What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

1. What have you learnt from your
audience feedback?

2. For our music video, my group
and I sided to create a video for
the song ‘Hype in the Booth’ for
rising star Isaiah Dreads.
Familiar with the genre, this
would be an ideal choice as our
prior knowledge of the genre
helped to illuminate our work.
Combining this with research
and audience feedback, we
chose our target audience to
be 18-24 year olds, of whom
the genre is most popular.
Audience feedback was vital
in the production process and
helped us to make decisions
that would greatly influence
our end product and extend
it’s success as a professional
music video.

3. Having researched the artist online (Google, hashtags on
social media, and so on) it became apparent that Isaiah’s fan
base is growing one, predominantly consisting of 18-24 year
old males. The collection of this data and from looking at
comments of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and
looking at his followers reiterated that we should aim our
product at 18-24 year olds, a key demographic, with males
audiences as a focus but not limited to them - with females
making up around 45% of his following.

4. Following this research we decided to utilise
questionnaires to find out more about our
target audience. Following around 40 surveys
we saw that the predominant ages ranged
from 14-24, which fitted well with ur previous
research. ‘Stormzy’ was by far the most
popular artist with less that 80% of
participants mentioning him alongside ‘Chip’.
We then researched these artists to establish
a better grounding of the genre and our
target audience. They were found to be very
active on their social media and followed the
conventions of the genre. Their music was
fundamental to our product and helped shape
it’s production. As we found from
questionnaires, ‘96 Bars of Revenge’ was
widely popular. Acoustics were also ranked as
more important compared to visuals. Hence,
although we would aim to make our end
product look professional, it had to sound
professional and be convincing. Audience
research in this sense therefore spearheaded
our work to create a heavily performance
based music video and reduce the narrative
of the video, with lyrical meaning taking
centrefold.

5. Later we collected a focus group audience of just 20 participants, with only 9 females
as to mirror the 45% female following of Isaiah. This aimed to select a song for our
music video having been narrowed down to ‘Hype in the Booth’ or ‘Fire Flow’. In this
focus group the questions were more open and we were able to collectively and
openly discuss ideas with the group and brainstorm possible shoots.
Having presented them with our initial ideas we could receive feedback that would
later prove to be very useful in the creation of our music video for ‘Hype in the Booth’.
This was identified by our focus group as the better, more fitting, song to choose for
its hard hitting nature, and optimistic and money-driven lyrics. They gave us the idea
of using a suburban London estate for the verse scenes and a music booth for the
songs hook. We followed this and found it to be useful in making our video
aesthetically and professionally pleasing with a great concept. Using ‘the booth’ as a
metaphor for the success the artist craves though limited by his working-class roots of
the estate as a Marxist point of view on the music industry.

6. Later, we presented our initial ideas for the video to random sample of around 15 people
and received questions after. However, this was not ideal as it misrepresented our target
audience and so the feedback we received was not so useful. Suggesting the use of a
narrative and arguing that the video would be difficult to make interesting to an
audience, we felt following this would be stepping backwards not forwards as it would
oppose all our surveys, questionnaires and focus groups taken by our target audience.
Though this feedback was considerably unclear and arguably naïve, we took it on and
employed various methods in the shooting and editing of the video to make it exciting to
watch and to hook the viewer as we feel this could only grow our success and not
depreciate it. Comparing this to feedback after the finished product had been made we
found that the same group of individuals found the video to be ‘great’ and ‘entertaining’.
With a range of varied shots and fast paced editing, the audience feedback demonstrated
the importance of editing well and considering all feedback. This taught me that no
feedback is bad feedback or as the saying goes ‘never look a gift horse in the mouth’.

7. Afterwards, my group and I took to another focus group consisting of our target audience of 18-
24 year olds and the feedback was all very positive. They agreed that the music video was well
constructed and that the editing enabled a fast pace that kept them entertained. Arguing that the
music video fitted well within the grime genre and was ‘aesthetically professional’, they
commented on a large selection of frames that kept them enticed such as those consisting of
back lighting and bright fill light in others.
They debated that this created a contrast in lighting as he was
surrounded by darkness, making the artist appear enigmatic and
‘grimy with an edgy feel’ which made the video appear more
professional and established synergy between the video and print
products. Furthermore, they informed us that the artist’s
performance was convincing, with ‘a sense of aggression and
mystery’ that tied in with the music. This reportedly made them
‘want to see the artist perform live’ and ‘buy the album’ as it was
of professional quality and was ‘easily mistakable for a real music
video’. This feedback confirmed that the video was complete and
of a high standard with great match-on-action and in-time lip sync.

8. Additionally, with regards to our print
products, audience feedback played a vital
role. Creating new in-depth questionnaires
for our print products, we were eager to
begin. With this we found simplicity was
key and that the simpler our products
looked the more appealing they would be.
Keeping in-tune with the darker colour
scheme and being sure to frame the artist
focally best suited our genre (grime) and
also enabled for the most effective and
eye-catching results. Taking the feedback
on board we drafted products, first
experimenting with different images, then
with different editing and later with
different compositions of text and image,
in order to establish the best finished print
product. We then received further
feedback that changed layout slightly for
the poster and change colour and font for
the digipak to match that of the poster
which was synergetic to the Parental
Advisory logo. Having finished, we brought
back our focus group for the music video
and the feedback we received was very
positive. They said the three products
linked well with lighting and font being the
most commented on and the use of the
artist as a focus being second. Lastly, they
reminded us that they worked well
together as ancillary texts and that they
promoted Isaiah and his music album well.

9. Overall, audience feedback has
played a crucial role in influencing
our products. Research into the
target audience for Isaiah Dreads as
well as audience feedback was very
important in the development of our
music video, digipak and magazine
poster. Our research and the
audience’s feedback shaped our
product to be the most professional
and of high standard to create
effective main and ancillary
products. The constant process of
receiving feedback was crucial. This
enabled us to fit our products to
meet the consumer criteria and
therefore fit within our genre best to
market well and maximise our
profits.

10. Personally, I feel the feedback taught us to take on board all feedback as irrelevant or invalid
as it may seem as it has helped us to make our products more meaningful for our audiences
and consumers. Understanding that some members of our groups did not fit into our target
audience was also crucial as although they did not like some of our work this was good
because we only want our target audience to purchase the products. These were the only
people who would enjoy them and for our texts to please everyone would be unrealistic as
it could lead to bad reviews and actually reduce profit margins and success. I feel that the
products were as close to the consumer market’s criteria and that the audience feedback
we received throughout the production process was vital in allowing this to happen. On the
whole I am overwhelmed with the success of our products (As the audience feedback has
demonstrated) and am very proud of my work.