By Sarah Smith

Q3: WHAT HAVE

YOU LEARNT
FROM YOUR
AUDIENCE
FEEDBACK?
 Defining Target Audience
Media texts are usually produced to
generate money for the
institution therefore all the
A target audience can be split in into several
products need an audience that
different groups: GRASS
the institution can target in
GRASS stands for Gender, Race, Age and
order for them to start making
Socio-economic status (Usually class
money. Therefore for a product
depending on your job) Audience profiling can
to be successful it has to please
split into two categories:
it’s audience.
-Demographic Profiling: This is when a
audience is grouped together depending on
things such as age, gender, class, economics,
religion, geographical area etc.
-Psychographic Profiling: This method of
targeting audiences assumes the audience
have certain needs which need to be met
(Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs).
 Analysing Target Audience
In order to analyse our Target Audience we decided to create a
questionnaire, as it was important to find out peoples different views
and tastes on Music. Within this we asked the following:
1.What type of genre do you listen to the most?
2.Who's your favourite  artist?
3.Do the artists music videos interest you?
4.What do look for in a music video?
5.What's your favourite music video?
6.What do you associate with an indie pop music video?
7.What artists do you associate with indie pop?
8.What age of people do you consider to listen to indie pop and what's your age?
9.What do you associate with Marina and the Diamonds?
10.Do you like this artist, if yes/no why?
 Summary of Questionnaire Results
Following our results we analysed the answers and found that
the conventions they associated with an Indie-Pop Music
Video would be:
•Bright colourful images
•The band being shown simply
•Experimenting with different contents; making the video
unique and quirky
•Having the alternative or non-mainstream representations.

Another point made was that most people who are interested
in the Indie-Pop Genre range from the ages of 15-25. People
explained that they enjoyed Marina and the Diamonds as an
All of this information was useful artist due to her uniqueness and quirky sense of personality.
to us as a group as we were able
to see from an Audiences point of
view what they expected, enjoy
and appealed to them. Therefore
we could take this information
away and include these ideas, as
well as our own in order to create
a successful Music Video.
We chose to research our Target Audience by looking at ‘
Billboard: Most Popular Genre of the Last Decade, in order to show was
Genre of music has been the most popular over the last Decade.’
Looking at both these graphs, we realised that ‘RnB’
was the most bought and radio played Genre of
music in the years ranging from 2000-2009, and that
‘Pop’ was the second most popular. This implied
that that these two genres of music had the biggest
This feedback allowed us to find out that selling records of the last decade, and so to
are Target Audience was quite broad increase the chance of producing a hit single we
and that Pop Music was very should choose a song from either the R&B or Pop
mainstream. genre.
 From all of this in mind, we also created a ‘Typical
Audience Character’. Our character would be 17
years of age, female, enjoyed attending gigs, watching
E4 as her favourite television channel and her main
use of technology being her Ipod.

After all of our research we came to the

conclusion that our Main Target Audience
would be:
-Gender: Male and Female
-Race: Any
-Age: 16-24
-Socio-Economic Status: C1- Lower Middle
Class, C2-Skilled Working Class
 Developing Product to Please
Target Audience
Deciding upon this and having analyzed our audiences tastes we began to make
decisions on our Video Project as we had successfully been allowed access to the song
‘Oh No!’ by Marina and the Diamonds. As a group we tried to attract and address our
target audience in our video project by trying to include what they wanted.

• The Brand Image of ‘Taylor • Our Brand Image of ‘fun, cheeky and lively’ would
and the Rubies’. ‘Taylor’ appeals easily appeal to any race, and any age as anyone
to the target audience of male enjoys being shown positive visuals along with positive
and female first of all through lyrics.
her song and lyrics focusing
upon the issue of ‘success’,
which we believed appealed to
both genders.
 • We tried to attract our target audience through the
Mise en Scene used within our Music Project such as,
the locations as there were many we stuck to simple,
everyday ones such as the outdoors which are used
within most Indie-Pop music Videos.

• The choice of song also

appeals to that of the Socio-
Economic Status’ we chose,
of C1 and C2 as the lower
middle class and working
class will find the topic of
success one they can relate
to, whether they are still
finding it our have found it.

Within our Music Project we tried to create a mix of an experimental feel and typical pop feel together.
We did the experimental part within the funny clips included towards the end, and the pop part with
scenes of performance. Lastly we tried our best to include a clear narrative within our Music Project in
order for our audience to understand the lyrics much more and to create a clear link with the visuals
and lyrics. By using early feedback we hoped to create a product that successfully engaged our
audience.
What Conventions our Target Audience As shown here with the
expected of an Indie-Pop Music Video. two graphs, we included
every convention
expected of the Indie-
Clear Story Experimental Pop Genre, except that
Narrative
of a ‘Band being shown
Bright/Colourful Band being Simply’. We chose not
Images shown Simply to include this
Sense of convention as ‘Taylor
Personality and the Rubies’ is a solo
artist, and there we
wanted to ensure she
What Conventions we included within our Indie-Pop was the main focus
Music Video. throughout.

Clear Story Experimental

Narrative
Bright/Colourful Band being
Images shown Simply
Sense of
Personality
 Audience Feedback Summary
Looking at our overall audience feedback, I was generally happy with the results. I found it very
insightful to receive feedback from people when the products were complete and to see if we
as a group did a successful job.
6 •People found that the Music Video
4 included very typical conventions,
including a clear storyline.
2
0 •People found that the Music Video
Yes has unique points to it such as the
tape recorder at the beginning and
No end and also the ‘blooper’ shots
towards the end.

•Most people agreed that the video did work

because the editing was done very well to the
pace of the song and the ‘real life sense’ to it,
such as the ordinary jobs included throughout.

•Most people suggested improvement on lighting

in certain locations and more time to be spent on
the green screen, which I agreed with.
I was impressed to realise that we had managed to get our Genre of music across overall
quite well, with people stating either ‘Indie pop’ or ‘Pop’ mainly as their answers. Looking at
both the feedback and the Music Video I believe we did well to appeal to our target audience
through the use of editing, props, and overall mise-en-scene, as well as this I agree with the
improvements that could have been made.
For the overall feedback of our Ancillary Tasks I was also very pleased with the outcome.

People believed the

Most people realised that there was a clear use of elements that could have
continuity throughout all three products. been improved would have
been:
•Feedback proved that people could easily see •More close ups included.
the Image Brand we were trying to create,
mostly made obvious in the question ‘Can you •The overall background
sum up the brand image of this artist in a colours of the album could
short sentence’, to which people answered have been more similar.
‘fun, energetic, fresh and different’.
•Brighter colours could have
I believe this mainly showed through the been used.
emotions of Taylor in the images used, and the
fun, swirly font ‘Brushtip Travis’ included

As a group the audience

feedback tells me we did a
good job again within the
Ancillary Task to appeal to
our audience, and also
created a good link between
the three products. Overall I
agreed with the
improvements that could
have been made and
believed that they were very
reasonable.
 Summary
On the whole I was very pleased with both outcomes of the
Video Project and the Print Project, and that as a group we
were very successful in what we set out to do in terms of
appealing to our Target Audience, I also believe that the
improvements that could have been made were very realistic
and would of made our products even stronger.

I believe again that our early

use of the audience
feedback helped our
products work well. The
audience feedback towards
the end of our products also
allowed us to realise the
strengths and weaknesses
of our products.

Overall gaining audience

feedback has proved important as
it establishes what conventions
are needed to successfully target
and appeal to the correct
audience. As well as this it has
proved to be important, in order to
know strengths and weaknesses,
therefore next time being able to
correct the weaknesses and aim
to be more successful.