Online Survey Analysis
For my Audience Research, I produced an online survey using the website "SurveyMonkey", with 9 questions that would help me get a better idea of what my audience expects from a music video and hence what they would want to see in my video.
My audience profile informed me as to how to go about my audience research. I found that my artist appealed to both younger generations and adults, but more so younger, teenage audiences. Knowing that I would be doing an online survey and a physical questionnaire, I sent out the link to the survey on my Personal Twitter and Facebook pages several times, where it would reach an audience roughly the same age as me, and hence fitting my audience profile. To account for the older audiences, my Dad's business "Wet Dog", a clothes shop in the coastal town of Cromer, also tweeted out the link to the survey. The business account has more followers and a greater reach than my account and helped to get more people to see the survey. The survey itself focuses on peoples music habits, what they listen to, how they listen to it, etc. and then moves on to expectations of a video and expectations of the Artist.
Question 1 and 2
The first two questions help to form the basis of my questionnaire, age and gender. From my audience profile I found that my artist appealed to both males and females almost equally, probably more in favor of males due to lyrical content of him singing about relationship issues and love that would be about females. Also, as discussed above, the ages do differ, but predominantly my artist appeals to young adults/teenagers and then some adults also. By distributing the link on the two accounts I managed to gain some representation of different demographics. 78% of those who completed the survey were 17 or 18, around my age, and I myself fit the audience profile well as I like the artist. There was a 52:48 (nearest %) split between males and females so I managed to get an equal voice from both genders, which is makes responses more beneficial to me as I can make my video more appealing to both genders if opinions are shared.Question 3
For the third question, I asked what my audiences favorite genres were. I included a wide range of genres, but was also careful to not include so many genres, or specific genres that were not relevant to my artist/audience profile. From my profile, I established Rock, Acoustic, Pop Punk and Post-Hardcore as the four genres that my audience were most engaged with, from their Twitter pages and bios. 3 genres tied as the most favoured, on 58%- Indie, Rock and Acoustic, closely followed by Singer/Songwriter. My artist, Abandoning Sunday, fits three of these four genres, showing the link between the demographics of the audience and their musical tastes, i.e. what the more favored genres are of today. For example, "Pop" ranks quite low, with about 25% saying they listen to modern pop music- what is more popular are sub-genres such as Pop Punk, which has recently regained popularity, and is one the other genres that my audience profile includes. Metal and Post Hardcore, arguably more niche genres, proved least popular, although I know from my audience profile that some people who listen to my artist do like this genre. However my audience is far from a metal act and this graph shows that the new album, which features more rock and acoustic based tracks, will appeal to my audience, as will the track I have been assigned for my music video.
Question 4
Next I asked how my audience consumed music. A sign of the times of the music industry at present is that Digital Downloads are most popular. This is actually quite interesting as all of my artists EPs and Albums have been exclusively digital downloads, and downloads are exceeding CD sales. Next is YouTube, where 68% of those surveyed say they use YouTube for music- this is where my video will be released, and Music Channels only achieved 32%, showing that my audience are used to viewing music videos on YouTube and that this is the more common platform, as everyone can access it or post things to it.
Question 5
This question was aimed to split my audience. Those who attended lots of live concerts could possibly be better for a focus group as they will probably be more passionate about music, whereas those who don't attend many account for the other side of this argument and what those who don't go to concerts think, and their interests. I found from my audience profile that my audience lead a variety of lifestyles and this question helps to account for this.
Question 6
For this question I inserted an image of my artist, Abandoning Sunday, and asked the respondents what they would expect this artist to be like, style-wise, and the impression they get of the artist.
Although this question did have some slightly jokey answers (see top and bottom answer above), but on the whole the respondents did acknowledge that this artist fit into the genre of rock, singer songwriter and acoustic, from his appearance in the image. Hence, I would use similar costumes and locations to convey the same things the respondents picked out, such as the "deep lyrics" and stylish clothing. Below is another selection of answers, all of whom said that they expected the artist to be acoustic or singer/songwriter, one drawing singer/songwriter Ben Howard as a likeness.
Question 7
For the next question I wanted my audience to actually listen to Abandoning Sunday, so I linked his newest single, "In Your Dreams". Falling under rock, the track is a guitar driven love song and has a homemade music video of Michael and the band playing. Including this question makes use of the fact that on my online survey the respondents are using the internet and can easily access YouTube, whereas the likelihood of me playing a song to people in public is very unlikely.
From the question I found another split - 2 respondents straight up said they didn't like the track! The more popular answer was "Okay" (26%), although I must consider the fact that some respondents may have been too lazy to actually go and watch the video and click this answer as default. However 53% of respondents said they either liked it, really liked it or loved it, meaning that my audience profile matches up with the people that I have targeted through distributing my survey.
Question 8
For the penultimate question I asked which type of video my audience preferred, and hoped that by this stage the previous questions would've helped to establish this as a concrete answer I can develop my video from. However, I was hoping that performance wouldn't be the most popular, as the logistics of getting my artist in the video would be impossible, and upon hearing the song I would be using, titled "Real Talk", I was glad that Narrative came out as the top response, at 47%, shortly followed by a concept. Hence, I will make my video a narrative, and could perhaps include some conceptual motif, such as the effect that music has on people.
Question 9
For the last question I wanted the respondents to help give me an insight into what I should include in my video, so I asked what people's favourite music video was and why, and what makes a good video. On the whole I received good feed back from this question.
Although it's more than likely the person saying their favorite video is to Basshunter is joking, the other responses here are still good. I know the video to Mallory Knox "Beggars" and the intertextual reference to Clockwork Orange and this is something this respondent highlighted so intertextual references, when they work well, are wanted. Ultimately it was said that the video should capture the mood of the song, both above for Dan Croll "Home" and below for Madness "House of Fun" (the demographic difference showing there), or a video that tells a story behind the lyrics that is perhaps not as prominent from just listening to the song - something I can incorporate in my video.