WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?CHARLOTTE DALE – A2 MEDIA EVALUATION

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Market research is a crucial part of developing any product whether it be a media product or not. It consists of carrying out both primary and secondary research on the market which your product will be entering into and collecting feedback from potential consumers to get their ideas and opinions to help shape the product.

I decided to carry out my market research in the early stages of the planning process. This was because I valued other peoples opinions and wanted to incorporate the thoughts and feelings of other people as much as possible into my music video. Conducting research early meant that I didn’t have an exact proposal for the music video, making it easily amendable based on the data collected.

The methods of market research I chose were a questionnaire and a focus group for my primary research, and the online YouGov tool to build an audience profile as my secondary research.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK? I chose to conduct a questionnaire on a large sample of my potential audience as it allowed

me to ask specific questions relating to my music video. One of the questions in particular being - ’Do you support music videos with themes, issues, or political standpoints?’ At this point I had an idea that I wanted my music video to portray the issue of self-image amongst teenagers however I didn’t know whether such a taboo topic would appeal to an audience. The result showed that 58% of those surveyed did support music videos with themes, issues or standpoints and therefore this encouraged me to follow my initial ideas.

To further this I also asked ‘On a scale of 1-10 how important do you think the issue of self-image and pressures on young people is?’ I wanted to find out exactly how significant people thought the issue was and the final average was 8.1 out of 10. This was the result I was hoping for and displayed the issue holds high value to the potential audience, making it less of a risk to display such a theme.

Therefore, from the audience feedback collected in my questionnaire I was able to reinforce my initial ideas with evidence that there was a demand in the market for it. I learnt that while in previous decades addressing taboo subjects in music videos was a rarity, audiences now support media that aims to portray a message or theme and music videos are a great platform to spread such messages.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK? I also conducted a focus group with a handful of my target market to get opinions on my

final music video proposal. As discussed within the questionnaire, I found out that the majority of participants supported music videos that highlighted taboo themes or issues and all thought that raising awareness of self-image is a good idea in the online age where pressures to look ‘perfect’ can be seen anywhere.

However, a valuable piece of feedback I received was that all of my participants were in agreement that my artists should be branded as relatable and real rather than an ‘ideal’ commonly found in pop artists such as Beyoncé. From this I learnt that in previous decades where Star Theory – the idea that artists are constructed to be the ‘ideal’ product and to make money - was very much applicable to the music industry, now audiences are attracted more to authentic artists who aren’t perfect and have human qualities. As my theme is all about not being perfect and not giving in to the expectations of society’s ideal, I now agree with my focus group that it is crucial the artist is marketed so the target audience can relate to them.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK? The final piece of market research I conducted was secondary research to build up an

audience profile. For this I used the online tool YouGov where I was specifically able to search the term ‘Beyoncé’ to collect large amounts of data including demographics, lifestyle, consumption of media and the brands of a typical Beyoncé fan.

For demographics I learnt that the stereotype is a female, aged 18-29 who lives an urban lifestyle. In terms of lifestyle and personality, their interests include social media, shopping and celebrities and they are kind and open-minded who value image and materialism. Finally in terms of consumption of media they spend 46-50 hours per week online and their favorite shows and movies are chick flicks or comedy.

This audience data supported my music video proposal as the themes and issues I planned to convey through my video are faced primarily by the age bracket described as Beyoncé's main audience. Similarly, I aimed to have a focus in my music video on online pressures, linking with the fact that much of the media consumption for this target audience is online. After conducting this research I wanted to learn more about the audience who valued materialism and studied Young and Rubicams audience model to do this.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

Following the production of my music video I ’sampled’ the finished products on participants from my target audience to gage reactions and get feedback. The impact of this was it gave me an opportunity to find out peoples opinions on the products which during the production process I didn’t have.

The reaction to all of my products (music video, digipak and magazine advert) was positive with most of the participants agreeing that the music video successfully portrayed the character as insecure and struggling with self-image, something which every one related to. They also agreed that the products worked together cohesively and would be easy for the audience to recognize as advertising the same artist – an aim when planning the design of the products.

Finally the audience feedback was particularly useful as it gave me a chance to edit my products before submitting. For example, one member of the focus group highlighted an inconsistency in the filters included in my music video which I hadn’t previously noticed. Therefore, a second opinion is crucial in identifying and editing any mistakes.