What have you learned from audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

Audience research is carried out by all types of media institution to gauge what the demographic of their target audience is and what that particular audience want. One of the audience research techniques we used was a vox pop. We asked a selection of people what they wanted from music videos, what their favourite music videos are and where they watch music videos. Vox pops are effective as they can be quite short but can give you a huge amount of information and again can help to find out the target audience for a specific genre, in our case pop punk. Our target audience are typically aged between 11-19 so we asked the questions to people within this age bracket. This also helped us discover the difference between what an eleven year old expects from a music video and what a nineteen year old expects from a music video. This difference was not as vast as we thought it might be as we found out that often the most memorable music promos are often the most silly and fun but also quite simple. Videos such as Psy’s Gangnam Style were considered the most memorable.  

 

Another thing we also found out from our vox pop was that videos with a strong narrative are popular amongst our target audience and this adheres to the theory that music videos are now becoming short films. This trend for long cinematic music videos has been around for quite a while now; famous examples include Michael Jackson’s Thriller and more recently Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Bird’s trilogy of videos called Ride the Tiger. We decided that we should have a narrative but to split the video roughly 50/50 with a performance. When asked for a favourite music video one person chose a video that was about standing up to bullies and we thought that our video should relate to our target audience and their experiences. We decided to go with a relationship theme as we felt this is a scenario that a large proportion of our target audience will probably experience at some point in their adolescence. We found that pop punk artists often write songs about experiences that will relate directly to their fans or target audience.

 

 

The last question we asked in our vox pop was where and how they watch music videos. For this question there was a very clear theme in the answers. Every person we asked responded first with YouTube and this is what we were expecting. This told us that when releasing a video or trying to promote an artist that YouTube is the first place to go. It is now one of the biggest websites on the internet and is a hugely powerful tool for record companies and artists alike. A lot of people also said that they did watch music TV channels but not regularly and that they may have it on in the background at a social gathering or if there is nothing else on telly. This shows us that today television music channels are not as important as the internet for promoting an artist and this is perhaps a reason that often music channels will broadcast normal TV Programmes.

 

Another way in which we researched our audience was by holding a focus group.  The idea of a focus group is to get a small sample of people from the target demographic and find out what they think about our concepts for the music promo and digipak and also whether they liked the song. One drawback of a focus group is that people may not like to criticise somebody’s product or media text in front of them. In our focus group we got a lot of positive feedback about our plan for the music video. We also found that members of our target audience prefer a split between the narrative and performance. We used this information and made our video a straight split between narrative and performance.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 

Our task was to create a music promo, digipak and a website for an unsigned band of our choice. The purpose of such a package is to promote an artist to a wider audience. Today more than ever a good music video is a necessity for an upcoming artist. This is because they need to be noticed amongst all other artists across all genres. Videos that become popular and go viral often have a unique selling point or a gimmick. One example of this is the video for Here it Goes Again by OK Go! The now famous video features only one shot all the way through but the use of treadmills as a sort of dance-floor made it instantly memorable and shot the band into the headlines. Disjuncture such as this is often a great USP for a music video. Most music videos are far more conventional with a mixture of narrative and performance that showcase the artist. Our video follows this convention as we have a roughly 50/50 split of narrative and performance. Music promos also often feature the artist in a narrative role as well. This is common in pop videos but less common in rock videos. If an artist is in the narrative in a rock or indie video they are very rarely in a starring role. We decided to subvert this convention and place the lead singer of the performance aspect in the lead role of the narrative. It is common that a video will be just performance but it is not often there will be a video consisting of just a narrative. This is because a narrative will have to be very strong to keep the audience engaged for three or four minutes.

 

An easy to use and concise website is also very important in promoting an artist. It is the epicentre for all key information on the band or singer. This means that the website has to be easy to navigate. Another factor is that people that visit the website will most likely have searched for it with the intention of gaining information on tour dates and purchase merchandise. The easier it is for someone to navigate the website the easier it is to promote the band. If the website is hard to work then it means that people may not get correct information regarding tour dates and merchandise and will be less likely to purchase anything, therefore meaning it is a poor promotional tool. Our website is easy to navigate and has all the major links/buttons on the homepage so all everything is easy to find. Often on band websites the theme and background of the site is related to the artist’s latest release and will often have the same colour scheme as the latest album. Our website follows this convention as our digipak is predominantly green and so is the theme of our website. 

 

The lighting in pop punk music videos is often quite dark and dimly lit and we stuck to this convention in the performance elements of our music promo. Videos like ours are often lit like this to reflect the lyrics which are often quite personal and intimate. There is also a lot of camera movement in the performance of our video and this is a convention of not only pop punk but rock music as a whole. This is because it gives the audience the sense of what a live performance of their favourite band might be like and this therefore promotes the band as people will be likely to want to experience this first hand. This camera movement is often teamed with fast cut editing to further enhance the feeling of being at a gig or concert. This is more likely to be seen in videos from the various rock sub-genres.

 

In terms of the narrative we followed the conventions for not only pop punk but most modern music in general. The lyrics of the song we chose are about the breakdown of a relationship and we decided to focus that onto our narrative. This is similar to a lot of music promos as one of the most popular topics for music today is relationships as it’s something that affects the majority of people and they can relate to it. Our narrative reflects the song lyrics as it tells the story of a relationship breaking down because of a lack of trust. The theme of pop punk songs is often related to growing and adolescence and this is very often shown in their promos and we chose to adhere to these conventions. One of the most famous Pop Punk music videos is All The Small Things by Blink 182, it is a video that follows very few conventions of Pop Punk.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of music video, digipak and website is proven to be a successful promotional campaign for many bands and music artists. If the three are linked clearly then it can lead to huge promotional campaigns. One current example of this is Arctic Monkey’s promotional campaign for their 2013 album AM. There were very clear visual links between the band’s website, the album cover and the music video for the album’s lead single; Do I Wanna Know? This was a helping hand in their rise to one of the biggest bands in the world. We decided that our three tasks should have a visual link, so we decided to select the most important image from the promo and feature it in the digipak. The use of the high heels in the video made reference to the lyrics and we decided that this was the most symbolic image in our promo and that it should feature in some way in the digipak.

 

The front cover of digipak is a still taken from our promo. The shot itself is of the lead guitarist in the performance section of the video and I think it links the video and digipak very well. This is effective in promoting the band as after the audience see the video they may see the image on the cover on iTunes or on CD and instantaneously make the link between the two.

 

Overall I feel that our three media texts are well put together and form the basis of a great promotional tool. There were a few problems that we encountered especially with the digipak. Our first attempt at the digipak was amateurish and looked more like a rough plan of what we wanted to do. There were also several spelling mistakes. Our second Digipak was far better and looks far more professional than its predecessor. A lot of the text remains the same but it is more clearly laid out and the two images used from the promo create a synergetic link. There is also a link to the website as we used images from the website banner.

 

The rise of digital technologies means that band websites are one of the most effective e ways to promote an artist. A good website becomes the hub of all information on the band and is important to the audience as they will expect a lot of information such as biography and tour dates to be found there. Websites are also important for the selling and distribution of merchandise. As the website is so important we felt that ours needed to be easy to navigate and simple for the audience to find everything that they need. Our website is simple and easy but may not be the most aesthetically pleasing for the audience, although there are synergetic links with the other media texts.

Final Website

What if the Zombies came finished video

http://emmasymmondsadvancedproduction.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/what-if-zombies-came-music-promo.html

Final Digipak

Digipak Moodboard