Our Target Audience

Based on our artist and genre, our group believes that our target audience will be females between 18-21. 

We concluded this target audience because studies have shown that people prefer and connect with singers of the same sex. This is due to the singer acting as a role model to the person, the more relatable the artist is (gender, age etc…) the more the person identifies with them; this is also supported by many psychological theories such as social learning theory. The song is also about a girl trying to be with a guy and this also is a relatable topic to older teenagers and young adults. The lyrics themselves are also from a female point of view. Our target audience   18 - 21 year old females, if measured along the VALS scale would fall under the category group of:

• EXPERIENCERS: They are young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek excitement and are always looking for new adventures. 

This is because the song is mainstream and the artist image would be synthetic which most young adults like, due to the glamour and fame of the artist. The artist will be promoted as being sultry, provocative and having the ‘bad girl’ image which most young adults can relate too.

We will appeal to the target audience through mediums such as the music video. The music video idea is intended to be avant-guard, new and original which would make the audience appreciate the artist’s creativity. 

VALS and Jicnars scales

The VALS and Jicnars scales, are scales (templates) used by institutions in order to segment their audiences and correctly market to different groups of people. Both scales give predictions to institutions on how their audiences are constructed so that they can target them in the most effective method in order to make money off their products. The audiences can be segmented in different ways depending on various social criteria, such as, age, sex, race etc… . 

This method is known as demographic segmentation, which is used in the Jicnars scale. The other method uses psychographic segmentation where audiences are broken into stereotypes and their behaviours, attitude and lifestyle are used to predict what they like, thus helping institutions make money. 

The Jincars scale uses salary, skill and education to determine the category in which audiences are segmented. It is segmented into 7 categories.

•  A - higher management / administration /professional 

•  B - middle management / administration /professional 

•  C1 - supervisory / clerical / junior management 

•  C2 - skilled manual 

•  D - semi and unskilled manual 

•  E - subsistence income / pensioners / widows / casual labour

•  Unemployed 

As the levels increase (E to A) the level of skill, salary and education increase. Institutions’ then market their products depending on the targeted audiences demographic; for example people in group E would be targeted by newspapers such as ‘The Sun’.

Whilst people in group A would be targeted with ‘Forbes Magazine’.

 However, the Jincars scale has been criticised for being outdated and distorted because nowadays people in group C2 tend to make high salaries due to the increased demand for skilled labour, such as construction, plumbing. The scale also does not take into account younger generations into account, who are big consumers especially in media. Although the scale is accurate and works for institutions, it is slightly outdated and excludes younger people, thus reducing the effectiveness of its use. 

The other scale is the VALS, the Values Attitudes and Lifestyle classification system. It is a psychographic profiling system.

It creates a psychological profile of the consumer and their attitudes, beliefs, values and lifestyle choices that are used to predict a consumers consumption. 

 There is a list of different personality types that are used to categorise groups of people so that products can be marketed to them. 

These include (The list of personality types have been taken from a source): 

• ACTUALISERS: Successful, sophisticated, ‘take charge’ people with high self-esteem. They are interested in their own development and expressing themselves. Image is important, not as evidence of status or power but as an expression of their independence and character. They are concerned with social issues. Their possessions and recreation reflect a cultivated taste for the finer things in life. Likely to be established or emerging leaders in business and government. 
  

• FULFILLEDS: Mature, satisfied, reflective people who value order, knowledge and responsibility. Most are well educated and in (or recently retired from) professional occupations. They are well informed about world and national events. They are conservative, practical consumers; they look for durability, functionality and value in the products they buy.
  

• ACHIEVERS: Successful career and work-orientated people who like to feel in control of their lives. They value stability and are deeply committed to work and family. Work provides them with a sense of duty. Their social lives will be centred around family, church and career. They favour established, prestige products and services that demonstrate success to their peers.
  

• EXPERIENCERS: Young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek variety and excitement, looking for the new, the offbeat and the risky. Still formulating life values and patterns of behaviour they quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are just as quick to cool. They hold an awe for others’ wealth, prestige and power. They find outlets in sport, outdoor activities and social activities. They are avid consumers and spend much of their income on clothing, music and film. 
  

• BELIEVERS: Believers are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional values: family, church, community and the nation. They follow established routines. As consumers they are conservative and predictable, favouring American products and established brands. Their income, education and energy are modest but sufficient to meet their needs. 

• STRIVERS: Strivers seek motivation and approval from the world around them. They are striving to find a secure place in life. Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for them but they don’t have enough of it and often feel that life has given them a raw deal. They emulate those who own more impressive possessions but what they wish to obtain is often beyond their means. 
  

• MAKERS: Practical people who have constructive skills and value self-sufficiency. They live within a traditional context of family, practical work, and physical recreation and have little interest in what lies outside of that context. They experience the world by working on it; fixing a car, growing vegetables etc. and have enough skill, income and energy to carry out their projects successfully. They are politically conservative, suspicious of new ideas and respectful of government. They are unimpressed by material possessions other than those with a practical or functional purpose i.e. tools.
  

• STRUGGLERS: Chronically poor, ill educated, low skilled and without strong social bonds. Their chief concerns are for the here and now and ensuring security and safety. They are cautious consumers. They represent a very modest market for most products and services but are loyal to favourite brands. 
  

Unlike the Jicnars scale the VALS scale includes all age group specifically, teenagers. The attitudes and personalities of teenagers are measured on the Teenage VALS scale. On this scale the personality types are: 

• TRENDIES: they crave the attention and admiration of their peers

• PURITANS: who wish to feel virtuous 

• INNOVATORS: who wish to make their mark 

• REBELS: who wish to remake the world in their own image 

• GROUPIES: who just want to be accepted 

• DRIFTERS: who are not sure what they want 

• DROP-OUTS: who shun commitment of any kind 

• TRADITIONALISTS: who want things to stay as they are 

• UTOPIANS: who want the world to be a better place 

• CYNICS: who have to have something to complain about 

• COWBOYS: who want easy money 

Both the Jicnars and VALS scale give a general overview of the population and the individuals within so that products can be marketed effectively.

Treatment 2 'Conrad' by Ben Howard

Treatment 1 'Are You That Somebody' by Aaliyah

Polydor Talk

Polydor Ltd. is a British record label, that operates as a division of Universal Music Group. They have been around since the 1960’s and have worked with countless iconic artist like the Beatles. 

Now they continue their famous reputation by working with artists like Lady Gaga, Lana Del Ray, Madonna etc…

                                                                   

Polydor produces a variety of music spanning from Indie, Dance and Pop. We had two representatives from Polydor who came to speak to us about the music video making process . The two representatives work as commissioners for music videos as Polydor, which means they manage and oversee the process that music videos are made for their artist and supervise the editing stage. They explained how the process happens. They first meet the artist/band and find out if they have an idea for the music video; the commissioners work with the artists/band and the marketing team in order to agree on the music video’s representation of the artists/band. This is important because the music video is the first impression made on the audiences, therefore the music video concept has to represent the artist or bands ideologies. The commissioners write a brief with the basic idea and theme they want to do for the music videos; they then send these briefs to around 5-10 directors. The directors return to pitch their treatment for the music videos.

 Then they decide with which director they want to go with.  They also like to scout for directors by looking online, sites and blogs. Some directors even pick and try to contact the band or artist, so that they can make a music video for them.  We asked them how they choose most of their directors, and they told us that they work with directors they have previously worked with. One of the commissioners said “If it’s a good video that delivers – we go back to them”, they like directors who have innovative ideas and are open and willing to develop them.  They give the director the possibility to choose their editors as they are the people who will work the most alongside the director to create their idea.

They said that for a successful treatment it should be very visual with lots of images, videos and mood boards, to give everyone the same idea for the music video. The treatment should also be clear, realistic and striking in the first paragraph. The commissioners stated that the most important thing in the entire production process is communication so that everyone is on the same page, this can also be aided with a shot list so that the director can film the video with ease. They told us that the average video take between 1-2 days to shoot and 1-2 months to complete (with editing) . Most of the shoots happen in London, Los Angeles and Barcelona and they have been increasingly going to Eastern Europe to film.

We lastly, asked them what is the key to a great music video? For them the best music videos are the ones with the basic/simple concept, they are best ones because everyone can understand them; it is also what makes many music videos iconic. They also said that you need to think about the structure and how the song builds up and breaks down. One piece of advice they gave was to add something extra and to be inventive in your use of angles and performance elements. 

Overall, the talk with Polydor, made me more aware of the steps we should take as a group to be more experimental. It also highlighted to us the importance of  communication in a group and that it is not just one person’s concept but a collaboration and collection of different people and ideas. 

Group Meeting - Creating our Treatment

In our group we began organizing our treatments for the pitch. For both treatments we will present them on Prezi, an online presentation software that will make our treatment and pitch look professional.

 We split up the work in our group so that we could share the work load. I will write the treatment for our second idea ('Conrad' by Ben Howard); Saskia will write the treatment for the main idea and Ella will collect all the images and visual references. We will do this over the weekend so that on Monday we can collate all our work and put it in a Prezi presenation, ready for our pitch.

Third Group Meeting

In our third group meeting today, we established the song for the main idea  and the main concepts. Therefore, we began focusing on our second idea which is the song 'Conrad' by Ben Howard. The song is of the indie genre and we will focus on the aspects of that so that we can develop our second idea. We will present this along with our main idea when we pitch our treatments.