Demographic of our video
The theorist McQuail argues that audiences consume their media texts for a number of different reasons, be it Surveillance, personal identity, personal relationship or escapism/diversion. In order for me to identify with my target audience I need to ensure that the video reflects their style choices whilst being appropriate to the song and emulating associating conventions and style choices.
Gender:
Gender is a major demographic that differs massively due to the dissimilar tastes that males and females have. Males stereo-typically tend to listen to music for personal identity and escapism/diversion as they are generally raised to be independent and competitive while rejecting the idea of anything 'mainstream' including music - therefore there interests lie in loud music with a clear beat and songs with the theme of aggression, dominance and rebellion. Females stereo-typically listen to music for emotional reasoning and personal relationships; it supposedly improves females moods when lonely and therefore they commonly prefer music with lyrics they can listen too and songs about love - thus making their taste more mainstream. In a survey I did at school it came back that 9 out of the 10 people that liked pop music were female which makes them the prime target audience - what also supports this is the fact that our lyrics explore love themes and relationships. However, with the R&B element of the song also being paramount we must also consider aiming at men too as 56% of the people listening to the R&B genre are male ( either way, the fact that we have a female artist means we will explore using the 'male-gaze theory' as it is a common genre convention for both genres).
Age:
I need to understand what media platforms dominate the consumerism of music and music videos. Digital music has altered the landscape of who's listening to particular music and where. It has broadened target audience as services like YouTube (which is the most popular internet service to access music around the world having 91% brand saturation) and Spotify provide somewhere you can experiment with your music with no financial commitment (if you do not like a song you haven't brought it so it doesn't matter). Since YouTube is the most popular platform to access music a music video can therefore act as an advertising technique as having repeatable aspects increases a songs popularity. Furthermore, playlists are now developed that allow people to fine tune there music search for particular genres they like - making our video comply to specific genre conventions will be largely beneficial. This also means that a musician isn't necessarily going to be able to stick to one particular demographic if they wish to be successful; the fusion of different genres and styles is becoming mandatory if artists want to remain interesting to their target audience. This can be supported by the fact that in 2010 about 41% of people in the united states on the internet were listening to radio online whereas in 2014 over 63% of those on the internet were streaming music (which is about 1 in every 2 Americans) this is still increasing and in consequence more people are getting access to more music. While in 2013 over 28 million people paid for a music subscription service which was a 40% increase from the year before - again showing an increase in consumerism. This also acts as an indicator for our Digital booklet to be design around a CD that has transferable images that can be used again on the website as a repeat-ability tool that is modern and hits a large demographic.
Pop music accounts for 50% of the top 10 selling albums and therefor has one of the largest target audiences which potentially makes the demographics vast, especially since artists can now upload music to free streaming devices such as sound-cloud to obtain added exposure and potentially get more sales - 4 out of 10 people now listen to internet subscription to find new music. Whats more interesting is that the largest demographic for buying music is the 45+ group as they have the disposable income, granted a large percentage of this is parents buying music for tweens and teens. However, the main thing that they are purchasing is catalogue music. From this you would expect the music industry to be targeting their music at them but there are several reasons why the music industry target the younger demographic: ~ Older music buyers tend to be set in what they like, taste in music is generally established in younger years and therefore older listeners will prefer to listen to the same music they listened too when they were teens and young adults. Therefore older music buyers never intentionally seek out new artists that they could like. ~ it is much easier to market for the youth. Where most adults have busy lives younger people have more time and can be reached through popular music stations like Kiss and Capital, or through chat shows, magazines or internet advertisement because they spend the majority of there time using technology. Some people also believe younger people to be more susceptible to marketing devices than the older generation (for instance, when a young person likes a particular artist they have access to them on what feels like a 'personal level' as they have their social media accounts). ~ Lastly, youth attend more concerts and festivals than the older generation. Where younger people don't spend there money on iTunes they make up for it at festivals and through merchandise. But what is the genre that is marketed and consumed most by teenagers?
Surveys suggest that it is the pop genre that is favourable for teens and as we are using both YouTube and a website to build an artist profile and one of the genres we are complying to is pop the teen demographic will be one that we are targeting.
Ethnicity:
Music is a good way of constructing and maintaining group identity while separating one target audience from another. Normally, people are more likely to listen to music that they are raised around (for example, I am an Amy Whine house fan despite my favourable genres being pop and R&B and this is because she is my mums favorite female musician). A lot of the time people tend to listen to what their peers and friends are listening too as well and therefore it is not uncommon to find that a poll with students of the same gender age and race will not have distinct separation within there music tastes. The earliest recordings of 'Jazz' and 'Blues' music dates back to 1920; from this grew the development of 'rhythm and blues' in the 1940's by African-American musicians. 'soul' became a paramount influence on US and UK singers in the 1960's which later lead to the development of 'Funk' by black musicians who became dominant figures of the 'jazz-rock fusion genre'. Furthermore, in the 70's and 80's black musicians then went on to create 'hip-hop' and introduced disco infused music that is now widely recognised as 'house'. Therefore it is no surprise that the African-american ethnic group favouritism R&B, soul and Funk music as not only is it a part of there culture but the majority of artist's performing this music are apart of there ethnic group as well (such as Beyonce, Alicia Keys etc..). Pop music derived its status from 'rock and roll' in the 1950's; the term 'pop music' is said to have been introduced in Britain as the description for the new youth stylised songs that had been influenced. At this time Britain was a predominantly white nation and therefore the 'main-streamers' who listened to the popular music would have belonged to a white ethnic group - the same goes for America. I feel that combining both the R&B and pop genres will allow for us to aim for a racially diverse target audience and should include generalised cultural references rather than specific devices to aim for a specific ethnic group.
Location:
Our song is written and sang in English and therefore is targeted at regions and countries that speak the language (in particular areas that have frequent gang related issues like cities). Different locations have different dominant ideologies within society thus meaning that in order to hit a particular location you must emphasize their specific ideologies within your video. For example most country song videos will have a rural setting whilst emphasizing the beauty in everyday life - nothing to extravagant. Whereas videos set in a busy city area will be fast pace and mainstream. Our song is more mainstream due to its genres and therefore should probably have a busy location in it (like a city or a bar) in order to reach the appropriate demographics.