Evaluation Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a huge aspect of the decision making process, we received regular audience feedback during the production process as it greatly improved how our media products appealed to the our target audience.

Our audiences

Primary- Our primary target audience were fans of the RnB/neo-soul genre, these are predominantly young people aged 16-25 of both genders

Our primary target audience of fans of the RnB genre aged 16-25

Secondary- Our secondary audience were young trendy teens that could relate/aspire towards our artist

An example of a typical member of our secondary audience

Tertiary- Our tertiary audience were friends/family of the primary audience, which were fans of the RnB genre

Our tertiary audience is quite wide being friends and family of our primary target audience

Audience Theory: Uses & Gratifications

The researchers Blumler and katz expanded the uses and gratifications theory, they stated that "individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes

• Diversion- An means of escape from everyday problems and routine
• Personal relationships- using media texts as a substitution for social/emotional relationships
• Personal identity- seeing yourself reflected in texts as well as learning behaviour/values from texts
• Surveillance- learning information

However it is stated that the list of uses and gratifications has been expanded due to advancements in technology such as the internet and interactivity. 

Below is a slide on how we applied the uses and gratifications theory to our audiences to our media texts

Feedback during construction

After our rough cut had been made we received feedback. This was extremely useful as we could directly communicate to the TA and alter our product according to the feedback to better appeal to them. As stated in construction post 1 we received the following feedback from our TA

• On-location shot needed a better location- It was pointed out to us that our narrative seemed to suburban. For example one of our shots involved our character walking into a train station in Southgate. Two different teachers said this location was ineffective and boring.We wanted to have an urban look to our narrative thus we have decided to film all our location shots in Shoreditch in order to combat this problem. 

The shot in our test shoot that will be re-shot

•   Projection video was too dark- For our projection shots the footage that was being projected was far too dark. This resulted in grainy footage and our artists face being completely blocked out. In order to combat that issue we made an entire new video for the projection during this week. This new video contained light footage that didn't darken the footage and lit our artist well. 
•  Time line was boring- After showing our test shoot footage to our target audience and teachers we were told that our initial introduction to the male narrative was boring and too longed out.  It was also highlighted to us that the initial introduction of our male character was a long-shot and thus our focus group didn't realise who he was. In order to fix this I redrew some aspects of the storyboard to include a greater variety of shot types/ movement instead of static mid-shots which is what we had before. This resulted in a faster paced sequence, the revised storyboard can be seen below. 
• Upon revising the time-line we realised that some of the more experimental shots we planned did not work when it came to editing. For example we wanted to have a smooth transition between two shots by moving the camera into darkness. However when it came to shooting the shot did not work as the camera did not adjust in time. 

After receiving the feedback we made the following improvements to our video 

Our introduction to the narrative was shot in a more urban setting and used a camera arc to make the narrative generally more interesting to the audience 

Lighter projections were used for this set up resulting in clearer footage. 

The male narrative was generally described as "longed out" and "boring" so we decided to use more experimental shots and pacey editing for the final cut This can be seen in the GIF below

Experimental shots and pacey editing made the male narrative much more interesting to the audience

Receiving audience feedback was essential to the construction of the music video as it helped us make important decisions such as using different lighting or editing a sequence differently. These decisions would then appeal directly to the TA as they essentially came from the TA., The final cut was generally more immersive and thus could fulfill the audiences need to "escape from everyday problems"


Final feedback

After our media texts were completed we decided to collect primary data. This was done through a survey I made from Survey monkey as well as focus groups involving member of our TA.

I included the following questions in the survey

1. What is your age?
2. What is your gender?
3. What type of music do you listen to? 
4. What genre do you think this music video is from? What made you think this? 
5. Who do you think its suitable for/targeted at? (age, gender, music likes)
6. Can you identify the artist in the music video and explain the kind of artist you think they might be?
7. Please describe what happens in the video
8. Do you think the music works well to promote the artist and the song?
9. Would you want to find out more about the artist, having watched the video
10. What do you think is the theme or message of this music? 

From the first two questions it is clear that our video reached our primary target audience of young RnB/neo soul fans as 90.91% of people who watched our video and filled out the survey we're aged 16-25, the other 9% were put as other and did not specify their age.

 Although our reach was slightly skewed towards girls as 60% of viewers were female, looking back this is to be expected as our artist is female and thus the female audience would find her more relatable/inspirational and she could even be seen as a role model. This could be seen as gratifying the audiences need for "personal identity" However 40% were male thus giving us enough of a sample size to get viewpoints from both genders. 

Question 3 was informative in the sense that it did confirm that we were able to reach our target audience as 72.73% of people who filled out the survey were fans of RnB thus fulfilling our primary target audience. However it didn't occur to me the vast range of genres one person can be a fan of as the second and third most popular types of music were pop and rap.  We didn't take into account that our target audience of fans of RnB/soul would also be fans of other genres of music.

 From question 4 it is apparent clear that we were successful in connoting the genre of RnB/soul in our music video to the target audience. This is evidence that we connoted the genre well through our music video and thus appealed to our primary target audience of fans of RnB and neo-soul.







 9 out of the 11 people who did the survey stated they could identify the artist as Layla Obi as well as identify she is a debut/RnB artist.

This shows that the music video was extremely successful in promoting the artist accurately as the audience can identify her and what type of music genre she specialises in, thus serving its purpose in the marketing campaign well.

From question 7 it shows that the changes we made during the construction part of the project paid off as many of the audience were able to prove a basic summary of the narrative within our music video.

 Its reassuring tat the majority of people were able to understand the narrative as during our rough cut it was un-clear, although some summaries of the narrative aren't completely true such as "someone got shot" this shows that a small portion of the audience didn't realise it was the main character being shot. Despite the majority of viewers completely understanding the narrative we may have had to make the plot even more clear so that 100% of the viewers understood. 

The feedback for question 8 was extremely positive with 100% of viewers agreeing that the music video works well to promote the artist and the song. This is reassuring as it proves that the music video served its purpose extremely well and fulfilled its role in the overall marketing campaign,   

The results back from question 9 were largely positive as 10/11 viewers said they would want to find out more about the artist. i am pleased with this result as the one response of "Not really" may have been due to music taste. I am confident that the music video served its purpose successfully in promoting the artist and making viewers want to find out more. 

I think we were quite successful in promoting the the political theme from our music video as 9 out of 11 responses did mention police relations which is what we set out to do. This is important as a key part of our artists construction relies on her views, these views will then help her relatablity with the audience and thus help push her as an up and coming artist. The reliability factor also fills in the audiences use of media texts in order to find personal identity, 

As well as feedback from a survey I also asked a focus groups of our primary TA what they thought of our media texts, a recording of what each one had to say can be seen below.

Emilios views on video:

• "Really good, really professional" 
•  Reconsidered the RnB, soul genre 
• Recognised the target audience of young people
• Identified Layla obi "the girl with the afro"
• Identified the issue of Police brutality
• "Really informative" "The video reflects the music mood" 
• Liked the three-shot run
• Didn't like the train zoom 

 Emilios view on website:

• Graffiti was used to target young people 
• recognised the graffiti was from where the music video was shot
• Instantly saw the album on the website
• Impressed by the video background 
• Didnt like the quote "Quotes a bit cheesy and boring" 
• Instantly saw tour dates
• Using the website was really clear
• "very very professional" "basically the same as any other big artist" "really informative as well" 
• "videos are really arty colours are really vibrant"
• "[targets audience] through the clothes, through the items, black and white so its in your face, and graffiti" 
• Surprised by the social media links
• "Really good brand image" 
• "Basically I would see this" 

Emilios view on album cover:

• targets teenage audience it is trying to reach out to well 
• "colours are really retro, kind of vintage feel" 
• People who listen are trendy teens
• Thought the floating image was eye catching
• "It all relates"
• "to be honest I dont like this one [inside album panel] as much" "its a bit younger than what its audience is" "13-14 year old type of cover" 

Tillys view on music video:

• "all the colours are really cool"
• Really loved the running sequence
• Recognised it was from the RnB genre
• Recognised it was targeted at young people
• Recognised our artist as young and up and coming
• "fitted really well to the music"
• Recognised theme of police brutality
• The artist is always the centre of attention
• Liked blood on the hands cross-cut shot
• Visually shows what the lyrics are saying
• the music and the video compliment each other very well
• would want to find out more about the artist as they are a similar age

Tillys view on the website:

• Really liked landing page shot
• Graffiti on the website reminds her of the music video
• instantly recognised similarities
• like how the music video is straight there
• thinks it works well as a hub for infomation
• Liked the shallow focus video background
• Thought the Q&A was really nice way to find out about the artist

Tillys view on the album cover

• Liked the photography
• Liked the colours of the graffiti thinks it directly links with the music video
• immediatly saw the connection of the graffiti from the narrative
• Shots are quite nice of plain white
• Got a "Edgy" theme going on 
• Lot nof similar shots further creating the theme

Overall I am very pleased with my audience feedback. i feel like all the elements in our campaign worked quite well in their purpose. Our survey highlighted that out music video reached our target audience of 16-25 fans of RnB/soul quite well. Our audience feedback also showed the effectiveness of each element in their role. For example it is clear that the website works well as a hub for connectivity and information involving our artist, it is clear that our music worked well to promote the single, artist and album. I am also really pleased that most of our audience recognise the synergistic elements across our products highlighting the brand between our media texts.

However some audiences felt as if the narrative was still unclear and a small minority of viewers did not receive the political theme behind our music video. If I could go back I would attempt to tweak the narrative so it is clearer to the audience. I would also redo the unsteady zooms as it was pointed out by our audience. If the zoom issue was fixed it would help our audience suspend their disbelief better and thus make our music video much more immersive.