Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Target Audience

The next thing to do after deciding on the song was to start thinking of our target audience. This is an important part of creating all music videos, films and TV programmes otherwise you wont get the viewings. The artist of the song, Noel Gallagher - according to Wikipedia - is considered as a Rock, BritPop, Alternative Rock and Psychedelic Rock artist.




  • Rock Music: developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the US and UK. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Like pop-music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. An example of a rock band is The Beetles, on the right hand side.


  • Alternative Rock: a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various sub-genres that have emerged from independent music - shortened to indie music - scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, BritPop, Gothic rock, Indie pop, and Indie rock. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style or ethos of punk rock, which laid he groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s. An example of an alternative rock band, is The Goo Goo Dolls, shown on the left hand side.



  • BritPop Music: a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the UK. BritPop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. An example of a BritPop music band, is Blur. a picture of their album cover is shown on the right.


  • Psychedelic Rock: a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in the US and the UK. An example of a psychedelic rock band is that of Pink Floyd, as shown in the picture to the left.





After establishing the genre of music that we had chosen to produce a music video to, it was time to research who our video would be aimed at. To do this I went onto the UK Tribes website that allows you to see what
'group' different people in society fit in to. Upon visiting the website, I found a group called 'Alternative'. After reading the description of this, it is clear that the people that are categorized into this group is who I need to be aiming my music video at. Below is the description given, straight from the UK Tribes website.


Members of the Alternative tribes are vaguely rebellious but don’t yet have a specific focus to rally against (their parents may well have helped shape their Alternative views, in fact). However, they are likely to conform with peers. While open-minded about music and fashion they are wary of the Mainstream tribes and determined to be different – together.

Alternative Tribes are predominantly made up of white working and middle class kids. It seems a huge proportion of teens in the UK have a hankering for something a bit different, and Alternative brands that have achieved massive traction include Converse and Vans. Kufiyas also feature heavily.

All Tribes within the Alternative segment are passionate about music, and their friendship groups, tastes and activities are largely defined online. Peer influence is a huge part of the Alternative scene, though new trends usually emerge outside the segment. The best way to reach these kids is through niche magazines and social media.

Young Alts is the gateway Tribe to the Alternative and Leading Edge scenes and is a massive group who snap up all kinds of media and accessories as they ape their elders. Metalheads and Skaters are much more rigid Tribes, adopting teens early and keeping them until their mid-twenties in small, fiercely loyal friendship groups. Both scenes are fluid about fashion but fanatical about their core preoccupations: rock music and skating. Emos and Scene Kids are heavily over-lapping tribes with Goth-derived fashion sense and US-led rock music tastes, although Emo kids are interested in angst while Scene Kids are more concerned with socialising and building massive online presences. Apart from Gamers, Scene Kids are the Tribe most glued to their computers, making the Alternative market the most-web facing of the segments.

The final category, Gamers, are truly unusual in that their online profiles and pastimes have assumed more importance than real-world socialising. They are a globalised Tribe with eclectic and influential taste in games, music and film, but no real need for fashion.


Below are a couple of mood boards illustrating the types of brands and media that people of the alternative culture are in to.














Below is a small table showing the media consumption for the average person in the alternative group.

As you can see, the average Alternative 'member' relies quite heavily on the media for entertainment. The table clearly shows how Alternative people enjoy heavy usage of Internet, TV, Magazines and Radio. If people were not interested in Radio, TV or the Internet, then there would be no point in creating the video. Obviously all music videos are filmed to accompany a particular song, and this is then played out to the public via certain TV channels. So what would be the point in making a music video to people who barely watch TV? As well as this, music videos appear all over the internet and compete to get the most amount of 'hits' - most views - so again, making a music video to someone who does not use the internet often would also, to me, seem non-beneficial.


So what does an 'Alternative' person look like?

The above picture shows the type of people that fit into the category of 'Alternative'. The picture was taken at Reading Music Festival, which is exactly the festival where Noel Gallagher would most likely play at. They normally dress in clothes such as skinny jeans and anything else that shops like TOPMAN or Urban Outfitters sell.

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