Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the start of the project, our group made it abundantly clear that we were going to keep our audience in mind through every stage of the project. This meant we would have to keep getting constant feedback through the course of the project. In addition to this, I created an anonymous survey at the end of the project using 'Survey Monkey' to collect some final feedback on our music video, album cover and website.

With our Target Audience in mind, we needed to use some theory to appeal to them. Here we used Blumler & Katz 'Uses and Gratifications' Theory. The theory is divided into 4 sections of what can be taken out of a form of media:

Diversion:

Some responses from Survey Monkey

Diversion is when a piece of media is used as a form of escapism from real life. It is essentially a form entertainment that the audience can become engrossed in, even if only for a few minutes.

Our music video does this as it very much has the 'fun factor' to it. This came across in the audience responses we got on Survey Monkey. A lot of the responses highlighted the scene with glow sticks as a standout one and engaged with this very well.

Personal Identity

Asking a friend what they thought of Orlando

Personal Identity consists of people looking to a form of media to develop their own identity. This is often done by finding an influential or aspirational figure who the audience can identify with.

We do this in our campaign as Orlando was generally received quite well. His persona came across as very inviting and this went down well with the target audience.

Surveillance
Surveillance serves to quench the audience's desire for knowledge and information. The proliferation of technology and web 2.0 has made this information much more readily available and at audience's disposal.

The bio page

We make particular use of surveillance on our website where we have a bio page about Orlando, settling the audience's desire for information.

Personal Relationships
Due to an audience's uncontrollable need to be included, they search for some platform to do so. With the proliferation of web 2.0, this has become easier with the ability to share a link to Facebook or Twitter in an instant.

Our website along with our social media pages work to this need by the ease and encouragement of following our artist on social media and then sharing links with the audience's own followers in order to spark conversation.

The Instagram page

Audience Feedback
There are many benefits of audience feedback which is why we felt it necessary to keep getting audience responses. Audience feedback:

• Provides an opinion from people who know what they like
• Lets us act based on what they tell us
• Can enable us to do things to make video appeal to audience

Music Video during construction

Audience feedback on our main character

Throughout the project we had a lot of feedback on our music video. This was really constructive as it allowed us to come up with a response to our music video before we were finished. Our teachers and technician were really helpful here as they helped us a lot with shot length and re-ordering when some of the shots didn't seem quite right. By asking some friends as well, I was able to grasp what was working well and what needed more work. After getting the feedback on our music video the main thing we took away was that we needed to sort out the shot lengths and cut more to the beat.

Website during Construction

The signing event

The feedback for our website was generally quite good, however, we got feedback that our news page was quite bland with not much going on. On hearing this, we made a new announcement video and added a couple more events such as a signing event. Below is the announcement video we made.

Feedback on the events page

Album Cover during Construction
Our album cover was quite well received during construction, however, the main issue for us was which photo to use. After getting feedback from our technician, we decided which photo to use.

A possible photo

Our final photo

Final Music Video Feedback

Feedback on our music video

I created a survey on Survey Monkey to assess how well our music video was received. Some basic questions were asked to see if our music video was liked and if it was read in the way we wanted it to be.

Feedback on what people liked/didn't like

The feedback for our music video was really positive with a lot of people scoring our music video really highly and some really useful comments in addition to this. It was nice to see what people didn't like in parts too.

We also asked people what they thought the main theme was to see if people were reading our video in the intended way, playing on Hall's encoding/decoding model with an intended viewing meaning and how this can be different depending on people's backgrounds. The responses were very interesting with most people viewing the video in the intended manner with the dreaming and musical journey taking prominence.

Responses to music video

Overall, the things I took from the music video were that the concept and fun of the video were really positive. The bright colours were also a large positive. The only negative really was some of the unsmoothness of the shots which was mainly due to the limited time frame we had as we had to rush a bit on After Effects.

Final Website Feedback
I got feedback on our final website from a number of friends and acquaintances. In the same way as the music video, I wanted to assess what people thought of our website and if it met the needs of our target audience.

A pie-chart on what people scored our website

After getting general feedback from a wider range of people, I thought I'd get some more specific feedback from some of my friends. I told them to be as honest as possible and I took some notes on my technologically converged iPhone as they went through the website.

The notes I took

The main things I took from the website feedback were that generally, the website was really well liked. It was simple yet quite effective. The main issue seemed to be that it may have been a bit empty in places making for a lesser experience where the user is spending less time on the website. 

Final Album Cover Feedback

In the same way as the website, I asked people to rate our album cover out of 10. I collated the scores into a pie chart on Meta-chart.

A pie-chart on what people scored our album cover

With consistently high scores, our album was clearly quite likeable. In addition to this, I got the same people to answer if they felt the album cover fit the genre.

A chart on if the album cover fit the genre

Clearly from the results, a resounding amount of people thought that our album cover fit the genre. This was extremely positive as we put a lot of thought into making our album cover look like an EDM album and this clearly paid off. Finally, I asked one person in more detail what they liked about the album cover and she said because it looked like real examples.

Album cover feedback

Positives

• Our genre came across as really strong throughout all aspects of our project
• We used theory to back up our decisions we made ensuring good audience feedback
• Our music video was really well understood and our audience seemed to enjoy it

Negatives

• Some people felt the video looked a but unsmooth at parts
• The website was deemed a bit empty by a few

Conclusion
Overall, the audience feedback proved really useful. A lot of it just served to solidify our thoughts as consumers of EDM ourselves. In the areas where we felt valid points were made, we worked on what they said in order to improve our product such as with the length of shots in the music video. However, we had to be careful that the feedback we were receiving was actually by a relevant demographic i.e. a consumer of EDM rather than someone who knows very little about the genre and genre conventions.