3. What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

To gain positive audience feedback, we had to research into our target audience to find out what appeals to them when it comes to the music industry.

When it came to obtaining audience feedback, we used the web-based online surveys on SurveyMonkey in the post-construction stages. However during construction we held one-to-one interviews and feedback sessions with focus groups with members of our target audience.

Our Target Audience

Primary Audience - Indie Fans of All Ages




Secondary Audience - UK 16-24 year-olds





Tertiary Audience - Music Fans of Any Age and Genre



Appealing to Our Target Audience

Below is a Prezi, illustrating how we appealed to our target audience using the Uses and Gratifications theory:

Audience Feedback 

When thinking about conducting audience feedback sessions, we looked at Stuart Hall's theory about the interpretations (decodings) of the messages and meanings can differ depending on the audience. This meant that it was vital to have our target audiences comment and criticise the artefacts to highlight any problems that may be obvious to them, but not to us.

During Construction

Whilst constructing the music video, album cover and website, we held regular audience feedback sessions, once a draft was completed for each. We found these sessions extremely useful in the making of our products, as the problems risen could then easily be fixed and other drafts could be made afterwards, eventually building up to the final products.

Music Video

One example of helpful audience feedback, on our music video from our second draft, is when an individual pointed out that there are close-up, beauty shots of the bassist and the drummer only twice (for each member) at the start of the video and then do not reappear again afterwards.

Once we had noticed this, we added more and spread these shots throughout the video, making these shots attract less attention for being different.

Album Cover

For the creation of the album front cover, we had a selection of photographs of the band to choose from. We wanted the band to come across as friendly, laid-back and approachable, so we chose the photo below to connote this:

However, when asking for feedback on the cover from our audience, we were told that the photograph did not make them look like a conventional band, as it was not serious enough. To tackle this, we chose a different photo which then went on to receive positive feedback.

Website

One piece of positive feedback we collected for the website was that it was very visual and had lots of images of the band. However they said that the 'Tour' page looked empty compared to the rest of the website, due to the lack of images.

To fix this we added a banner which we thought added more colour and visuals to the page.

Final Products

Music Video

To gain audience feedback for our final cut of the music video, we created a questionnaire on the website SurveyMonkey, which is embedded below. It was useful to conduct a survey as we could understand the areas that could have been improved and the parts that were successful.

Here are some of the popular responses we received from the survey:

 1. The song was understood to be from the indie genre

We were successful in conveying the indie genre, however there were many responses which said that the video was from the indie-pop or pop genre. This may have been due to the bright colours and studio setting, which is conventional of pop videos.

Meghan Trainer 'All About That Bass' - Pop genre

2. We successfully conveyed themes of friendship and nostalgia

Even though the theme of having fun, which was not the main intended message, was recurring in the answers, it was implied with the theme of friendship. Therefore we effectively communicated all of the themes we planned.

3. Liked the bright colours

We found that the colours of the background colours were popular among the audience as it reflected the upbeat and childish nature of the song and video.

4. Lack of a storyline

We made a conscious decision to not have a narrative in the video due to the light themes of the song not needing a narrative to be illustrated clearly. However it is a very common convention of indie music videos that we chose not to follow, meaning that the audience probably expected a narrative and was dissatisfied when there was not one there.

Album Cover

For the album cover and website, we conducted a few one-to-one interviews.

One of the participants looking at the album cover

Here are some of the things we learnt from them:

1. The indie genre was effectively conveyed, however we did get some more responses who also thought of the pop and indie-pop genres. When asked why, they said that the band looked very clean-cut and packaged, which is typical of pop bands, like One Direction.
2. The fans of the indie genre said they would definitely pick it up in a store, as it was interesting and different. They said that they would first have to know their music before buying an album. For us, this emphasised the importance of strong synergy between products.
3. When asked to describe the band from the album cover, the large majority said that the youthful trait was clearly presented. On top of this, some participants said happy, playful and fun. Other interesting answers included: Innocent, clean, refreshing and immature. From this, we acknowledged that the youthful trait was the most recognised and we could have pushed the playful and friendly characteristics by having more quirky and fun poses of the band.
4. When asked about the style, there was an interesting mix of opinions. The older audiences (aged 50+) took a preference to the minimalist style and said that it was "not too cluttered and elaborate which made it easier to look at". However some of the younger audience members (aged 14-18) said that the cover was "too plain and a bit boring compared to their personality". This was a good example of Stuart Hall's theory on different audiences interpreting different messages from the same product.
5. Opinions about the logo were fairly similar. The audience were keen on the font and colour of the logo, however some said that the logo did not stand out enough and blended into the background too easily. This was a problem which we thought had been handled in the construction stages by adding the drop shadow, but evidently it was not enough.

Website

One of the participants looking at the artist website

Here are the main things we learnt about the feedback for the band's website:

1. The indie genre was again, successfully conveyed. Additionally, this was the most preferred platform by the audience. Participants said that it made the band look very professional and like a real band. This meant that we effectively followed the conventions of a website.
2. When asked to rate interactivity out of five (five being most interactive), all participants gave it five. They said that there was "lots of stuff to do and you wouldn't get bored easily". This meant that we had successfully created many opportunities for the audience to interact.
3. The audience said that the website was extremely easy to navigate and was ordered and uncluttered, unlike other artist websites. They said that it kept them on the website for longer.
4. When we asked them to describe the band, the main responses were youthful and very indie. A large majority also said that the band was vintage and retro mixed with modern, which is exactly what we were going for with the website.
5. Lastly, one interesting thing we learnt from one answer from the older audience was that there was too much social media integrated into the website, which made the audiences, who do not have a social media page, feel excluded. For example the competition requires the user to have a Twitter account.