Music Videos:Audience Research

SurveyBrontë Vickery

This shows that Music Videos are currently popular. Whilst not everyone enjoys watching them, The majority of the people asked do, which means that music videos would be an effective and worthwhile promotion product for a song.

The most popular genre of music among those who we asked was Pop- this is quite unsurprising as pop music usually dominates the UK charts. RnB was also very popular, and Indie, Dance and Rock were equally popular in third place. I think that choosing a song that combines Pop with another popular genre (such as Indie)would capture both a mainstream and the niche audience, making it likely for the song to be very profitable and popular. However this result may not be totally useful as the question may be interpreted to mean just the music itself- whilst the person might enjoy the song, it is possible that they might not like videos with the conventions of that genre.

The majority of those asked said that they like to see the artist on screen as part of the video. I would suggest that this is because they can better relate the video to the song if the artist is present, and as fans the audience would want to be able to see and connect with the artist as much as possible. Some artists do however use other actors in their videos for effect, such as Ed Sheeran’s use of Rupert Grint in his “Lego House” video. I think that whilst this helps to tell a story and make the video more interesting or even humorous, this is a risk and would not be a good idea for a new up and coming artist to use, as they need to become better known and established as an artist.

Most of the audience said that they enjoy videos with a storyline. Many artists use this technique to visually present the story behind the lyrics of their song, helping with the audience’s understanding of it. The use of a narrative also makes the video more interesting in many cases.

The majority of those asked said that they enjoy the use of humour in a video. I think that this can be effective and add interest, captivating the audience, however I think that this is hard to do well and can easily backfire and so would not want to attempt this as an amateur.

The majority of people asked said they do not enjoy action sequences in music videos, which I think may be as this would detract from the song, and would not be fitting for music of many genres. However there is still a fairly high percentage who do like action sequences so I do not think this should be completely ruled out.

A high percentage of people surveyed said that they like to see dancing in music videos. This is a common aspect of music videos, especially in more upbeat songs. I think that this would be because in seeing the artist or a crowd of people dancing, the audience would also want to get up and dance along to the song, which would likely increase their enjoyment in listening to it.

The responses to this question was quite varied, so I think it would be hard to appeal to everyone in the audience when it comes to colour. The majority of people said they would not be put off by any colour effects in a music video, although quite a high percentage do not like the use of sepia.

The majority of people asked said that they prefer music videos to include shots of more than one location. I think that this improves the pacing of a video and would make it much more interesting.

Over 60% of the audience felt that a music video can detract from the song itself. With this in mind I think that it is important not to over-complicate a music video or make it hard to follow, as this would mean the audience would need to focus on the video rather than the music.

The aspect of a music video that the audience found most distracting is the over use of diegetic sound, which I think often jars with the song, and would mean a delay in the introduction of the music, or an interruption. Many also disliked the use of actors(which can be confusing), preferring to see the artist themselves. Overly complicated videos were also unpopular, which shows the importance of keeping the video fairly simple and allowing the music to take centre stage.

The majority of those asked said that they have been influenced to buy a song after watching it’s music video, which shows that videos do promote the music. However, 46.2% did not agree, which I think shows that the music video is often seen as a side product, something that one would watch to consume the music in addition to simply listening to the audio version.