Media Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Profile of the audience - how do you go about finding this and what did you find?
The audience for my products listen to punk and alternative rock, artists such as Limp Bizkit,

Papa Roach

Linkin Park

Green Day

These peope are the average age of 25, and they live and breathe rock music: it informs their choice of friends, their hobbies, leisure time, attitudes, fashion sense and lifestyle. Above all they are fanatical about THEIR choice of music. They engage with music 24/7, from the minute they wake up until the minute they fall asleep: when they are not listening to music or watching music TV, they are talking to their friends about music, attending gigs or playing instruments and dreaming about rock stardom. They are plugged in, sharp, have a strong moral code and rejoice in their individuality. they are fashion trend setters in their peer group but are heavily influenced by musical icons and scenes. Like the bands they support they are extremely loyal to the brands they trust. The way they look and the clothes they wear is integral to communicating ‘their identity’ to the world.

How do your audience primarily communicate?
The main channels of communication for the Good Charlotte audience are social networking sites such as Facebook

Myspace,

Twitter,

Blogs

and Youtube.

There is evidence of this throughout the Good Charlotte publication machine. We can see this on their official website, merchandise, and cd digipak.

The main channels I have linked to are Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogs and Youtube

How was feedback used in the planning and construction of your products?
Through all my research in the planning and construction stages I relied on the use of feedback to improve all of the further production of my products. A particular example would be comments on my facebook status, which hyperlinks to the music video.

Other feedback that I gathered was from peers within the group, and other subjects, including mixed audiences. I used advice from the media tutor when I attempted to interleave an interest with the music video, this being iPhone 4 footage of an Arriva midlands livery Optare Versa Hybrid - The local 511 service from Shrewsbury to Whitchurch:

This was not the ideal focus of the video, as most people, and definitely not the target audience would not find this interesting. Instead, I continued in a sly manner, using cuts to the beat, and a pleasing pan. I used feedback from other peers to get the heads up, and the no go, as due to my obsession in every type of transport, I would happily have had cars pulling into the carpark, with the band getting out of the car, getting their gear out of a van, taking the bus, taking the train, and playing in the aisle of the train. Realising no-one would really get the transport theme, I decided to base the video more back street and keep the inclusion of transport down to a minimum.

I developed a questionaire about the media products, mostly the digipak, and asked for people's feedback. The results of the feedback are in the table below:

Conclusion of feedback

I have learnt that all of the people I interviewed liked the digipak because it was eye catching, simple and it was not over crowded. Although they did not like the fact that both the artist's name and album name was not on the front cover, they understood the emphasis of the simple pictures and colours. One person would have preferred to change the colour from bubblegum pink the light green and felt that the cover was more feminine, however the reason I chose the pink was because it was very effective at standing out and the other people I interviewed agreed with this. I have not added the artist and album name to the front cover because I was following the conventions of Linkin Park's new album "A Thousand Suns":

I then added the particular punk feel to the cover, but also added a "copy" on another panel, this time with the artist and album name. I did not include the titles on the front cover for the other reason of it seeming overcrowded. Also, I hoped the mention of drugs would not just say "drugs" to the viewer, but it would make them think. Why are there drugs on the cover? What does smoking cause? Why has the whole pack got an "empty" feel? The answer to these questions is the album name: "Anxiety". Then, you understand why the images have been used. You could also look at the new album cover by Linkin Park, and question why it looks "radiant, blurred, and contrasting." This is reflected in their songs on the album: "The Radiance, The Requiem, etc" The track listing also appears to relate to the album artwork.

Following the feedback, the improvements I would make would be to make the track listing bold, or a better colour, as it is hard to read in places, particularly around the cigarette and boundaries of the smoke. I would also possibly invert the colours of the digipak, as I think the black background would fit more with the style of Good Charlotte, referring to the theme of the album covers, particularly "Greatest Remixes", which uses the "GC" instead of "Good Charlotte", track 2 is called "Anxiety", and track 13 is called "The Young and The Hopeless", however, this particular song has been remixed by Mr Hahn, who is currently the band DJ for Linkin Park. These facts emphasise that Good Charlotte share the same genre as Linkin Park, and also shows a good reason for creating the digipak album name "Anxiety".