Target audience results - Miss Miller

The target audience that we aimed our music video towards is 16-40 year olds. We made a questionnaire that consisted of 3 closed questions and 7 open questions, we carried out research so that we could find out what our target audience would want to see in a music video so that we could include these elements to make it appeal to them. We asked 40 people these questions so that it would give us an accurate average on what our audience as a whole think should be included in a music video so that we could use these points in our video and make it more successful. 

I recorded four people answering the questions from our questionnaire in order to show proof that our answers for our questionnaires are not false, and to show the different answers some of the people in our target audience have.

Vox Pops:

The questions that we included in our research were:

1. Do you prefer your music videos to be.. performance, narrative or concept?
2. What's your favourite music genre and why?
3. What setting do you prefer the video to be filmed in?
4. What's your favourite music video?
5. What gender do you prefer to see in a music video? male/female/both
6. Who is your favourite artist and why?
7. How old are you?
8. Male or female?
9. What makes a good music video?
10. Do you prefer the artist to be featured in the music video and why?

This shows us that 32% of people prefer to see females in a music video, 18% prefer to see males and 50% would like to see both. This is more popular because it applies to the males and females of our target audience, and it creates a wider audience for our music video because it appeals to both genders. So we will include both male and female actors together in our music video so that our video will appeal directly to our target audience.

From these results we gathered that 35% of our target audience said their favourite music genre is dance, this may be because people prefer to listen to music they can have fun to and enjoy themselves. On the other hand only 13% of people said their favourite genre is country, the statistics may be low because not many people listen to country music any more as it is outdated. 22% of people prefer rap and 30% prefer soul, this may be because the music genres don't apply to all types of people as only certain people listen to the music and different genres appeal to more specific or wider audiences making the results varied.

When we asked what is your favourite music video, the majority of the results showed that Ed Sheeran's was their choice, then second Sam Smith. We believe this can be to our advantage, because the genre of these two artists is also soul, therefore we know that a large section of our audience enjoy listening to soul music and in result we can use the opinions of the people we asked as they fit our target audience. One direction and Katy Perry's came in with the lowest percentages and this would be because they fit into the pop genre, from this we will be careful not to include any conventions that could be misinterpreted as pop. In our music video we will analyse some of the conventions shown in Ed Sheeran's 'sing' video and try to use similar styles in our video.

 

This shows us that the majority of people that answered our questionnaire are female which could have a bias effect on some of the other results as they may have different opinions from the males. This doesn't effect what we will include in our video but it gives us a fair idea of the percentages of who our target audience includes.

From the pie chart we can tell that Beyonce and Ed Sheeran are the most favourite music artists followed by Sam Smith, Paloma Faith and One Direction then Iggy Azalea and Katy Perry. It shows that the artists that are featured in the chart are the most popular, meaning that people conform to what other people say makes a good music artist.

From our results we found out that 75% of the people we asked like to see the artist within the music video, when asked why they revealed that they chose that answer they said that it was because they like to be able to recognise who is singing and can connect to them on a better level when they are featured within the music video. Therefore we will have our artist featuring in our music video throughout, so that the audience can connect with her and become familiar with who she is. This means that we will include our artist in our music video to lease our target audience.

From the results we can see that the biggest age group is 16-20 year olds and the smallest is 46-50. This shows that our target audience will be 16-45 year olds as this covers all three age groups that are most popular and most interested in music and we can aim our music video to appeal directly to our target audience.

This shows that the participants believe dance routines and storylines make a good music video and don't think the lighting, props or setting contribute to a successful music video. This shows that when making our music video we should make sure that we include a dance routine and storyline so that it appeals strongly to our target audience.

When asked which setting was preferred in a music video, the answer with the highest percentage was none with 35%, No background meant that there would be a backdrop, or a plain background that meant the artist/characters would be more in focus of the shot. I believe people chose this option because it would grab there attention the most as it allows them to connect to whoever in on the screen. A close second was Public Location at 28% and then Home at 23%, this helped us decide that when shooting our music video we could go to any location and still fulfil our audiences wants, as they enjoy a variety and surprise when choosing the location of the music video. The home setting also collected a high percentage because it is typically a conventional setting for the soul genre, as it is very personal. 

53% of the people we questioned also said that they prefer the narrative theme the most, therefore we would use a story to convey the deeper meanings of the lyrics, however 35% of people also preferred the performance theme, therefore our music video will feature the artist singing. Our audience enjoy these two concepts because they believe the narration gives them a better understanding of what the artist was trying to portray when writing the lyrics and they like the performance concept so they can give recognition to the artists talents. This is why we are using a narrative style music video.

The Centre for Contemporary Culture Studies has a theory of assuming that all subcultures come from one main culture, and that all the smaller cultures are just reactions from the mainstream. The CCCS generalises when it should be particularising; they don't take into account that teens often change their image. This is evident within my music video, as the participants were mostly in the 16-20 category knew more about the sub culture of soul music than some of other aged participants in our targeted audience, going against the CCCS theory and reinforcing that it is out of date. In this modern era, the mainstream is far harder to identify, some may even suggest that there isn't a mainstream, or if there is it is widely changing. Paloma Faith could be considered as a sub culture within the mainstream, however, this subculture is becoming way more popular which may suggest that the soul genre is rehabilitating from a sub culture to part of the mainstream. Within my video I will follow the CCCS theory, I will portray this through the use of couples and relationships, lonely baths and lonely bed scenes. This shows a clear link between the subculture of couples with the mainstream of relationships, however just to an extent more extreme than normal, reinforcing that all subculture spiral out from the mainstream.