Audience Research: The Findings...

In order to understand what teenagers want from a music video, I asked 20 teenagers (10 males and 10 females between 16-18 years old) a series of 10 questions on various aspects of music and music video production.

Question 2: How many different music videos do you conventionally watch per week?

I asked this question to gauge an understanding of how knowledgeable my audience would typically be about music videos. I thought that if people watched more videos, they would have stronger opinions and expectations of the content. Also, typically the females questioned watch more music videos than males. There are several males that watch fewer than 1 a week!

Maybe that means that male interest in music videos is starting to tail off... or maybe the interest wasn't high (compared to the ladies) in the first place. I'll be looking at what the guys appreciate in music videos using these results and further research in the next few days - in order to try and interest them into watching my production.


Question 3: Tick any of the following music genres you listen to often.
This question was asked to find out what music genres my perspective audience listen to the most. The results from this were never going to greatly influence my choice of track for my music video, because I had previously come to the decision to produce a video for a "niche" genre such as a dance/D&B crossover. As expected, rock and pop are by far the most commonly listened to genres, with Indie and R&B following closely behind. It is interesting to see that 4 out of the 10 females questioned apparently like D&B, compared with only 1 male!

My personal belief orginally was that the Drum and Bass genre is one that many more men liked compared to females. Further research after the results to this question were collected suggest that many females did indeed head off to raves up and down the country in the 1990's alongside the males. After watching footage from these events on Youtube, it does show a healthy amount of women in attendence also. These raves would play exceptionally fast, high beats per minute, bass heavy hardcore music as well as the typical drum & bass culture that was sweeping across the UK from the early 90's onwards.

Question 4: Which of the following best describes your attitude towards music videos?

This question relates to how my target audience hear their music. If they hear the track, then go and watch the video, they might have certain ideas of what to expect in the music video, whereas the people that watch then download may not have such ideas. As expected, 80% of those questioned hear the track, then go watch the video.

Question 5: Rank the following features in order of personal enjoyment in a music video.

There are 3 main categories of music videos, so I asked this question to found out which one people find the most enjoyable. The majority of people either chose "random" (concept video) as the most enjoyable option or story (narrative video) with the dancing (performance video) option almost always in last position. As a direct result of this, I will be putting more effort into introducing a concept based element that will go alongside by narrative led music video.

Question 6: Is a link between the lyrics, and what happens in the video important?

I've always been interested about the link between lyrics and visuals in music videos. I personally appreciate the video I'm watching to represent in some way what I'm hearing. I was eager to find out of other people thought this way - so I asked this question. The split between those that cared and those that didn't is pretty much 50/50, so I will continue to develop certain lyric/video links in my own piece to appeal to the 45% that do care, and the 55% that don't mind!

Question 7: Rate the following 10 features, starting with 1 for the most important, that you would like to see in a music video. Leave any you do not overly care about blank.

For this question I gave people 10 options and asked them to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. My intention was to directly focus on aspect of music videos that are typically expected and liked by a wide variety of people.

The trends I noted from this are as follows:

• With this question, a visual/lyric link scores quite highly with most people.
• An attractive cast is more important to males than females. But many appreciate a attractive cast!

This point would tie in with the "male gaze" theory by Laura Mulvey, which essentially argues the fact that typically in film media, the male gaze is more pronoucated and regular occuring when shown an attractive lady than the female gaze - arguing that males are not used in productions as "sex symbols" that often compared to the use of attractive females.

• Females typically like to see musicians in music videos more than males. Males don't.
• Random ideas are usually appreciated quite highly.
• Casual clothing is a factor that is "in the middle" and is of medium importance.
• Locations that suit the mood of the song are of a very high importance to get right.
• Vibrant colours are appreciated by some, but not an essential factor in a music video.
• CGI and Animations score reasonably highly, and this is something more research will look at.
• Most people really do not appreciate a love story. Probably because they are predictable...
• The use of close up shots are often unimportant to the audience.

Therefore as a result of these findings, there are 5 aspects I will turn most of my attention to:

1. Locations
2. Visual/Lyric Link
3. Random Ideas
4. CGI/Animations (and all Visual Effects)
5. Attractive Cast

Question 8: Before you watch music videos, do you have a certain mental image of what you expect them to be like?

Another element of music videos I thought I'd investigate is the mindset that people approach them with. In other words, do they have certain expectations of what they will see in the video, before they see it? (e.g dancefloors/club setting in a dance video or a performance led video for a rock track).
The split appears fairly even... but when we break it down into the sexes, this changes quite strongly.

This is an interesting finding. You could say that according to this evidence, females are more open to discovery and new ideas in music videos, whereas the males expect things to be the same they have experienced in previously watched videos.

As it seems males expect certain aspects in music videos whereas females don't, I need to stick to some genre conventions of my music track yet add some unorthodox aspects to appeal to both sexes.

Question 9: Rate the following marketing techniques which, if done correctly, would interest you into buying a song. (1 = Most likely / 3 = Least likely)

This question was asked in order to find out about the marketing approaches that work best with teenagers. 9 people put CD cover 1st, another 9 put radio advert, and the final 2 put poster as the thing that was most likely to convince them into buying a single or album. The order of results for 2nd and 3rd positions between the radio advert and the poster were mostly different for many people, and no other clear trend was noted. I'll be investigating the different marketing techniques and their differing effectiveness with my Further Research Team over the next couple of weeks.

Question 10: Which of the following album covers do you like the most and why? (Think about colour, layout, use of pictures/images, how/if the artist features, props etc.)

For my last question, I asked people to study 3 different album covers, pick the one they liked the most, and then comment on why they did like it.

Most people chose the Hard-Fi cover (C). Comments talked about the simplicity of the layout and the nice, bright color contrast.

In 2nd place, with 7 people choosing it was the Muse album cover (A). Positive comments again talked about the simple design and use of props. It was also noted by several as being "different" and slightly out of the normal.

In last place with 4 votes was the Calvin Harris cover (B). 3 girls and 1 male liked this cover and appreciated it's quirky nature and eye catching props.

I've learnt from this question that my CD cover will use elements from A & C and I will attempt to keep it simple and designed with a good contrasting colour scheme, and maybe use a few props.

Full Results (click to enlarge)

Full Questionnaire Scans:
(Questionnaire 1 To Be Uploaded)

Questionnaire 2: Josh Goddard      
Questionnaire 3: Nathaniel Spence         

Questionnaire 4: Jordan Hurst       
Questionnaire 5: Olivia Sherman 

Questionnaire 6: Leonie Evans       
Questionnaire 7: Nick Harman
Questionnaire 8: Philippa Roberts (Question 10 Notes)
Questionnaire 9: Josh Binks           
Questionnaire 10: Nick Woodland
Questionnaire 11: Ben Holdsworth
Questionnaire 12: Emma Warner
Questionnaire 13: Robert Newton
Questionnaire 14: Dean Sawyer
Questionnaire 15: Natasha Levy (Question 10 Notes)
Questionnaire 16: Katy Matthews
Questionnaire 17: Shaunagh Barlow
Questionnaire 18: Katy Mercer
Questionnaire 19: Megan Tooke
Questionnaire 20: Katie Benham