Evaluation Question 3 - Audience

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

This evaluation question also includes another video (in addition to part 1 and part 2 seen directly below):

• New idea feedback

Viral Vid and QR Code

In my evaluation Q4, I have discussed in detail how our viral video concept and our QR code, linking to our Twitter, have allowed us to create a more user-generated promotional package, whilst also enabling us to link the video and the ancillary texts together. These two elements helped to create excitement among our target audiences, building up suspense and allowing anticipation to build.

Part 1:

Part 2:


Gaining audience feedback on our productions enabled us to identify the areas that we needed to improve and change, and allowed us to directly gain critique on our texts from both our primary and secondary audiences. The feedback we received was varied, as each individual that we approached gave us different ideas and views, and so we had to balance the improvements and combine this feedback to produce effective texts.

When creating our products we had two target audiences in mind:

Primary Audience:

Our primary audience is female 13-18 year olds, as pop music is commonly listened to and purchased by people in this age range. This age range also covers the fans who listened to Atomic Kitten before they split in 2004, and so the exclusive new tracks included in our digipak and advertised on our magazine ads will attract this audience. This means that this target audience is appropriate for our genre and for Atomic Kitten, as their recent reunion will attract more old and new fans to viewing our products.

Secondary Audiences:

Performing on Loose Women

We decided upon 3 secondary audiences. The first audience is the 8-12 year old 'tween' audience. We chose this age range, as we felt that they're reasonably reflected in our video through the 'innocent' romantic narrative conveyed throughout, and also because they are the same age that the primary audience would have been when Atomic Kitten were popular in the 90's, and so we can predict that the group will still appeal to people of these ages. Another secondary audience is 19-24+ females. This is because after we researched past Atomic Kitten's public appearances, we discovered that they have appeared on shows such as Loose Women, and Kerry Katona herself spent a brief time actually presenting this show, meaning this audience will also be familiar with the group and perhaps some of their material. Because this audience is predominantly white middle class and middle aged women, we felt that we needed to take them into account as our secondary audience rather than our target audience, as it would not be totally appropriate. Finally, our third secondary audience is males. We have targeted this audience as it is important that we appeal to and promote our work to a mass market, and so we applied aspects of Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory to attract this male demographic. Atomic Kitten also applied this theory to their videos, through the use of objectification, to widen their audience and increase their viewings and purchases.

Jenny Frost in FHM

   Atomic Kitten, and other pop artists in general, tend to target mostly female teenage audiences and commonly promote their music in radio or TV interviews. To attract their secondary audiences, for example the male audience, female pop artists will also usually appear in magazines such as 'FHM' and 'Nuts'. Atomic Kitten however did not appear to promote their work through these magazines, except a couple of mag ads of the members seen in FHM. They attracted this audience more through the use of objectification in their videos, as their main focus of promotion was on their young target audience and so their reputation needed to stay 'innocent' and 'clean'.

Ways in Which We Gathered Feedback:

To get audience feedback, we mostly showed our texts to the individual or group and then filmed their reaction and feedback. We took great advantage of this and asked them questions regarding these texts, for example whether certain shots in the video worked effectively or not. By recording them, we can also pick up on points that we may have missed at the time and so it is useful for us to video them for this particular reason. Some people preferred not to be videoed, so we simply recorded their voices instead, which practically provided us with the same opportunities that we would have had if we were videoing. The only possible limitation with just having audio is that we may forget which age category they fall into when it comes to editing the clip and re-analysing it.

   For constant feedback, we were able to ask our media class. This was extremely helpful as they are all within our primary target audience age range, yet they are all males and so this allowed us to easily see if our texts appealed to a mass market and our final secondary audience. Because they required feedback themselves, they understood some of the more technological questions that we asked, and were able to give us more specific and detailed feedback in regards to things like effects and tools used in softwares.

   Fan forums and websites also provided another way of receiving audience feedback, on top of gaining extra research about our artist, genre and audience. We could easily display our rough cuts and sample videos for fans to comment back on, and because the fan forums are specific to the group and the genre, we knew that the feedback would be genuine and constructive. We didn't get as many responses as we had hoped when uploading these videos and so we advertised our products on social networking sites too, especially Twitter.

Web 2.0

   The Web 2.0 theory can be argued to reflect the ways in which we gathered our audience feedback. Social networking sites all have comment sections making it easier to gain instant and direct feedback from other web users and we can reply to these comments, to create a sense of a relationship between the audience and ourselves. The user generated web, as stated by the theory, is the main concept that can be applied to our audience feedback, as using the internet has allowed us to collaborate on ideas with our target audiences, which has proved to be extremely useful.

Ways in Which We Utilised our Feedback:

Music Video

An example of how the Pussycat Dolls convey the
Male Gaze Theory

Audience feedback proved to be the most important factor in realising that our original idea was not effective as we first hoped it would turn out to be. We gained feedback from people included in all of our target audiences and soon came to the realisation that we needed to make a major change if we wanted our video and ancillary texts to be successful. There were a whole range of things which all contributed to the poor outcome, in particular the locations and the cast which were used. It was said that these locations were not effective enough in conveying the 'famous' and 'urban' theme that we wanted and that the cast were not believable when performing on screen. We re-shot a lot of footage and took on board all of the feedback we received to try and improve the video, however we soon began to realise that it was not working and that nothing we could do would improve the video to the standard that we wanted. Because of this, we drafted an entirely new idea to a completely different song, however we made sure we did not stray outside of the pop genre. Because the Pussycat Dolls were an all-American dance group and took on the Male Gaze Theory concept to an extreme, it was difficult for us to create a video surrounded by more conservative British influences and so we decided upon the British group Atomic Kitten. Atomic Kitten seemed like an appropriate choice, as they have also recently reunited in 2012 after a split in 2004, meaning that our products could be linked in to this reunion as 'come back material'.

   When we pitched our new idea, we had the opportunity to gain feedback on this idea, and to ask questions about how to develop and expand the idea to make it work effectively. In response to our questions, they provided us with thorough and detailed ideas for the narrative and particularly locations for the performance side of the video. We also had the advantage of pitching the new idea to a member of our 19-24+ secondary audience, which meant we could get an extra perspective on the idea, and we could hear what they thought so that their views could also be considered.

   One of the most frequently occurring positive comments that we received was in relation to the common boy band convention that we conveyed through the use of laughter images and footage. We used these images and footage as we felt it invited the audience to viewing our products and the more relaxed vibe appealed more to the younger audience. These images worked effectively in the sense that we were able to use them across all 3 texts, and they promoted our products in a good light.

   Negative feedback proved to be the most useful form of feedback. We showed our rough cuts to our audiences and they tended to pick up more on bad aspects rather than the good aspects, which in fact was a great help as this meant that we could easily depict the areas pointed out and improve them to our best abilities. Most of the negative feedback was related to shaky shots and long takes, which obviously needed correcting straight away. It can be difficult when editing to focus on everything in the shot at once, and so it can be fairly easy to miss a slight camera movement. By having the audience pick up on these movements, we were able to improve our video so that it was more professional. To make sure that we improved every shaky shot, we thoroughly analysed each shot and noted down an unwanted camera movement that we saw. Once we had replaced or split these shots up using shot reverse shot, we then began to add more effects and continue with the rest of the editing. Because this was the most obvious problem, once we had corrected the shots, the video looked much more professional and fresh. Another common point that was brought up was the style of the editing and the cutting to the beat. We tried to cut to the beat as much as possible, yet some people did say that it was slightly off and pointed out more opportunities to do this and so we also made sure that we took this feedback on board.

   A specific example of how we utilised our audience feedback was when we were unsure about how to end the video. We created a vodcast displaying our two possible endings and then showed this to our target audience to find out which one they thought worked best. The majority of our audience said that they preferred the ending with the girl group layered onto the fire, and so we used this ending in our final video.

Ancillary Texts
As well as our music video, we got feedback from the same audiences on our ancillary texts. In a way, gaining audience feedback on these texts was easier than the video as we could show them all together, allowing for easier comparison between earlier and current drafts.

Digipak
From our first draft of our digipak, we were told that the idea was well thought out and that it worked well, and so we simply expanded and developed the digipak into our final product based on this, making sure that we stuck to the professional theme we were aiming for. The stickers on the front and back did need to be changed a few times so that they stood out more, and we were constantly told that the inside of the digipak needed more composition such as layering, and so we took this into account and layered 3 images to create more visual excitement. We did reject some feedback from one of our secondary audiences however, when it was suggested that the inside needed even more composition. We disagreed and thought that if we used any more layering in this image, it would not be effective and would look amateur. We feel that by rejecting this feedback our product has turned out more effective than it would have if we followed this feedback. These were the only major negative points that we received and so the feedback for our digipak was relatively positive.

Mag Ads

'Revised' draft

Original draft

With our mag ads, we used a variety of images for both the teaser and final advertisements. We got feedback on all of these ads, and were told that some worked better than others. One of the teaser mag ads, some feedback that we received suggested we move the QR code onto Poppy's dress and to remove the 'COMING SOON' from the ad as a whole. The removal of the 'COMING SOON' creates more of a buzz about the ad making the audience more intrigued. We were told to try moving the QR code onto the bottom of the dress to reflect the Male Gaze Theory. By having it placed here it is drawing attention to her lower body and is subtly objectifying her body (taking into consideration the younger audience). This is to attract more of our secondary male audience. With one of our final mag ads, we had an image of half my face placed next to the text. We were told that the framing of this image did not work at all and so we chose a different, full length photo which proved to look more professional and effective.

The Benefits of Audience Feedback:

Basic model of the Uses & Gratifications Theory

The Uses and Gratifications Theory, put forward by Blumler and Katz, argues that the success of a text depends wholly on the audience rather than the producers. The theory claims that audiences choose how they want to consume texts to gain feelings of relaxation as well as emotional pleasures, as spoken about by Rick Altman. Audience feedback is important before the final product is produced as we as producers need to be sure of their views and feelings towards elements of the texts and whether they would reject or interpret the product on release. Stuart Hall's theory of preferred reading can also be applied here, as the audience is in control of how they interpret and understand a text, often through the use of intertextuality. Because we ourselves used intertextuality from various existing productions, we feel that our audience should be able to understand our text and will therefore be able to follow the video and see the links between the texts clearly.

Basic diagram of the way digitisation works

   Digitisation has allowed us to gain feedback from a wider audience and has provided us with a huge advantage in receiving a variety of views. All of our feedback combined has enabled us to create 3 products which are all of a high standard, taking into consideration existing texts and theories to back up our choices. Because our texts have received a lot of useful feedback from our target audience, we feel that this has also helped us to engage the audience in different emotional ways, and because they can see improvements that they may have suggested, a stronger relationship can be built between the fans and texts can be built. 

   Audience feedback has also enhanced our self criticism skills, as our work would have been extremely subjective without the incorporation of different views. It allowed us to see our work from other peoples points of view, rather than being totally self involved with the work, which was also a major advantage as it meant we could spot things that weren't quite right that we may not have picked up on without outside input.