AUDIENCE RESEARCH - Focus Group

Rob gave me a list of questions he had written for me to carry out a focus groupas agreed, as a method of obtaining feedback from the track we have chosen. However, I decided to add and edit the questions slightly with the permission of Rob. I got 5 people to take part in the focus group, all aged between 19 and 23. Only two of the people I questioned had heard of UNKLE, however they are into a similar genre of music. We gave them each a sheet of the questions we had already planned and I will analyse this feedback in this post. Here are the questions we asked:

- How often do you watch music videos per week?
- What emotions does this track make you feel?
- Where would expect a music video for this track to be shot?
- Do you think this video should be narrative based (story based), concept based (idea based), or performance based (band performance)?
- What would you expect the singer/actor to be wearing? What would he look like generally? eg. haircut, attractiveness, facial features.
- How many people would you expect to see in this video (i.e. less than 5, more than 5, more than 10 etc.)
- Why would you expect to see these things stated in your previous answers in a music video for track?
- Did you enjoy the track? Would you be interested in seeing a music video made for it?
- Any other comments?

We feel that with these questions we had left quite a lot of room for creativity in their answers. They are all open ended questions, offering no multiple choices for any. We found the results of the audience research interesting and it will definately contribute to when we come to storyboard our ideas. It has helped us get an idea of what the audience are looking for and what they are not looking for.
From carrying out this audience research we found out that four of the five people questioned watch music videos on a fairly regular basis, whether it be online or TV. The second question brought about a number of answers, quite varied. Some of these include chilled out, a sense of movement, a feeling of freshness and a new adventure, mellow, loneliness and even a feeling of being in a club due to the bass. So as you can see, the video brings about mixed emotions, something we have to take on board to try to account for everyones expectations. Every single one of the people I questioned thought that the track should have an urban setting in the video. This was reassuring as Rob and I have already discussed this and decided that this would be the location. It was a positive sign to see people within our target audience feeling the same sort of emotions just from listening to the track. 3 of the 5 people questioned said that the video should be concept based while the other 2 said narrative based. Nobody said performance based, which was also reassuring as me and Rob did not think that the track suggests images of performance, with lip synching in the video as probably the furthest the performance would go. When questioned about the image of the character in the video, I found I recieved a wide range of answers. Most suggested a young male, however one person thought that a middle aged man searching for something within himself would be a good theme. One person thought that a student backpacker would make a good lead character whereas three of them had similar ideas that he should be a young rugged, dark haired character, wearing rugged clothing to match his looks. The last suggestion was the middle aged man, who they thought should also be rugged, but in a more aged way, giving the sense that he has experienced quite a bit of his lifetime already. The question about the number of people didn't really show a pattern, suggesting that the question was unsuccessful in terms of looking for trends in audience expectation. However, every single person questioned said they enjoyed the track and upon being told there is no video for it, said they would be interested in seeing one if made. Finally, in the any other comments section, one person stated that a black and white video would be worth looking into while another said that bright city lights was what he was reminded of throughout the video.

On the whole, I would say that the audience research has been very successful. I feel that we approached it in a very professional way and our feedback represents that. We have some very useful information now that we can consider when making our music video. It was particularly useful as the people questioned were within our target audience, young people from about 16 to 30. I think the reason it was useful is that the questions are presented in such a way that leaves it open for individual responses, something that we thought would be very important when planning our audience research.