What Have You Learned From Audience Feedback?

Transcript:
The point of audience feedback is to help you get a better understanding of what it is that will draw a potential customer to your product. My audience for punk rock in particular seemed to be young adults due to the fact that original 70s punks had either died out or became the sorts to wear argyle sweaters and wash their cars every Saturday. I also found that the audience was not predominantly male, but rather, 60/40. Therefore I had to tailor my products to both men and women, which is why genderless puppets were used as the singers as opposed to a person who may not identify with certain social groups. Viewers were then free to apply their own meaning and significance onto an inanimate object regardless of gender, age, race or social class. Not knowing or caring who your audience are/have to say would be like painting a picture of spaghetti for an alien with a stick of broccoli - in a manner of speaking.

The bad thing about making my products appeal to a wider audience is that I had to condense and deconstruct a lot of the fake-band’s fake-integrity. In the end, they became little more than a concept/virtual band like Hatsune Miku or The Gorillaz. I found that doing this also stints your creativity. It also took away from the clear-cutness of how I expected a punk rock band to look.

Colours, characters and comedy appealed to my target audience, as well as quite a few others that I interviewed and had no interest in Punk. So, in order to appeal to a broader range of people, I applied these findings into Macro Friends. The puppets and the band’s antics are the comedy, as well as their character. Each mask represents a different band member and help to make the music video semi-narrative. As for the web site, I drew influence from Korn’s as well as a popular indie band Chet Faker—each had simple artwork, which tied in with their upcoming albums.

My field research took place outside a Black Veil Brides concert queue, but some of the footage was destroyed in a beer-spillage. However, some audience could be salvaged. Also, I did some research at school in the sitting area after school with people waiting to be interviewed by their tutors. This passed the time and also helped me get a sense of my peer’s attitudes to the rock genre – and how I may tailor my product to appeal to them. A great majority expressed a disliking or had very little knowledge about Punk. Thus, I had to alter my genre to punk rock (popular with males) crossed with pop-punk (popular with females).

In short, I found that I had to strip away a great deal of Punk’s integral features in order to sell Macro Friends as a product as opposed to them being talented, actual proper artists. I got rid of grungey outfits, mohawks and newspaper-hostage fonts and instead used skin textures and minimalism (black and white) which is commonly seen with techno artists such as MassiveAttack and Nine Inch Nails. I was also influenced by a the photographer Patrick Burdenz, who took picture inside a mortuary--by referencing him, I've referenced and redeveloped the idea of 'decay' and 'anarchy': A common feature in the punk genre.

In summation, audience feedback taught me that sticking to genre is not always a good thing, that time and effort can stop viewer's faces looking so sour whilst viewing my music video and to always accept constructive criticism whilst created a product for them; for money as well if I truly [and unfortunately] did work in the music industry.