What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When producing a media product it is ideal that said product has an audience to which it appeals to and thus as a result of this, during the early stages of my media production knowing roughly which genre of music I wanted to work in for the future I developed an audience profile of a demographic.

This profile was developed via quantitative and qualitative research methods and based my findings on Young and Rubicam theory on the 4C's and the seven type of people that exist within our world.

Around this time, my preferred genre to which I wanted to work with was electronic music and the sub genre's within it. One particular group's audience I decided to investigate were Daft Punk fans since one could argue that they are a mass audience when it comes to electronic music as evidenced by Daft Punk's mainstream success.

http://christopherankamedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/building-audience-profile.html

To conduct this research I developed a questionnaire via survey monkey and posted a link to it exclusively on the Daft Punk fan website to target this audience effectively and specifically.

Initially I assumed that a typical Daft Punk fan would be possibly around 15-24 years old and would be interested in science fiction and fantasy, based on Daft Punk's robot/sci-fi visual motif's and as well as having an interest in technology as a result of daft punks robot motif. Other assumptions of this demographic also included watching films, attending gigs, clubs or festivals, video games, cartoons, comic books, anime and Manga based on daft punk's use of the anime visual style as well as many video games like graphics in their music videos and productions. I also predicted that this audience are prosumers in some form based on Daft Punks artistic style.

These assumptions at the time I believed would allow me in the future to construct a music video that would appeal to these demographic and similar ones. If going down this electronic music route of music video, I could simply utilise what this group already likes outside of Daft Punk and feature it in my video in some shape or form to appeal to them.

My feedback from the questionnaire was very close towards my initial assumption with a few differences such as the fact said demographic weren't as enthusiastic about attending gigs or musical events as I had hoped. In fact said demographic also lacked that much of an interest in Manga, anime or cartoons and in fact preferred comedy over sci-fi however sci-fi still appealed to said audience.

In addition to this I had learnt from asking them about their website habits that majority of said audience were possibly social network savvy but weren't the type of prosumer I had assumed, with only 50% of my chosen demographic saying that they do or are enthusiastic about producing their own content. This was mainly around just music and video not just other content previously assumed such as their own written articles.

From this audience feedback, I had learnt that in order to possibly appeal to this audience I would have to include some sort of trope of intertextual reference to either comic books, video games or sci-fi and have some sort of comic tone throughout.

I had also learnt from asking my audience what is it about Daft Punk they liked I had found that one thing that appealed to them was "the whimsy and mystery of the robot personas and it's a lot if fun to buy into the fantasy of it." This quote and the many that were similar to it lead to the development of the Robot character within my media product to provide a similar sense of whimsy and mystery to said audience.

In addition, from my questionnaire I had also allowed myself to create a demographic profile of this audience. Based on their age of mainly consisting of 15 -24 year olds I came to the conclusion that my audience either belonged to the E class of social class due to the high possibility that they are students in higher education or perhaps they belonged to a class higher than C2. This assumption that my potential audience could be placed in a class higher than C2 was due to the fact that many of those answered when asked if they produced their own content answered with some enthusiasm meaning that they were some sort of "creative" putting them in class B. Additionally, many of the responses I had during the survey reflected feelings that according to the 4Cs are those that belong to someone considered as a reformer. According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs a reformer needs to have achieved a certain amount of things prior before they can achieve what they desire which is enlightenment. These things would include a stable home environment and thus one could stereotypically claim that a Reformer would have to be higher than class D in order to achieve this goal of enlightenment.

Moreover, exploring Daft Punks audience gave me a variety of audience to appeal to due to the nature of the artists themselves being quite mainstream in popularity thus meaning I would be appealing to a "mainstream audience" and having to utilise all the stereotypes of a mainstream audience to appeal to them. This, as well as the fact that Daft Punk's abstract work could possibly appeal to an arthouse audience, this allowed me to think about using more abstract styles in my own media product to appeal to this possible arthouse audience. This somewhat resulted in some of the stranger ideas being put forth in my video such as stop motion bread moving up and down since the idea was that it is abstract enough to engage Daft Punk's arthouse audience but also the similarity in my chosen track to daft punk would engage the mainstream daft punk fan. The abstract stuff would shock the mainstream audience but engage them more in my product.

Daft Punk - Da Funk Tropiika - Burnin Fever (My music video)

One fault with this research I did find was that I missed out a crucial question when investigating audience that was one based on gender in order for me to better understand who it is I am exactly targeting and perhaps if appropriate include or challenge gender stereotypes to better appeal to this demographic.

I attempted to rectify this in the next survey I produced via similar methods to better understand my audiences music consumption habits however I find that this research is somewhat less reliable than others since I only managed to attract 16 of the original 29 audience group.

The next survey I produced via survey monkey, focused on the viewing habits of my potential audience. Through my new survey, I wished to learnt my audience's favourite type of genre other than electronic music; their preferred medium to listen/consume music, their favourite type of music video and favourite music video, as well as the effect a music video may have on their consumption habits of a particular song.

Moreover this survey allowed me to investigate what others thought was the most appropriate type of music video to an electronic type song, as well as at this point in time finding out who my chosen artist reminded them off and if they would consume his music if made available to them.

http://christopherankamedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/exploring-target-audience-quantitative.html

The purpose of some of these questions was to confirm whether my chosen artist was marketable towards my newfound potential audience as well as to understand what type of music video best fits my chosen track but also what style of music video best engages this audience. From my research into this audience, I had found that 50% of those asked if they would consume my chosen artists work said yes or expressed some enthusiasm towards the track.

As a result of this, this somewhat added some reinforcement to the idea of Daft Punk fans being a potential audience for my music video and artist. However, this also made me think about exploring a secondary audience to ensure my artist and my music video achieve a larger and stronger audience share if it were made into a professional media product. This is where the question asked "What type of artist does this song remind you of?" came in handy. By understanding what established artists my chosen artist reminded them off I could direct my music video towards these established artists target demographic as well as adapt my 3 media products to suit the style of these similar artists to appeal to their target demographic as well. The type of responses I received were qualitative, offering me a range of artists my audience felt were similar to that of my own chosen one. Following this I narrowed the data I received to two artists I felt best had similarities to Tropiika - my chosen artist in terms of sound and mood.

http://christopherankamedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/exploring-target-audience.html

This eventually lead me towards the artist Breakbot and the record label Ed Banger Records which I best felt its audience and style would best fit the aesthetic I was exploring more with my own music video and ancillary products. This was because firstly Ed Banger Records exclusively promoted electronic type music to audiences, therefore if there was any label that would best suit my artist it would be this one since he could find a dedicated electronic music fan base. Moreover, from

analysing Ed Banger's promotional materials as well as Breakbot I came to the conclusion that there target demographic were arthouse fans based on their illustrative and abstract style of promotion.

Around this time in my planning due to my previous research into Daft Punk fans, I myself have already planned for abstract styles such as mysterious robot character and stop motion animation. Hence, this similarity in visual styles gave me the push to consider also aiming my media product towards Ed Banger Records audience even using the Ed banger record label on my Digipak and print ad to reflect this direction.

Linking back to my survey monkey research when asked my target audience about there favourite type of music video a majority of the 50% asked stated that narrative was there favourite type of video whereas when asked what best suits electronic type music in terms of music video genre the majority 69% voted concept based. This I would like to say resulted in me pushing for more narrative based themes in my already planned concept based music video to capture my potential audience whilst keeping the type of music video appropriate to the song.

Moreover, the question asked "What is your favourite music video" provided me with identifiable trend to follow, i.e. when asked this question I had noticed that many of the videos that were given all had some sort of fantastical element to it.

With this in mind this allowed me to come to the assumption that this audience were attracted to a sense of escapism and thus gave some reinforcement to the idea of an abstract concept based video.

Another significant piece of information gained from this survey was my audience's consumption habits in terms of what platform they best listen and buy music on. The top voted option was download 43.75% and the second was streaming gaining 31.25% of votes. With these two options in mind on my print ad, although somewhat conventional I featured a link towards a popular digital

distributor iTunes in order to capture my target demographic effectively. I additionally featured a QR code towards a stream of my artists track and the music video in order to appeal to those who voted for the streaming option of the survey.

Rough cut screening

After producing a rough version of my music video I held a rough screening of the music video made up of mainly 15- 24 year olds - my main age target demographic in order to receive audience feedback closest towards my ideal potential demographic of Daft Punk fans and those of Ed Banger records audience. During the rough-cut screening I also devised another survey to fill out in order to better understand what appealed to this age group and what could be improved. In addition to this I produced another online survey via survey monkey and posted the link to the survey attached to an online version of my rough cut on the same Daft Punk forum with the hopes of capturing the same or similar audience I had already explored previously to see if my media product appealed to them. Unfortunately, I received no replies from this online source and thus I had to rely on information from a less than reliable source since said source weren't exactly my target demographic in terms of music consumption.

http://christopherankamedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/burnin-fever-rough-cut-video-and.html

The survey I distributed during the rough screening was produced via word meaning I had to traditionally work out the results of the survey. 11 questions in total were aimed at gaining some insight into the problems of my current build of the music video touching on areas in which I felt were uncertain in their quality within my video.

The type of questions asked although focusing on yes and no, also allowed the space for the participant to expand their answers. This allowed me to get direct reason as to why this was the case in their choice.

This proved to be effective as it allowed the participant to share some insight into how I could improve. However, due to time constraints in the screening process the level of detail in these open questions I felt were quite limited, many of which skipped these sections, and simply used the yes or no option.

From this survey, I had positive feedback, which let me learn that my chosen direction of visuals suited the type of track chosen, however one respondent did comment that the visuals were "rather random" at times, in addition to this when asked if the "narrative was clear in the video" majority said no. As a result of this feedback this made me push more of the concept themes in my music video's final product by using more sampled footage to convey more of a random tone. This was the case since many of those who answered, "Is the Narrative clear in the video?" also went on to say that the products quality however wasn't lessened by the fact.

Digipak and magazine ad survey

Just like my previous music video survey, I produced another survey, which was aimed at receiving the responses from an audience of 15 - 24 year olds on the quality of textual and visual presentation of my magazine ad and Digipak as well as to understand which publication would best suit my magazine ad. Just like my last survey, this one worked mainly on a yes or no format and allowed those to elaborate on their reasons why however the questions weren't as open ended to allow for such detailed answers since I thought due to time constraints this will not be possible.

http://christopherankamedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/final-digipak-design.html

In further detail these questions usually dealt with issues I felt I had with the two ancillary products such as the subtitle text underneath my magazine ad, the clarity of the image featured on the ad and how similar it was to the Digipak. Other issues raised included If the QR code worked and how well it worked in terms of synergy, as well as if the subtitle text on the magazine ad gave enough information on the product it was promoting.

In terms of the Digipak itself, issues that were explored on my survey included the clarity of the track list, if the theme was consistent on the Digipak, how similar it was to music video, if the internal text on the CD was appropriate for the Digipak and if said text was readable as well as if the layout of the Digipak read well or not?

Looking back if given more time, I believe that I should've readjusted my research method with my Digipak and magazine ad and once again attempt to contact an audience of daft punk fans or fans of House music (Ed banger Records audience). This would be in order to better understand how marketable my artist would be them "my potential audience" and gain better judgement on where they could see my magazine ad being placed since they are consumers of this music, they would know for themselves where they go to find out about new artists in the electronic genres.

Another criticism I have of my research method during this period was the fact that when presenting my Digipak and print ad with my survey next to it the Digipak I presented wasn't the final to scale version. This caused some unreliability with the results I got on questions such as clarity of text since the more to scale version will have larger text to solve any text problems, which they were.

My results from my survey were once again positive with people stating that the QR code on the magazine ad worked and provided strong synergistic qualities between music video and print production. As previously mentioned there were problems with the text of my Digipak due to scale and this was a criticism pointed out by some. Said criticisms I received sadly couldn't be acted on at the time. The criticism was that the Burnin Fever' album subtitle wasn't clear enough and I should

attempt to make changes to it. Unfortunately at the time before showing this version of the Digipak I had ordered a larger to scale copy however this larger to scale copy I feel rectified this mistake.

Finally, from producing this survey I had gained an insight as to what publication would possibly be the most appropriate to house my print ad in order to effectively attract my chosen audience. The main magazine that was suggested was Mixmag as well as any other Dance music focused magazine. This lead me to investigate other Dance magazines such as Dj Mag a British magazine dedicated to EDM music (which is a similar genre to my chosen artists) and Dj's as well as possibly consider overseas dance magazine Debug magazine which gets distributed in Europe allowing me to reach a relatable audience for a British artist.

What changes were made as a result of my audience feedback to my Products

As a result of the feedback received from audiences, changes were made to my media products to further appeal to said demographic. In my music video originally I had planned to feature more of a mix between concept based and narrative based music video based on intial interpretation as well as audience feedback of daft punk fans having more of a liking towards narrative based music video. However when I showcased a draft version of my music video which was missing narrative based footage set for filming ,audiences who answered the question "Is the Narrative clear in the video?" answered no but all mentioned this didn't take away from the quality of the product. Since only two narrative scenes were going to be placed I figured if the narrative wasn't clear enough at this point in my music video I should rather explore more of the concept based element of my music video. This meant filling the blank area of my music video with sampled footage of 80's aerobic video's and BBC ceefax to further convey the random concept based tone of my music video as well as conform to electronic music's genre convention of referencing the 1980's

Before After

In addition, other changes to my music video made based on audience feedback included editing the lenght of my music video. Orignally running at 5:40 my music video around 3:52 would cut to black with the music still playing in the background. After my draft, screening one of the extra comments I received from my survey included altering the length of my music video. In my final product, this edit was made by fading out both visual and audio at the point it, which it would cut to black. This allowed a much softer end to my music video instead of the abrupt cut to black which made it look unfinished.

Other changes made to my music video as a result of audience feedback included the addition of a dark colour filter as well as the addition of a static tv effect in certain areas of my music video

Before After

Although subtle the dark colour filter added a cooling effect to the footage that was used to correct an area that I was criticised on, which was the overall video quality of the darker scenes. Originally I had shot these scenes in a dimly lit room however due to the type of camera I was using this caused a pixelated effect in my rough-cut version of my music video. As result of the rough screening of my music video, I was told to improve this pixelated quality by applying said dark colour filter to smooth out the footage and improve the overall quality of the shot

Before After

Another visual filter applied after audience feedback was the use of the tv static filter in more scenes as well as a subtle blur filter. These were employed since audiences mentioned there were sequences which were less interesting visually than others hence to improve these scenes I applied this filter to keep with the pace of the overall production and to make sure that some scenes didnt feel visually out of place

Changes made to Digipak and print ad as a result of audience feedback

In terms of my Digipak I was asked by audiences to make sure that the Digipak was to scale as well as to improve the clarity of the back panel. Originally the back panel was an image of a computer monitor playing a graphic I had designed of a back panel to carry on the established computer theme on my Digipak. However, the quality of the graphic I had designed played off a computer screen as well as image qualty was too low to be readable and thus this was adjusted by using the graphic itself as the back cover, this time however editing it to make it look like its being played off a computer monitor

Before After

Another adjustment made based on feedback was the inclusion of more conventional text within my Digipak to make the product have more of a professional finish. This conventional text I had found referred to information where the track was recorded as well as other information such as special thanks and production credits and possible copyright situations such as song sampling.

Before After

In terms of my magazine ad, adjustments were made to the text below the BURNIN FEVER title to make the mode of register more conventional to that of a magazine ad.

Before After

Originally, according to audience feedback my original mode of register wasn't conventional to current magazine ads and it would be appropriate to use quotes in a less comical way relating to my song to sell the product. For my final draft of the magazine ad I adjusted this text opting for short instructions such as featuring... and available worldwide, to sell the product easier and in a much more straight forward way. Additionally I also included a quote by an authoritative persons i.e Dj Tensnake to help with the promotion and credibility of the product if it were made into a real thing.

Finally, it was also mentioned by audiences that although the vintage paper effect was appropriate to my chosen retro advert theme, it detracted a detail from the main image of the magazine ad. As a result, I decided to reduce the effect to make sure it's easier for audiences to recognise what product the magazine ad was promoting by lowering the opacity of a distressed paper filter overlaid on top. I also removed some of the distressed effect on the magazine ad photo itself to make the image much more clearer and closer to the look of the Digipak front cover.

Conclusion

Overall although flawed the research I gained during this process was quite valuable. Responses from the survey allowed me to identify a potential target audience that I could market my products to. It also allowed me to gain some insight into my potential target audiences’ media consumption habits, in particular to who their favourite artists were, their testes in music and what appeals to them. The information and feedback obtained from the potential target audience were used to shape areas of my music video and eventually resulted in me pushing more for a concept-based route based on audience feedback. The feedback from audiences provided insight into what they felt was good about my music video; it also provided me with information on areas that I could further develop such as the initially blank areas of my music video which were later filled with sample footage to push the concept theme forward. The target audience feedback also enabled me to confirm areas I thought initially though were weak on my magazine and Digipak as well as give me some insight as to what appropriate publication my magazine ad would feature in.