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

Audience feedback is a vital part of the decision making process, as it allows you to hear any advice or concerns from your target audience, who are ultimately the people you are trying to make your media products appeal to. The regular feedback we received during the production process greatly improved the way in which we could target our media products to these consumers.

Uses & Gratifications

Blumler and Katz expanded and created the theory we know as gratifications theory. They realised that uses and gratifications have been expanded due to the new use of technology to increase interactivity and immersion through mainly the internet.





Application of the theory for Layla Obi:

Surveillance

We used information on the website such as a news section and a Q&A with the artist. As well as this people could join a mailing list for more artist news and could find links to her social media pages and gig dates and times.

Tour information

The artist Q&A

The mailing list for the website

Diversion

Our target audience could be immersed in an interestingly shot and edited music video with fast, quick transitions in a male narrative of a dream sequence and sleek studio shooting of the artist Layla Obi herself.

The pacey surreal dream sequence footage

Personal Relationships

The audience could learn about the artist through their personal interaction through fans from the social media pages for the artist, such as Twitter, where she spreads her own beliefs and ideologies for fans to be attracted by and interact with. This platform also allows for the audience to interact with the artist personally.

The twitter page for Layla Obi

Personal Identity

The audience can relate to Layla Obi as a trendy London teenager and, therefore, relate to her because of that. This factor allows for her to appeal to her target audience. The audience can watch her 15 second video on the website, as well as reading her bio on her page, see her gallery, read her Q &A, go on their social networking sites and watch the messaging in her music video in order to get a greater understanding of who she is as a person, aspire to be her as she is a role model for a young independant woman and relate to her normal personality.

15 second video with Layla Obi

The Bio page for Layla Obi

Our Feedback Given to us During Construction

Before collecting our audience feedback for evaluation, we had gained experience from collecting feedback from teachers and members of our TA during the creation of our music video and after the creation of the rough cut for our music video. The fundamental parts of the feedback we received for this were that the male narrative was difficult to follow and that the shots that were filmed were too boring and should have been more pacey, interesting and disorientating to engage with the audience more and create a more professional looking media product. We were told that our first shot was too boring in the male narrative and that our projection shots were too dark and were not lit properly, so that the audience could see the face of Layla Obi miming the lyrics. There also needed to be a clearer relationship between the studio shots and the male narrative.

The rough cut establishing scene that was unsuccessful

New, more interesting shots included in our music video creating a link between studio and narrative shots

A projection shot that was too dark

Our Feedback Given to us For Evaluation

The data collected for our evaluative survey for our music video was from using the website survey monkey as well as my own personal interviews with people asking them questions about their feelings towards the website and album cover.

Survey Monkey

Through the online utility of a survey website, the group created a survey with questions about, who was watching the music video and their thoughts towards the artist and music video for 'Blue Lights'.

The questions in the survey were:

• What is your age?
• What is your gender?
• What type of music do you listen to?
• What genre do you think this music video is fro? What made you think this?
• Who do you think its target at?
• Who do you identify the artist in the music video with and explain the type of artist you think they might be?
• Describe what happens in the video
• Does the music work well to promote the artist and the song?
• Do you want to find out more about the artist, having watched the video?
• What do is the theme or message of this music?

90.91% of those doing the survey fit into our target audience of 16-25 year olds the remaining percentage put themselves as 'other'.  This was good, as the majority fitted into our TA and so we could see what our TA would think about the media product we wanted them to consume.

The split in gender was almost equal, so we could get a firm idea over what both genders would have thought about our media product. It was no surprise that there was 10% more women taking the survey, as our artist was female and so her TA would most likely be comprised slightly more of women due to her being an aspirational female role model.

The majority of our survey said they were fans of Hip Hop, so hopefully hip hop fans would take delight in seeing the intertextual reference of Mobb Deep in our music video, was my initial thought. Over 70% of those taking the survey said they were fans of R&B music. I, therefore, think that the tastes of those taking the survey would fit into our TA. This is because the young, trendy youth of today tend to have an eclectic taste of music, but primarily fans of our artist would most likely be fans of the R&B genre in which our artist most aligns to with her music.

It was reassuring to see that those taking the survey could identify the R&B genre of the music video with some even seeing the soulful elements of the genre itself, which is technically neo-soul/R&B. This shows that we were able to appeal to our desired target audience of neo-soul/R&B fans.

We could see that the artist was successfully conveyed as a young, up-incoming R&B artist, who was releasing her debut album.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of the survey questioning was the fact that nearly all those taking the survey could clearly identify the narrative story and exactly what was taking place in the music video. This was very pleasing to see, as we were told initially during feedback in our construction that the narrative story was hard to follow in our rough cut for the music video.

We could see from the answers to this question that the music video was very successful in promoting both the artist and the song. Only one person said that it couldn't promote the artist that clearly.

Yet again, all but one anomaly claimed that they would want to find out more and here more of the artist music in the future. I felt this one negative comment was most likely due to someone not being a fan of the music genre or simply someone 'trolling' the survey.

All but two taking the survey could identify the police related political messaging in the music video, which was very encouraging to see. This shows that we could successfully appeal the artist's identity through Uses and Gratification's theory of the need to display ideologies and beliefs of the artist to let them appeal to their target audience.

My personal feedback I obtained

In order to have a more well rounded view of the appeal of the artist through their website and album cover media products to our target audience, I had devised some questions to 2 teenage girls and 3 teenage boys, who were all Londoners that claimed they were fans of R&B music. I've coloured the girl's feedback in pink and the boy's feedback in blue. I was pleased with the positive comments I got from the five of them when I asked them about their views towards the website and album cover that you can see below:

What do you think about the website?

• Wow it looks really professional!
• I love the video background.
• It works really well as a hub of information.
• The Q&A and 15 second video are really good for knowing more about what the artist is about.
• It's really good, but the merchandise is a bit boring.

What are your views towards the album cover?

• The graffiti looks really nice and urban.
• The tracklist seems legitimate.
• I think the front and back cover is impressive, but I'm not sure if it relates well with the inside cover design.
• I like the colour scheme it makes Layla Obi stand out.
• I love the album name and she looks cool.

The feedback from the questions showed to me that gender had no bearing on the positive feedback we received for both our website and the album cover for 'London Colour'. I was especially pleased with comments on the website praising the interactive, immersive nature of the videos and content. As well as the comment that the website was a hub of information. This showed that the website successfully worked as a cross-media platform.

Conclusion

Myself and my group have learn a lot from our audience feedback. It first let us know changes we had to make to the creation of a successful music video media product. It helped us know that our product appealed to our target audience. It seems our product was very much successful in appealing to our target audience, which comprised of both sexes, who in the most part were fans of the R&B genre. I am pleased with the positive feedback received as I am now clear that it helped us manage to appeal to our target audience and, therefore, have created successful media products.