NEA Pre-research
Audience Research
Set Audience
According to the brief, my cross-media production target audience should be 'a primarily 16-25 year old middle and up market audience of people who like to be engaged'
Audience Profile
- Statistically, Pop and Hiphop/rap are the genres that the 16-25 year-old age group engages with the most, according to Statista.com
- Approx. 54% of music consumers in this age group identify the pop genre as their favourite
- However, Alt/indie music isn't too far behind, with 31-40% of this age group consuming it
- This could mean that alt/indie music is no longer necessarily viewed as 'unknown' or 'niche' in the same way as before- it has reached a much more widespread audience, and alt artists are developing bigger fanbases with the help of the digital age
- According to SQ Magazine, approx 52% of young people aged 16-25 use social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram to discover music
- This means that modern music videos and styles are manufactured to cater to this new medium in order to increase chances of discovery, with many artists using the vertical format for their music videos to ensure easy uploads to short-form content apps, or making their chorus 30 seconds or less with hopes it becomes a viral sound.
- The themes and meaning behind the song, however, are more serious and cover topics such as grief and depression
- mental health is a prominent issue among young people in this generation - In 2023, approximately 1 in 5 (roughly 21–23%) young people aged 17–25 in England had a probable mental disorder, according to NHS England Digital
- adolescents (12-17) and young adults (18-25) currently face the highest rates of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and self-harm, according to The Health Foundation.
- By including issues that will resonate with the target audience, the video will effectively engage the target audience set by the brief
My own audience research and survey
I carried out a survey via Google Forms and sent it out to teenagers and young adults aged 16-25 as my primary target audience, and to two adults aged 25+ as my alternative secondary audience members. This allowed me to find out what the demographic engages with in terms of music culture.
Method: Google Form
Respondents:
Respondents chosen for focus group:
Key Findings
- 20% of respondents refer to Alternative/Indie music as their favourite genre, compared with 30% R&B and 20% Pop. This suggests that Alt/indie is more of a niche genre, which means that the audience most likely has higher expectations of the music and music videos to be more precise to the generic conventions, while still retaining an air of originality in order to remain 'niche'
- This will help me when producing my NEA because I know to choose a song that aligns with the generic conventions while still transcending the typical sound to an extent, both satisfying the existing alt/indie demographic and introducing them to something new.
- For the question 'On a scale of 0 to 5, how often do you listen to music? (0 being never and 5 being most of your day is spent listening to music)', 47.8% answered with 5. This shows how music is often a central part of the demographic's daily lives, and how modern technology now allows them to listen to music all day, anywhere they go
- in addition to this, when asked how they usually listen to music, 95.7% of respondents answered that they use the free streaming app Spotify. The fact that 0% answered physical media or radio stations shows how the streaming era allows for much more interest in music and a wider personal music catalogue, since the entire world's music is now portable and accessible at the click of a button.
- This will help in my NEA production as it shows that the demographic is expecting content that fits into the streaming era - this means that popular streaming apps such as Spotify need to be incorporated into my website pages in order to engage the streaming generation successfully.
- I also asked 'How old is your favourite music artist?', to find out whether the demographic prefers to listen to artists around their age and relate to them more closely, or artists slightly older than them, to look up to them as a role model while still relating to them in some aspects. 50% of respondents answered that their favourite artist is 22-25, which shows that the under-18s enjoy looking up to their artists while still relating to an extent, while the young adults like hearing music that somewhat resembles their current life stage
- I also asked the question, 'What is your favourite type of music video?'
- 70% answered 'Narrative', which reinforced my previous decision to make a narrative music video in order to engage the target audience
Industrial context and research
The history and evolution of music videos
I previously created an infographic on the history and evolution of music videos, including the biggest milestones and turning points in the trajectory of their popularisation. Key points included the first (popular) music video, the creation of MTV, Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', and the use of YouTube to upload music videos.
Researching the music video industry in more detail will provide me with more useful contextual knowledge, which would be more helpful in my production process
Youtube
YouTube is a dominant player in the music video industry, making the most money as a distributor, alongside Spotify. It is estimated that YouTube generates $14 billion to $16 billion annually from music-related content across advertising and subscriptions. There are over 1 million official music videos from premium artists hosted on YouTube through the Vevo network alone. In the Audience research survey I carried out, 100% of respondents said that YouTube is the main platform they use to watch music videos.
This is grid 1 as of now, which shows the opening intro to the song, which consists of a voice note in which singer Cat Burns talks about her struggle with mental health after a traumatic event
