digipak to try and make them as professional and realistic as possible. The questions that were asked were open ended and allowed the respondents to give any suggestions they thought would improve the products. The feedback for the music video was given through both interviews and a questionnaire. The interviewees were asked open ended questions such as What do you like about this music video? or What do you think needs to be improved? These types of questions allow the respondents to elaborate on their answers and produce qualitative answers.

The questionnaire included a range of questions that resulted in both qualitative and quantitative responses. A range of different types of questions were used, such as ranking the different aspects of the video, rating each aspect on a scale of 1-5 and picking their favourite part of the video. Additionally, qualitative responses came from questions that asked things like what needed to be improved, so that the responses were not limited in any way as the improvements were believed to be the most important information to retrieve from the questionnaire responses. The feedback came predominantly from 17-20 year old females (who fit into the target audience demographic). Most of these were Media Studies students however some of the respondents were family members and friends who had no knowledge of media studies and were therefore giving feedback purely from an audience members perspective. The questionnaire was sent out on social networking sites such as Facebook and by email to ensure that a large enough sample size was used to get a variety of responses. The quantitative data was then analysed and the qualitative data was dealt with using content analysis to make it easier to review the audiences views on the video and any aspects that needed altering. Most of the comments received were positive and praised the cinematography of the entire video as well as the aesthetic look. The majority of the feedback about improvements stated that there was a lack of understanding in the narrative and what the letter represented. Some responses also suggested that the Hyde Park and studio scenes should be equally weighted to ensure that the video does not get monotonous. This feedback was very effective as it allowed exact issues and area of improvement to be identified. This makes it easier when editing the video as one is able to understand whether any footage needs to be shot again, and most importantly if the video and its narrative makes as much sense to the audience as it does in the producers mind. From the feedback, it was clear to see that the narrative in the video had not been decoded as well by audiences as the producer perceived, therefore it was made clear that an improvement to make was to add in more footage from Hyde Park in order to make the linear narrative clear. However, it could be argued that due to the feedback being given by people who were close to the producer, the replies may be slightly biased as the respondents may feel the need to be more positive when giving feedback rather than harshly critical. All of these comments were taken into consideration and acted upon by choosing to re-shoot some of the studio footage using a crane to gain more sweeping shots to match the soft tone of the song. Additionally, more footage from the Hyde Park scene was used in order to convey a clear linear narrative about the lover finding clues that remind her of her past relationship.