Target Audience Research

In order to research the opinions of my target research I started out by carrying out a questionnaire, involving 20 people. I decided to concentrate on my preferred target audience which was young adults. I am also aware people just outside of my audience will watch my video, so I also included a few people outside my target audience. I questioned 10 young adults within the top year of college ranging from 17-18. I also questioned 5 people from year 11 which would range from 15-16 and then I questioned another 5 people (my sisters friends) that ranged from 21-23. By doing this, it gives me pretty specific figures in terms of the people that would watch my video and the ratio of ages.

Here are the results for my closed questions..

I learnt from this questionnaire that music videos are very popular, getting great attention from young adults. Very popular genre's were indie and urban, I started to see a pattern of the younger people preferring urban and the slightly older preferred the indie genre. The main question I concentrated on was the type of video people liked. A common trend was realism, cinematic and story based. These 3 options have a very strong link and can be used together to create a beautiful story. This was a very positive response as I am thinking of story a full narrative, with these popular answers I have learnt a cinematic story that is based on exciting realism will be very popular to the target audience. The narrative or performance question was pretty even, allowing me to have freedom of what I want as people seem to like both if done well. In my product I am going to heavily concentrate on directing actors and picking the actors carefully to avoid bad acting as this what can let a video down, along with the boring factor. This can be avoided with precise editing and proper planning, when making my product my focal point will be to please the audience, having this question in mind. Also I learnt a lot of people like the video to link with the song but not directly, so it is not boring. To achieve this my story will be themed closely to the song but with a storyline that is different and exciting, therefore keeping the viewers concentration.

In this next questionnaire I used open questions. I picked the people from the questionnaire that answered with the answers that suited my video ideas. This was so when I asked them more opinion based questions, their opinion would be coming from the particular audience that'd take deep interest in the video and therefore be the perfect audience.

 I learnt that what I thought about a narrative video was correct. People really agreed with me with what I thought they'd want to see and what they wouldn't. I had this in my head, and now I have researched it has put me in a positive mindset to carry on with my plan knowing the audience would agree to my idea, and really like it if constructed correctly.

Defining Audiences

In order to create my music video with success is to be able to recognise my audience, and direct my product with the codes and conventions that'd suit them and entice other related audience to watch it.

So I researched into potential audiences that'd be best suit to my product.

There ar3e various ways in defining audiences, which include gender, age, class & status. With all these approaches it gives you a clear understanding of audiences and what seperates them.

Within these catorgories there are sub catergories..

Age

Children
Teens
Young Adults
Adults
Elderly

Gender

Male
Female

Class & Status  

Upper Class
Middle Class
Lower Middle Class
Working Class

From this and my initial ideas I believe that teens & young adults will be my main focus, male and female ranging from the working class to upper class. As indie rock is listened to and appreciated by a wide range of people which is a great way for my product to gain recognition. There is methods within the industry in how audiences are difined. One of the being the Live Matrix ..

Live Matrix

A life matrix is also another way of defining your target audience. It was launched by MRI and RoperASW and is a new method that looks at ten audience categories, centred around both values, attitudes and beliefs, and more fundamental, demographic audience categories.

Tribe wired	Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles
Fun	Aspirational, fun-seeking, active young people
Dynamic Duos	Hard-driving, high-involvement couples
Priority Parents	Family values, activities, media strongly dominate
Home Soldiers	Home-centric, family-oriented, materially ambitious
Renaissance Women	Active, caring, affluent, influential mums
Rugged Traditionalists	Traditional male values, love of outdoors
Struggling Singles	High aspirations, low economic status
Settled elders	Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles
Free Birds	Vital, active, altruistic

I have decided on directing my product toward the 'Tribe Wired' and 'Struggling Singles' as these are the people that'd most be passionate about indie rock within the mass. These are the people that are interacting with social media and media in general the most. For example they watch music videos the most, keep up to date with new releases. But I am not limiting my audience but this will be my main focus.

Genre Research - Indie Rock

Genre is very important to music as it categorises types of music between each other. It creates personality and shape to genre setting codes and conventions. Genre is based on similarities, such as use of instrumentation, style, rhythm and furthermore involve a recurring theme that tends to change over time with society and due to audience needs, but keeping theme foundational aspects of the genre. Here are a few examples of artists linking with their genres.


                   


Once I grouped together the different kind of genres you begin to get the idea of the stylistic features the artists have to fit in the genre. For example indie rock is very monochrome, whereas pop has loads of bright and vibrant colours. Symbolising the style of their music.

The iconic themes of a genre will be of a common occurrence from artist to artist. A big example of this is hip hop. Hip Hop has the style of big chains and flashy jewellery, the baggy clothes. Also the bandanna's and hand signs that represent their gangs or organisations. They also love hats especially with logo's on. Their style is very much focussed on their appearance and throughout this genre these aspects appear, not identical, but with similarities. This is the same throughout all genres and is very significant in the music industry.

Why is Genre important to Audiences?

Genre creates familiarity amongst audiences so that they know what type of music they like to listen too and what they will expect from a certain genre. Audience are the main influences on genre in a way of how music is created and distributed in order for it to be appealing upon their release. By including key conventions linked to the genre, in terms of the music, the image, the advertisement and multimedia representations, the band/artist will be more appealing to the audience and easily recognised by the audience therefore warming to the band.

Genres stick to general themes in music video's too. For example heavy metal videos next to always have shots of the band showing of their showmen ship, their performance qualities and their instrumental skills. Very often they will be in big prominent stances, with their feet wide apart, with a low angle camera, with big lights and smoke, silhouetting their big hair. These are all common conventions within the heavy metal, and conventions in music videos are very much used in all genres, audience know these conventions and recognise the genre through visuals.

 

Uses and Gratifications - Audience Pleasures

- Audiences recognise conventions due to recurring familiarity.  
- Predictions and Expectations Met
- A sense of community when sharing the love for a genre through videos online and on social media.
- Character judging and relation.

These are few reasons why audiences like to recognise their certain preferred genres through conventions in music videos.

My Video..

My very strong initial ideas is that I am going to do an indie/alternative rock song. I have researched the conventions of this genre to see what the typical music videos are like in this genre. These are the conventions..

- The main convention is the image of the band. As indie rock is heavily based around their 'individual' image, therefore showing off their style in the music video, whether it is live performance or narrative their style will remain and be perceived in the video.
- A lot of performance is in these videos as the band make their own instrumentals. In oppose to Pop Artists where the industry will hand them instrumentals, bands make them themselves, which they are proud of and want to show off their showmen ship in the video.
- As most videos are performance, there are videos that include narrative. As the indie bands have a lot to say in what they produce, they do not make music with intentions to sell to the mass market like pop artists, but they create music with a deeper more personal meaning. That is why people like them and therefore success is handed to them. Because of this element to their music the music videos are more cinematic, showing a story, corresponding with the deeper meaning. In oppose to studio based videos.

I am going to take these conventions into account whilst I make my video, and down to my research I now have gained a wider understanding in why genres, and genre conventions are significant in creating a successful music video.