Target audience results- Miss Miller

Within this post I will be discussing how I approached my target audience. A target audience is a group of people in which an item (such as a song or film) is aimed at. To do this, I created questionnaires and interviewed a number of people. The questionnaire constructed needed to include seven open questions three closed questions to collect specific quantitative/qualitative data and needed to be filled out by forty members of the public to get a variety of responses. I can use these results to identify certain elements that people think are positive or negative within a music video and then apply some of them to my final product. I applied questions within the questionnaire that would help me pin point the types of elements my audience would want to see incorporated and will help produce a popular and well constructed music video. Below is is a copy of the questionnaire questions followed by the gathered results in pie chart form.

This question was created to find the gender of most of our target audience. These results show that more females were asked which links to our chosen artist (Lana Del Rey) as her target audience are largely made up of females as her songs incorporate the element of love, which women stereotypically prefer, therefore this group would become our target audience too, therefore gaining their opinion would work out positively for us. Males are still involved, which shows unbiased results and still gains their perspective as young, good looking females can be a smaller part of Lana's target audience.

Our next question asked what the member of the public's ages were, to discover what age range our target audience would fall under which we found to be 17-22. We applied this question to pin point an age range for our target audience. It is also evident that 99% of the answers came from the 11-22 age range therefore, we should take these ages into account as well as possibly making the video enjoyable for the 23-28  age group (2%) age groups also, to entertain 100% of the target audience an overall appeals to a wider audience. From this, we can discuss this through the production of the music video as we would need to confer want we apply this to music video for example, the level of explicity as we can discuss the use of this within our indie video as a large amount of our target audience are of a more mature age.

This question was created to gain our target audience's opinion on our chosen artist and as a way of discovering whether or not they like them. I believe that a question like this is important to have added to the questionnaire as we can identify if people will bond with our artist and if there's any real evidence to use her music within our music video. The results clearly show that our chosen target audience would like our chosen artist from half of the results being answered 'yes' therefore we can take a larger inspiration from Lana Del Rey's videos as her style is appreciated by many therefore, we could possibly adapt to this, fulfilling what half of our target audience want to see. Only 10% of the answers were a strict no. From these results we gained confidence in our ideas and believed that if she is a well liked and established artist, we can deliver this within our music video, gaining more attention and appreciation. However, as a group, we could change the minds of people that prefer not to listen to this artist, as we will mix the chosen song with a house remix and by creating a successful music video, showing the artist in a positive light which can overall make these people warm to our artist more, therefore we will take these opinion into consideration. 

As a group we had a few ideas in mind for example the use of a love story and how it effects our artist's life and were in need of discovering if the public would appreciate them and find them positive aspects to include within a music video. We wanted to create a narrative, and from this evidence we have found that the public believe that this can be delivered well within music videos and create an artist/audience bond, which is a positive tool as there would be a lack of point to a music video of the audience cared very little about the artist. However, most of the audience thought that adding in the idea of a concept to this would be interesting and cause a connection with the artist, therefore the group will take this on board and discuss this. Other answers included the themes of performance and the idea of a mixture, therefore the music video can be a narrative and clips of the artist singing with an ideology throughout thus creating a concept. All of these answers will be discussed however a narrative will be incorporated as this can be a positive tool in providing the audience with deeper knowledge on the artist and creating a connection.

As discussed in the last question, the group wanted to incorporate a love story and we wanted to identify whether this aspect was something that our target audience would want to see . From choosing the song and analysing the lyrics, the group discussed that this idea may be a constructive element to incorporate however, we needed the answers from the questionnaire to prove this. As Lana's audience are mostly women, as are 68% of this group, they answered yes. Which validated our idea and highlighted successful tools such as love stories and themes within music videos. The group will also take on the constructive comments on board such as showing more of the artist and touching upon the artist's true emotions and experiences to show her past relationships, which will provide the audience will what they want to see and create a bond between them and the artist.

In one of our first group meetings, we discussed that we wanted to use Lana Del Rey's music however use a remix as it would provide the audience with a more upbeat and entertaining sound and visuals. However, the group needed to be satisfied that our choices were clear and that our target audience would enjoy the song for the music video if the remix was applied. As Lana Del Rey plays indie music, all of us didn't connect with the original song, as we thought that it was too slow and an enjoyable music video couldn't be made from this. Therefore, we found the RAC remix of the chosen song 'Blue Jeans', which mixes Indie and House genres together thus appealing to 73% therefore, the group will be more confident that our ideas are appreciated and appeal to our audience so that we can make a successful music video that they will enjoy.

Evidently from the last question, we found that a large amount of people enjoyed indie and house music however, the group needed to know if these could be mixed to fit our chosen remix. I thought that this would be a valuable question to use as we have chosen not to use the song alone but to use a remix. I think that it is important to see how an audience would respond to that. Luckily over half of the answers believed that mixing to genres (in our case indie and house) would be a positive idea. However, 30% of the answers were 'other' therefore they were not completely against the idea therefore, if we choose a successful remix and make a successful video for it, they may prefer this new product. Overall, the answers gathered provides the group with confidence and lets us know that our initial idea can be put forward. 

When creating a music video it is important to discover what your audience want to see incorporated and to gain direct ideas from your target audience on different types of elements they'd prefer to see added. Conventions that the audience prefer to see should be discussed within planning and included within the production of the final music video. I will look at including the three most popular answers to appeal to a wider audience. Luckily, a narrative of the artist's life and a love story are aspects that are enjoyed and are conventional within the indie genre. The use of a performance is also touched upon therefore we should look at including this however, should not make this the main aim as only 10% of the audience wanted this included. Saying this, 10% of the audience answered 'other' therefore wanting to see different conventions to these, providing us with the knowledge that we can add more conventions than this to create a stronger music video and appealing to even more audience members.

It is equally important to discover what elements the audience deem negative and what they wouldn't want to see in a music video. As we are creating a narrative, which reflects what the audience want to see, we have also found that it should not be confusing and difficult to follow therefore, we will make this interesting but not overly complicated. As well as this, dependent on the audience's age range and the idea of a love story, there should be a lack in explicit clips which I think is a positive aspect as personally, I dislike explicit actions within music videos. Linking to this, lack of alcohol and drug use will make the video more available to a wider audience as it would be less likely to be placed after the 9pm watershed. As a group, we will take all of these comments into consideration and apply them within production.

Lastly, the group needed to know answers to questions such as this to identify the characterisation that the audience would be interested in. It is conventional of both the indie and house genre to promote the artist and we gained the same response from the audience. Therefore, we will discuss making the artist thee main focus of the video through elements such as close ups and the narrative of the video so that the audience can follow the artist's journey, causing the audience to become more interested in her lifestyle thus creating a deeper bond. A majority of the answers also hinted at the use of male and female characters which implies the adaptation of a love story or relationship which the group wanted to create from the beginning. 

I then used this questionnaire to create vox pops, asking five people of mixed genders these questions. These were used to gain data and more evidence and allowed us to obtain opinions and in depth reasons for their decisions as they were given the option (mostly with open questions) to express their point of view concerning the questions asked. Overall, vox pops are necessary to have as I will gain a more in depth response as they aren't limited in their speech, and there is no time frame therefore, the can speak as detailed and for as long as they prefer. It can also be said that, questionnaires can be planned however, unstructured interviews such as these interviews reflect true answers as they are unpredictable and aren't planned therefore the participants are free to speak their mind which will make answers more reliable and useful. These interviews are included below.

Following this, the group researched into youth subcultures. Subcultures are a group of people who are integrated through a common item such as music. These can be considered groups that prefer to go against the mainstream and social norms. We then identified all of the sub cultures and their views and chose the one that applies to us the most which is Grant McCracken's theory. He believes that in the post-modernist society, it is full of diversity, creativity and dynamism. And by analysing the array of values, it cannot be said that all subcultures come from one big culture. Therefore all styles of music are different, and cannot be the same as the values within other genres.This appeals to us as we are analysing different genres and merging them, therefore we need to identify all subcultures within indie and house and although our results allow us to merge these genres, and this is something that our audience would like to see, we need to appreciate that the genres aren't the same therefore we need to discover the conventions of both and discuss how they can be inflicted within the final product. The indie and house genre add to this by raising the idea of a mainstream as it can be said that indie music can typically go against it however, Ed Sheeran, an indie artist is extremely popular and an artist that is high in the charts, linking to house music, a commercial genre. Therefore, it can be argued that a mainstream does not exist on some levels. I will use this overall theory within my music video as it should contain diverse and creative elements therefore, I will look at other diverse music video and analyse what makes the different and individual.

Overall, I believe that this research proved extremely helpful as we were able to view first hand, what our audience would want incorporated. The questionnaire is a positive way to gain data as we were able to ask our audience specific questions that linked to our ideas we had for our music video and if the audience agreed or disagreed. Then, the interviews provided us with greater detail and knowledge as members of the public were able to discuss their ideas thoroughly.