The student conducted surveys and received feedback at multiple stages of creating a music video to understand their target audience and improve the video. Feedback indicated the target audience was mostly female ages 10-17 and they preferred a clear narrative over romance. Additional feedback helped the student improve editing techniques, add more lip syncing, and understand the video successfully appealed to and reflected the country music genre for its target audience.

1. What have you learned from
your audience feedback?
Question 3

2. The First Feedback Gathered: Target
Audience Survey
• After completing my target audience profile I decided that I wanted more information on the audience I
wanted to gain and to focus on. In order to do this I sent a survey out to those who I thought would be in
my audience and also left the survey online for others to complete. In total I had 10 people participating in
the survey. From the first question of what gender participants were, I proved my instincts right that most
of my target audience would be females as 8 out of 10 participants were; I expected there to be a couple
of male participants but not many as female country stars commonly have female viewers who aspire to
be like them. This helped me with the details of my tasks as I made sure the video would appeal to
females more than a male audience.
• I had a similar result with the age of the audience with most being 14-17 and 10-13. I was careful not to
make my star too sexy in order to keep to this age demographic.
• One thing I found surprising about my results was the fact that when asked ‘What is the main thing you
look for in a country music video?’ a romance element only got 2 votes, I was expecting more as country
music songs, especially ones by female stars, tend to feature a love element within the lyrics. These
results caused me to re-consider my narrative to make sure it wasn’t based on romance; I was originally
planning to feature flashbacks of the singer and her old boyfriend being loving and having a good time
together; instead of this I still featured flashbacks but ones that showed the relationship to be
dysfunctional and made audiences sympathise with and support the singer. This question really helped
open my eyes to what a viewer would want in a music video ensuring a better narrative in the video. As ‘a
good narrative’ got the most votes in my video I think that having a corrupted relationship really helped
create an interesting video.

3. Storyboard Feedback.
• After completing my storyboard I decided to gather audience feedback on how
well people liked the narrative and my ideas within it. After filming a video
with a member of my target audience I felt that it really helped me improve
my ideas.
• The member of my audience really liked my narrative and how the shots
where cut to the beat, she also liked how some of the shots went from a point
of view shot to a medium shot or long shot of the singer.
• One thing she commented after filming the video to improve it would be to
add in more layering into the video when it came to editing the real thing. I
took this on board and decided to add this in when I started the editing
process. I felt that this made the shots look far more interesting compared to
solid cuts, I felt that they improved the pace of the narrative.
• From this I learnt that my ideas where on target to fit the target audience; she
said that I managed to fit the target audience well as the narrative fit in with
girls who are around 11+ and are beginning to get boyfriends themselves.

4. Rough Cut Feedback.
• I decided to do an audience feedback on a rough cut of my music video in order to see what parts of my
video could be improved from other people’s opinions.
• One person said how the narrative was easy to follow because of the point of views shots I used at certain
points, I was very pleased to hear this as that is what I was aiming for, I wanted a clear and easy to follow
narrative as the younger audience which I was aiming for stereotypically want a video that doesn’t make
you think too much about the meaning of the narrative.
• As an improvement the other person said how more lip syncing could be added through-out the video,
something I took on board and definitely tried to add in as I felt showing the star singing was an important
factor to have in my music video as it is common to many country music videos. They also said to add in
more interesting shots, I wasn’t fully sure what type of shots she was looking for to improve the video but
decided to edit in some more styles of cutting and I also used a fade to black whenever a flashback was
coming up in order to make it more obvious that it was a flashback and to create a more dynamic video.
• From this audience feedback I discovered and learnt that my narrative was easy to follow which I was
happy to hear; I also learnt that although dynamic and interestingly edited shots; like layering two clips;
don’t tend to feature in country music videos, audiences wanted this style of shots to create a more
interesting video, something I changed
accordingly and was surprised to learn.

5. Feedback to Ancillary Tasks.
• I decided to get another member of my audience answering a
questionnaire talking about my ancillary tasks which asked them
‘what they liked’, ‘if the tasks had a brand identity/house style’ and
‘what could be improved’.
• From this I learnt that my tasks where successful in maintaining a
house style between all three aspects of my ancillary tasks. Looking
back retrospectively I should have added in a social media network
sign such as Twitter and/or Facebook (as my audience member
said) as I know how important social networking is to my young
target audience as I mentioned in my research tasks, however when
it came to creating the magazine advert I felt that the signs didn’t
really fit in and made the advert look cluttered which was
something I didn’t want. I did however, feature a QR code which a
viewer could scan with their iPhone which the majority have, using
their technology.

6. Audience Feedback to the finished
video.
• After finishing my music video, I
invited a group of four students
to come in and watch the video,
the people I selected where
those I thought would fit into
Miranda Lambert’s target
audience group.
• I then asked them to fill in a
questionnaire I made asking
them questions on the music
video.
• The questionnaire I gave them is
shown here on the right.

7. Rate the video on a scale of 1-5 by circling the number
(1 being poor 5 being good)
• Out of 4 people two voted my video as a 4/5
and two 5/5. I am happy with the results I
have gained as I feel it means that my video
has been successful with the target audience.
4 out of 5
5 out of 5

8. What do you like about my video and
why?
• This question was really helpful in telling me what I did right about the
video and some of the reasons why they liked it.
• I got very mixed answers with each individual liking different things about
the video ranging from locations, editing techniques, props used and the
narrative itself.
• I think that this is very successful information as it shows that my target
audience like more than one aspect of my video, showing that my video is
something that would appeal to many of my viewers.
• I decided to scan in results as it was qualitative data, also so you can see
for yourself what my audience wrote themselves.

9. Do you understand the narrative? If
the answer is no why?
• It was very important to ask my audience whether they
understood the narrative as this is a common convention of
country and one of the most important aspects in a music
video to keep the viewer involved and interested in
watching. All of my participants said they understood the
narrative which is something I am really pleased with as it
shows I have portrayed the narrative clearly.
Did you understand the
narrative?
Yes

10. In what ways does it reflect the
country genre?
• I got a lot of feedback on this question, all of the participants said
something about why it reflects the country genre some had the
same or similar reasons and others had different reasons none of
the others said; showing I have been successful in mimicking the
conventions of the country genre. The answers were all things I
expected to hear like the styling, the outdoor location and the star
playing the guitar.
• I am happy with these results as I planned and researched all the
conventions of country in order to stick to conventions, it shows
that research was correct and helpful for me to have done.

11. What could be improved?
• I had different suggestions for improving the music video from each of my target audience, they all
appeared to be quite minor things and not massive changes to the video which is good as it shows
my video was quite successful. One person even said they couldn’t ‘think of anything to be
improved’ which was really nice to hear.
• One participant said about having more black and white bits in the video, If I were to re-do some of
my video I don’t think I would feature more black and white bits as it isn’t something that is
common to the country genre and I broke some conventions by adding in some black and white bits
already.
• Another participant said how they wanted more guitar playing in the video, I might have added a
bit more guitar playing in if I had the chance but only a couple more shots as I felt that I didn’t want
to distract from the narrative too much and felt it was more important to feature the star walking
outdoors as this demonstrates the ‘natural’ stereotype surrounding the country genre.
• The last suggestion of improvement I had was to feature some more lip syncing in the video from
the star. I felt that I had enough singing moments in my music video for the country genre. I made
sure I featured my star frequently, if not nearly all of time in the video to keep the focus on her;
from getting this response from an audience member I feel I may have added in a few more shots
of the star singing but felt that I featured a good amount and so wouldn’t add in a huge amount
more.

12. Overall…
• Overall I learnt that my video was successful
for my target audience. I also learnt that my
audience saw brand identity and house style
in all three of my tasks.
• I also learnt that some of the ideas I had were
wrong and changed them accordingly because
of the feedback, which helped me appeal to
my target audience.