My Audience

In order to understand what my target audience wants to see from a music video and the subsequent artist website, I've created two surveys in order to gather their likes and dislikes in regards to these media texts. This way, I can tailor my products to confidently appeal to my audience, as I will know what they respond best to.

Survey on music videos - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/7C5H9SZ

Results analysis:

Of the 11 responses gathered, all of them were aged 16-18. This is important because it shows that my video must be geared towards the younger end of my target audience. It must be easily accessible and understandable. Therefore the retro feel and revival will resonate with them heavily.

The majority of my respondents were female so it is important that I remember to take in the male views as well as the overwhelming female response. I can ensure that there is enough male representation and know exactly what it is that the females in my audience want to see.

An overwhelming majority of respondents said that they do watch music videos. This is important information to have as it shows that nearly all of my audience are familiar with the codes and conventions of a music video, and will have some idea of what to expect when watching one. This means I will need to definitely stick to the typical standard of a music video.

Many respondents tend to watch music videos within the rap/hip-hop genre. This means I should draw from the typical conventions of this genre into my video in order to best appeal to my audience. A good way to achieve this would be to dip into Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze as this is the typical depiction of gender roles in the genre.

A narrative is expected from my respondents, which is why I have chosen to include a strong narrative theme to my music video. A narrative format is a common convention of music videos alongside the typical performance format. The narrative format is often better praised as it gives a sense of meaning to a video aside from it being a simple self-promotion of an artist. Oftentimes, narrative and performance will combine, however I'm going to stick solely to narrative as my audience would like to see that. 

These results show that intertextuality is vital to my audience; therefore I will ensure that I use that to my advantage. Throughout my music video I'm planning to reference multiple established products, such as Eminem's Stan music video, the Lara Croft video game franchise, and elements of Edgar Wright inspired directing and editing (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World).

The fact that my respondents can observe clear links between an artist and the music video, proves that my artist must be similar to the music video and website that gets produced. Therefore I need to keep a coherent sense of branding across both products.

The respondents do not believe that there is enough diversity in music videos. Despite my use of males and females in my video, I don't have any racial diversity at all which is unfortunately the industry standard. My audience would much prefer to see diversity in the music video industry, however.

My respondents liked romance as a genre the most, therefore I will be sure to implement aspects of romance into my music video. Additionally, as the three other genres are equally as liked by my respondents, I will integrate minor aspects from those other three genres, such as the action-inspired chase scene, and the dreamlike concept can be linked to comedy.

Survey on website design - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2W9W57X