Audience Overview

Our primary target audience are: 

Girls aged between 13 and 20.

Secondary audiences include: 

Boys aged between 13 and 20

Girls aged 10 to 13

Girls aged 20-25

Other rock music fans

Things that girls may experience in their teenage years:

1. Changes in appearance. This could be hairstyles or colour, body piercings, weight fluctuation, increase in height, or change in fashion.
2. Rejection of family lifestyle. A stronger focus on friends and social life, less time spent with parents.
3. Becoming more argumentative, and defending own beliefs and opinions.
4. Mood swings and magnified emotions.
5. Experimentation. This could be with drugs, alcohol, sexuality, or lifestyle choices.

A selection of statistics about the target audience

52% of children ages 5-17 who have a TV in their bedroom.
Four out of five teens (17 million) carry a wireless device (a 40% increase since 2004)
Approximately 80% of adult smokers started smoking before the age of 18. 
Among young people, those with poorer grades and lower self-images are most likely to begin using tobacco. 
Young people who come from a low-income family and have fewer than two adults living in their household are especially at risk for becoming smokers.
More than half of teenagers are virgins until they are at least 17 years of age.
More than half (56 percent) of youths age 12-17 reported that marijuana was easy to obtain. 
More than 40% of teens who admitted drinking said they drink when they are upset; 31% said they drink alone; 25% said they drink when they are bored; and 25% said they drink to "get high." 
Hours per day that TV is on in an average home: 7 hours, 12 minutes

Video

From researching the audience, it becomes apparent that the teenage years are a highly transitional time for a person, where they try to find their own identity. Our video should tap into the anxieties that teenagers face, as we are promoting a message of making your own decisions and not conforming to social expectation. As it is the teenage years where people become more rebellious, the should be able to identify with our brand of defiance.

Marketing

As it is apparent that young people spend a lot of time online, we decided that the internet should be the main platform for promoting our band. Social networking sites such as facebook, twitter and youtube are highly popular with young people, so creating band pages would be beneficial to targeting a young audience, in addition to creating a band website.

Band Image

Our image is based on rebelling against the traditional system, and calling your own shots. As our target audience is predominantly female, we don't intend to style our female singer in a highly provocative way, as this could alienate some of the potential fanbase. However, we do intend to put a focus on the fashion of the band, as this is a core interest of girls of this age group. In many ways the band represents the 'girl power' portrayed by the spice girls, albeit with rock music. This ties in with the teenage desire not to be pidgeonholed into other peoples expectations.

Pitch Logistics

Before we pitched our idea in front of the class, we finalised our logistics, so that any problems could be ironed out beforehand. These included figuring out locations, actors, props and costumes.

Olivia, James, Frank Notes

Initial Planning

When we first picked out Goin' Down as the song we wished to use, we started brainstorming ideas for the video on paper. First, we printed out the lyrics and made notes on the types of references we should consider, alongside a plan for set-ups.

To collect our ideas together, Frank wrote down his visualisation for each part of the song. I then made my notes alongside his, and then James read over it and discussed his thoughts verbally. This proved helpful, as by this point we were already working on the same idea, but from this point we were able to tie down our key set-ups and moments within the song.

sheets to be scanned in.

Male Representation

Masculine Identity

Using four different clips, I investigated the different portrayals of the masuline identity in music videos. In broad terms, the most obvious split is between the top images and the bottom images, as the bottom two images present men in the traditional dominant male role, whereas the top images show vulnerability.

In Misery by Maroon 5, the lead singer is shown to be the literal punchbag of his love interest. Throughout the video, she subjects him to physical torture, yet he still comes back for more, which is an amplification of the lyrics, which centre around a troubled relationship. The woman is clearly shown to be the figure with more power, which is somewhat unusual in music videos.
A significant lack of confidence and control is portrayed by the lead singer in Coldplay's Yellow music video, as he is presented as walking alone down a beach, getting gradually drenched by the sea spray. This is slightly unusual as male artists do not usually give a strong emotional performance in their videos.
Although The Lonely Island are a comedy band, their video for 'I'm on a Boat' features many of the conventions of male rap music. For example, there are lots of dramatic wideshots that make the singer look empowered, and the men featured are all wearing smart suits, connotating that they are wealthy.
In Starstrukk, 3OH!3 play on the idea of male artists being able to instantly attract women, as by the end it becomes an issue for the singers, as they are pushed into the pond. Like The Lonely Island, they wear black suits, which again suggests that they 'have it all'. This perhaps is in order to make the male audience idolise their lifestyles.

How do you consume music?

The main ways in which modern society consumes music:

Radio

Music Players:

iPods, mobile phones, mp3 players

Computer sites:

Spotify, we7, youtube, myspace, live radio streaming

Television:

music channels, On Demand music videos, TV appearances

Live Performances:

Festivals, concerts

How does our target audience affect this?

Our primary target audience of teenage girls aged 13-20 are usually in possession of a portable music player, such as an iPod, and are generally in reach of the internet. This means that a band attempting to crack the teenage market would need to have a strong online presence, both on music sites like myspace and social networking sites like twitter.  

It would certainly be helpful to consider the different media platforms that we could incorperate into the website; for example we could have:

Photo Galleries

Videos - The Music Video, behind the scenes of the shoots, and interviews

Twitter feed

Facebook feed

Music player

Interactive Games & Quizzes