Evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During the coursework progress, i was constantly asking friends and family what they liked and thought wasn't so good about my product to make it what the final product is now. I felt feedback was the best way to make sure i can produce a top quality product, it is crucial that during this project that i got feedback as it allows me to develop and make vital changes where they was needed. 

This is a survey i conducted back in march just after i finished my final products, i gave out my survey to a mixture of people of different ages, genders, social classes, backgrounds and many more factors that could influence their interpretations of the questions. I gave it out to 40 people and after a lot of stressing i got their responses back and it helped massively due to the fact once i got results back it helped me improve things if they specified and also helped me gain an understanding of how different people reacted to my products and how they understood the ideologies, all suitable to my specific target audience.
Each bar Create your own user feedback survey / sector represents a percentage just to clear up for any queries about the results!

Question 1 - What is the first semantic field you think about when you think about the rock genre?

On the first question i simply wanted to know what people thought when the rock genre was brought to mind to help me who i should market my product to. As you can see 10% voted the stereotypical 'Sex drugs rock n roll' lifestyle, 50% voted the morality songs, 30% voted the songs with underlying meanings emphasising ideologies and 20% voted other and the specification all involved ideologies of just being known for producing good music. For the first answer it shows the progression of stereotypes, linking back to Perkins' theory has somehow dissolved rapidly in relation to rock music in the 60s and 70s as that stereotype was the norm'. Therefore rock songs are surrounded by positive connotations due to the expiry of that stereotype. 70% combined voted for the morality and meanings of songs, i found in modern rock songs, they come away from a nostalgic stereotype of rock songs and artists as they don't need to focus on their persona. Meanings and morals in songs allows my target market to understand what the songs are all about therefore progressing on to understanding the band and their ideologies, further developing their fanbase and consumers. Morals and meanings will be more beneficial to younger people, the bulk of my target audience as you need them from a young age to develop them as you age, therefore a fresh head is perfect to understand and build on their current morals. 

Do you generally listen to music from the rock genre?

As you can see with this one, it was a yes/ no question and the red sector represents the amount of people who said yes (80%) and the green clearly representing the people who said no (20%). I found that the 20% who said no was the youngest respondents, being between 14-16 females. Stereotypically younger girls are brought up around this pop music lifestyle and it is almost a convention that they can't break, pop artists such as Justin Bieber etc. was introduced when he was just a teen therefore younger teens, especially girls can relate to him as young girls at the time when he was first introduced found him aesthetically pleasing as he related to their age category. Thus indicating that young teens are too young to understand the ideologies and messages being hidden to create an intellectual puzzle to that then you can relate to. The other 80% was built up of young adults/ students (18-24), working class people and adult females. This correlates to my original target audience, as i feel that they can understand the powerful ideologies and relate to them in a way as if they put their  scenarios to the ideologies. 

If no, what is your favourite genre?

The results stand at 30% for pop, 20% for RNB, 5% for jazz, 35% for rap and 10% for other. This wasn't too relevant to my audience feedback but more over interest as to what these genres have that people don't see in the rock genre. To me personally i don't see any of these genres with a dominant reading as i don't feel like they portray emotions, ideologies, messages and beliefs in the way rock music does, therefore i struggle to understand what the music is about. However it helped me gain knowledge on my respondents, which may influence their questions by their understanding of their own music taste in reflection to others' who accept rock music fully. It wasn't completely irrelevant it helped me understand the respondents background and having such a wider range symbolised that i have a diverse group of clients and i needed to realise that when producing my product therefore it doesn't limit the consumers.

What is the first thing you associate rock music with?

I left this question completely open, no right or wrong answer and i wasn't looking for any specific answer and i got completely different answers for every client. This is more of a development on question 1, as i gave an option for that question, but i wanted to understand fully how they feel about rock music and whether or not they feel they can relate to it. The variety of answers reflected the diversity of people i took to get feedback off, this meant that in order to make the best products i had to spread my products to cover a wide spectrum, however i didn't initially intend that, in case some people oppose or completely reject the reading and just simply not getting what i am trying to put across. However having to choose and specify a target market, has a disadvantage as that limits the circulation and consumers, as much as I'd like everyone to consume my product, that is just being unrealistic, because not everyone consumes the same genre of music, which is what makes a person individual or acceptable. 

   What is the way you predominantly listen/ watch your music/ videos?

The results are as follow: Youtube 20%, iTunes 30%, Illegally downloading 40%, CDs 10%, these results really influenced in how i marketed my product and how i priced it relation to demographics. In relation to youtube, that is lower than expected as it is a free way of consuming both music and videos and due to digitalisation and web 2.0, it makes it more accessible to consume products and can be consumed just about anywhere and any time. Also it has just about everything you would want to consume covering the full spectrum of products. Due to the rise of modern technology, especially apple products, iTunes was the 2nd most popular way to consume music as you notice around and about just about everyone has an iPhone. In 2013 alone Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones, 14.1 million iPads and 4.6 million macs, the numbers are staggering and that just reflects the amount of people that have access to iTunes. If i sold my product on iTunes it would have a high chance of being consumed by a wide array of people, therefore promoting my artist on a wider scale. The highest statistic was the illegally downloading sector being 40%, this shows the amount of people who don't understand the institutions are losing out on money when they've made a product for them to be consumed. However this allows me to understand that not everyone is in the financial state to be wasting money on products when you can get them for free. Therefore this helped me re-evaluate the price of my product as i don't want it to be seen as too expensive so that consumers will go and illegally download it. Finally the last and lowest statistic being CDs and records being only 10%. However i can see the reasoning being that these forms aren't as accessible as the rest of the digitalised forms. On the other hand,  some consumers enjoy the hands on, hard copy experience which could in a sense attract more consumers. 

Did you enjoy my music video?

Results are as following: Yes 70%, No 20%, unsure 10%. As we gathered from earlier's information, 20% of the respondents didn't like, identified to be girls between 14-16.  I found that the 20% who said no was the youngest respondents, being between 14-16 females. Stereotypically younger girls are brought up around this pop music lifestyle and it is almost a convention that they can't break, pop artists such as Justin Bieber etc. was introduced when he was just a teen therefore younger teens, especially girls can relate to him as young girls at the time when he was first introduced found him aesthetically pleasing as he related to their age category. Thus indicating that young teens are too young to understand the ideologies and messages being hidden to create an intellectual puzzle to that then you can relate to. Therefore my video being an intellectual puzzle and a prolonged story that you have to accept all three media texts to fully understand what the ideology is individual to that specific detail, which then collate and create one dominant ideology made up of all these individual ones. The results are simple, the target market just isn't fit for girls aged between 14-16 as they are stereotypically not mature enough to take on morals, understandings and ideologies, therefore will just get confused with time and space and how they build up these media texts.

Do you think it fit my specific genre?

The answers are the exactly same as last time, in order to fully understand the genre, you have to be aware of the conventions of the genre that builds up a rock artist and their ideologies creating a brand for them. Results are as following: Yes 70%, No 20%, unsure 10%. As we gathered from earlier's information, 20% of the respondents didn't like, identified to be girls between 14-16.  I found that the 20% who said no was the youngest respondents, being between 14-16 females. I found that my products were edgy,  not as refined, however i think that pretty much defines rock music as a collective genre. They don't have to be a set of rules or conventions telling you how to be a rock artist, you just go and do it, it is a genre of freedom. I think that marketing my product to younger people with a fresh head, that are open to interpretations - women who are aware or have experienced the inequality of society, opening their minds and working class people who can relate to negative ideologies due to finances, social class and the hierachy system are my perfect dominant viewers. 

I asked my friends on facebook and also in a group chat with 5 friends, to give me feedback on what they think of my ancillary texts and my final video. This helped for if i did this project again how i would be able to do better than the previous attempt. Doing this allowed me just to see how other people not specific to target market thought of my product and how they interpreted it

I asked my 78 year old Grandad about what he thought about my video, although he wasn't part of the target market i felt gaining opinions from a wide range of people was necessary just to see the diversity and varied opinions i got. My grandad doesn't fit the target market whatsoever, therefore it would be interesting as to what he has to say, also it enables me for future reference if i could have made my target market wider and broader. As he says he is an old man and the fast pace editing and rotating he couldn't keep up with, therefore he can't really relate to what the video is showing. He has lived his life so the ideology he has right now have been set in stone, therefore not changing due to what he consumes. 

On the other end of the spectrum my friend Ismail is an 18 year old male, therefore being very relatable in terms of my target market. He is in the age of just 'testing' life and he doesn't really have morals or ideologies set in stone like my grandad did, he's in an experimental period. Allowing him to be more open minded and understanding of what his current situations are as he is planning on going to University in the autumn, therefore the university fees can be relatable to the ideologies and connotations of greed and control. It also helped that Ismail is a fan of this genre, as he understands that this genre is not meant to be prim and perfect, there are allowed to be rough edges reflecting this experimental period Ismail is currently in. 

Ancillary Text Feedback

 

I also gained feedback about my ancillary texts from my friend Zack, who is also in the same boat as Ismail going through this experimental stage, as he is going to University as well. His mind is still as open as anything, no morals or ideologies are set in stone, allowing Zack to be open to interpretation. By doing this i realised a common semantic field about my ancillary texts had positive lexical connotations, but it was the use of the vivid red colours that was actually eye catching, but to me i thought i could have used more in terms of my video. But the house style and motif that was seen throughout all 3 of my products made them look professional and conventional, therefore making them more likely to be consumed by fans of the rock genre if they see something similar with a fresh burst. Possibly i could have brightened my media texts up making it more eye catching, but the connotations i wanted are through the use of dark colours remaining throughout all 3 texts.  

Conclusion

In conclusion i realised how significant it is to conduct audience feedback, because how else are you going to realise what needs improving or remaining the same. Everyone's ideologies and interpretations are different, therefore allowing me to improve my product and widen the target market allowing the artist to gain more consumers and becoming a success.