Audience Research - Focus Group

I asked my focus group six questions.

1. How often do you watch music videos?
2. What do you watch music videos on?
3. Do you like existing music videos? What is it about them you like in particular?
4. What would you like to see in a music video?
5. What do you think the conventions of the rock genre are?
6. What don't you like about music videos?
7. Do you prefer performance based videos or story based videos?

My focus group as a whole tend to watch music videos regularly which tells me that the market for music videos tends to be more for the younger audience. Rather than grown adults, as they don't tend to have much spare time to watch music videos. Whereas, my focus group are students without part time jobs which means they have more time to spare. They tend to watch such music videos on YouTube the most and occasionally music channels such as 4 music and MTV.

A comment which arose in the discussion was that they particularly like music videos which tell a story or that are slightly abstract. It was also stated that they like the fact that they are always improving and break the barriers of existing morals and ideals of music videos. Miley Cyrus was mentioned and commented on for her outrageous music videos, which shows that they are the ones which attract the most attention. 1975's (an indie rock band) music video - Sex was also mentioned for their abstract approach as they used 'crazy' colours to illustrate the effects of drugs.

Overall, my focus group said that they would like to see a music video which is outrageous, original and 'out there'. This tells me that I should do something which breaks the norms and isn't anything like that's been done before. They said that music videos can 'sometimes be boring if you don't know what's going on', 'they can be a bit repetitive' and they are 'not original, just the same'. This suggests that my music video will not fulfill my target audience's needs if it isn't interesting and doesn't show something that they can follow or enjoy. The focus group also commented that they prefer a mixture of both performance based videos and storybased videos. However, due to lack of resources and budget I am not able to include a performance of a band playing the song as it is part of the rock genre. Therefore, I will have to make sure the story is interesting to keep the audience engaged throughout.