Tomas McLoughlin sent out a survey to gather feedback on his music video and album packaging. Respondents correctly identified the genre as hip-hop and felt the video was unique compared to other hip-hop videos for its slower pace and lack of stereotypical elements. They also recognized the consistent branding across the video, advertisement, and album packaging. Suggested improvements included better lip syncing in the video and using different photos for the album cover front and back. Overall, the feedback was positive and confirmed Tomas successfully targeted his intended young, urban audience.

1. What did you learn from your audience
feedback?
Tomas McLoughlin

2. In order to gain some sort of understanding of what my audience thought of my
productions, I sent out a survey, using Survey Monkey – a website which enables you
to design and produce a questionnaires with various answer formats.
• These were the questions I put forward to the viewing audience:
• 1. What music do you usually listen to?
• 2. What genre of music do you think my video belongs?
• 3. How did my video compare with other music videos of this
genre?
• 4. Where would you expect to hear/see my song/video if it was
released? (which radio stations/tv channels etc)
• 5. Did the advert digipack and video link together? If so, how?
(Costumes, locations, fonts, etc)
• 6. If you came across my album in store, would you pick it up?
Why?
• 7. What improvements could be made to the video and digipack?
• 8. Did you enjoy my video? Was it entertaining?

3. One of the completed questionnaires I received on SurveyMonkey.com

4. 1. What music do you usually listen
to?
• Answering my questionnaire were fans of
various genres, ranging from hip-hop/rap fans
to heavy metal and Rock fans

5. 2. What genre of music do you think
my video belongs to?
• Everyone seemed to correctly recognise the
genre of my video, which was a positive for
me as it means that I have displayed certain
conventions and have made the genre clear to
the audience. It is important that the audience
can categorise and understand my video.

6. 3. How did my video compare with
other music videos of this genre?
• The general feeling was that my music video was unconventional
and unique, compared to most other Hip-hop music videos. Mine
included none of the antics which you see in stereotypical rap
videos. There was no showing off material objects and there was no
sexualisation of women. Among the answers were
• -‘More toned down’
• -‘Less characters’
• -‘More stylish clothing’
• -‘Less arrogant’
• -‘Slower paced’
• These answers are good to hear. The sub-genre of the song is
ALTERNATIVE hip-hop so I think it was appropriate to produce
something unique rather than monotonous.

7. 4. Where would you expect to hear/see my
music/video if it was released? (which radio stations/tv
channels etc)
• The answers to this question were as expected. It
was the biggest distributers of urban music that
came up, the likes of Radio 1xtra and MTV which
the audience think will air my content. This shows
that the video I produced is suitable for every
age. The fact that Radio 1 and 1xtra came up
means that my video is likely to be aired to young
people in particular. This is good because young
people were my target audience when planning
and creating the video. My video is unlikely to
feature in magazines such as NME or Kerrang as
these magazines focus on Indie/Rock music.

8. 5.Did the advert, digipack and video link together?
If so, how? (Costumes, locations, fonts, etc)
• The answers I gained told me that the
audience recognised the link between the
three products. The links were recognised
through the font, setting, costume and artist
logo which were kept the same throughout. I
was happy with the response to this question
as it proved to me that I used costumes,
locations, fonts and logos effectively and in a
way that the audience would be able to
familiarise between the texts

9. 6. If you came across my album in
store, would you pick it up? Why?
• Generally the feedback on the album cover was good.
People said that it was attractive and that it introduced the
audience to my artist, which were the two key functions of
my digipack. The font was bold and brightly coloured which
caught the eye of my audience. I think the bold and
outstanding logo is a feature which calls out to young
people – my target audience being 15 to 25 year old males.
• However, according to my questionnaires, my album cover
was suitable and attractive to a wide range of people
including middle aged men and women – although my
questionnaire results suggested there was something in-
your-face about the blue font, making it appear youthful.

10. 7. What improvements could be made to the video,
advert and digipack?
• According to my audience there wasn’t much that could be improved
to my video, apart from:
• -Slightly better lip syncing
• -More of a narrative
• I think having more of a narrative would have enabled me to connect
better with my audience and help them relate to the song better.
• My digipack cover received good feedback but a few people said that I
could have been more imaginative by using different photos for the
back and front cover. That would be something to think about next
time I make an album cover.
• The only suggested improvement I received for the advert was that
some of the font could have been bolder in order to shout out to the
audience. This is something I should think about considering the whole
purpose of the magazine advert is to draw the attention of readers.
Apart from this, there were no other suggested improvements to my
texts.

11. 8. Did you enjoy my video? Was it
entertaining?
• Not one person said that they didn’t enjoy my
video. The general response was that it was
entertaining and relevant to the song with a good
mixture of narrative and performance. Those
who watched my video also said that it was
unique and authentic compared to other hip-hop
videos, and that it represented my artist as more
stylish as well as down to earth. This would
appear to give my video an edge over most other
hip-hop videos!

12. • Overall I am pleased with the feedback I
gained from my audience. I was interesting to
hear what they think of my piece. I have learnt
exactly how to target specific audiences and
have learnt that you don’t have to copy all of
the conventions of your genre in order to
represent it. I have taken the criticism on
board. Next time I will try to include more
narrative in my video as well as keeping the
same font and logos throughout, as this
worked well.