Planning - My Audience

My Audience

Why is it Important to know about audiences when creating a music video?

It’s important to know about audiences when creating a music video as it gives us an insight into their interests and expectations. Before creating music video, it is important to find out about who your target audience is and what they like. If we are familiar with this then we will be able to make the music video relatable to the audience, and create it according to the audiences expectations. An audience is extremely important as they are the consumers and the success of the music video depends on them, as their viewings will determine how successful a music video is. If we make the music video according to the audiences needs and expectations, it is more likely that a mass audience will watch the video in comparison to if we create a music video according to our own interests without taking the audience into consideration, which will lead to the audience not taking any notice in the video. In order to find out about your audience, it is suitable to collect primary and secondary data, such as the internet and questionnaires. These methods will allow us to find out about the audience in a more personal way and understand what kind of conventions they would expect to see in a music video. As a result, after deciding on our song choice, we carried out a questionnaire to discover what our target audience liked and wanted to see so we are able to adapt our music video making it appropriate for the audience. 

Age, Gender and Ethnicity

After carrying out our questionnaire and evaluating the data, we discovered that our music video will be suitable for males and females in particular between the ages of 16-28. The genre of our song is alternative R&B therefore, we believe this target audience is suitable as this is the group that are more likely to listen to slow and emotional music videos which will be evident through the themes, the content is also best suited for this age group. Furthermore, our audience will not be aimed at any particular gender, as both females and males are likely to enjoy listening to slow music, which highlights important themes that they can associate themselves with. Therefore, the video is likely to appeal to both genders, however, females are stereotyped as being more emotional, and will be more likely to connect with the themes of love and mystery than males who tend to conceal their emotions. Our target audience is not likely to be from any particular ethnic background, as our song is suitable for all ethnic audiences, and the narrative is not focussed on a certain ethnicity, the characters that will be in our music video will be from different ethnicities promoting diversity. Identifying the age, gender and ethnicity of your audience is beneficial as it ensures that we know how to adapt our music video according to these factors. 

Income Bracket/Status

We will be targeting working unemployed/ working class individuals who are in the E/D audience category. This is because the narrative we have chosen is aimed at this audiences as we will include characters who will have working class values and who will behave in a working class manner, through their personas, behaviour and values. An unemployed/ working class audience will be able to relate to the themes that are evident within the narrative as they are likely to experience this due to their ages. The audience is likely to be  young students and part time individuals who will be attracted to the music video as a result of the narrative and themes involved. It is unlikely that full time workers will be able to relate as this audience is likely to be more mature and less likely to engage in a complicated love story. After identifying our target audiences status, we will now choose characters and a main artist who are also from similar social backgrounds allowing the audience to relate to them. 

Interests/Hobbies

We have identified our audiences interests and hobbies according to the genre of our song which is alternative R&B. This genre of music is likely to be played at party's and by individuals at home on various devices. Therefore, we believe that our audiences interests are likely to be associated with partying, enjoying romance, going out etc. Our audience is also at an age where they experience love and relationships more frequently, therefore, the narrative will appeal to them as we will ensure we present an unconventional love story that our target audience may or may have already experienced before. Identifying the target audiences interests and hobbies and linking it to our music video and narrative will allow the audience to relate to the content and understand what is going on in the music video as a result.

Audience Reaction

• Audience Engagement is likely to be present in my music video, as the audience will react to the music video differently according to their hobbies. They are likely to react in a positive way if they can relate to the narrative and link it to their past/ current experiences. Also despite, subcultures being evident within society according to Hebdige, particular subcultures will be able to associate their interests with our music video as we have different characters with differing personas from different backgrounds. This will allow a mass audience to relate to the music video. However, some subcultures such as skinheads, punks, etc could feel offended due to their strong morals and due to the content triggering a negative response. 

• Audience Expectation will also be present due to the audience having expectations according to different factors such as their gender, age, hobbies etc. They will be expecting to see genre characteristics which will ensure that we include, star image motifs, intertextual reference etc. We will ensure we make our music video conventional and very much mainstream so our target audience are satisfied with the content and the music video meets their expectations. 

• Audience identification- According to Dyer the artist should be constructed to be ordinary, which we have taken into consideration. After finding out about our audience, we have decided to make our artist relatable to them at the end of the video when she is transformed into a beautiful lady and connects with her lover. We will also ensure that she from a working class background and around the age of 16-28, but also presented as a star allowing the audience perceive her as iconic. 

Why we have identified this group as our target audience?

We have identified this group as our target audience because our song choice reflects this audience through the narrative content, themes and the characters we have chosen. This has made the video suitable for 16-28 year old audiences allowing them to relate to the music video. The narrative we have chosen is specifically for this group as it involves young characters who are exploring their youth and the themes we have chosen are familiar to the audience. Other groups such as the younger audience wouldn't be able to relate to the music video due to it being confusing and inappropriate for them, and they wouldn’t be able to relate to the content within the music video. Also, audiences above the age of 28 are likely to be too mature to relate to this sort of behaviour (young love, chasing after a love interest). Therefore, the age group we have chosen is more suitable. By aiming the music video at both genders is also more practical as it allows the music video to gain more viewings.