4: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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PRE PRODUCTION

Before beginning to plan my product, I distributed a questionnaire to my target audience, and the feedback from this helped with proficient planning directly aimed at my audience. I started off by asking how often people read newspaper as this helped me to consider how much of a regular newspaper I would create, due to the responses I don't believe my audience would read a daily newspaper, therefore my newspaper will be printed weekly, and hence include content spanning an entire week. My next question was about how my audience chooses a newspaper, and I established that my content needs to be up to date, relevant, and interesting to my target audience. Furthermore, my newspaper needs to be either cheap or free preferably with politicly unbiased views, although as I discovered this is not always possible. I also asked my audience what stories they enjoyed reading, and whilst the most common answer was local news there was also a focus on some regional/national and international news, and a lack of interest in health. There was also a consideration of politics which I did not consider before but is perhaps something I will now feature. Of course, all the stories have to remain relevant to my audience. Furthermore, when asking my audience about the headline they wanted it to be on a topic that is relevant or interesting to them and in particular be something new that they haven't heard about before and is not a story that had been previously covered. When asking my audience about colour I generally had the answers I expected, with the combination of black and white being the most common colours, and then with a suggestion of either blue or red as my secondary colour. I felt blue would be most appropriate as it meant I would not be considered a 'Red Top' newspaper and the colour blue would represent a subtle political element of Conservatism in my area. From my question about the use of photographs and pictures I learnt that they must make the page look busy and not clustered, as well as sum up the story for the slightly younger half of my target audience who may prefer a visual image rather than reading the whole story. Finally, the last thing I asked about was adverts, something from my research I deemed to be essential. I learnt that whilst many people do not like adverts, the most popular were money off vouchers, followed closely by events and then leisure activities, and hence these are advertisements I chose to include within my newspaper through the two front page adverts and the one second page advert. 

I did not conduct similar audience research for my poster and radio advert as I felt some of what I learnt from my newspaper survey could be applied to both these products. Instead I conducted verbal research. I found that much of my audience whilst they were unlikely to purchase a newspaper after hearing it on a radio advert, would prefer the advert to be short, have a mix of both music and voices and include actors of their own age. I found that with the poster my target audience would prefer a poster without extensive text and something they can simply glance at in passing. I attempted to incorporate this feedback when creating these two ancillary products. 

POST PRODUCTION
Newspaper
In order to gain an idea of my success in my production of my newspaper, I created another survey on Survey Monkey, this time asking questions about what attracts or puts them off my newspaper, what they would improve and how much they feel it looks like a real product. From this feedback I picked out some key responses:

Headlines

• "Headlines make you want to read the articles."

I was pleased with this feedback as whilst I felt my headline was too simple at times, the aim was to simply to attract my audience to the article and make them want to read this. As I have achieved this, I have achieved my ideology of influencing more young people to read newspapers. 

• "The main story doesn't appeal to me"

This response came from an older member of the survey who detailed their age as 25+. This therefore would explain why they are perhaps not as attracted to the article as some of the younger respondents. If my newspaper was aimed at all ages this is something I would urge to change, however, as they are mostly outside my target audience it is not feedback I feel I need to act upon. 

Colour

• "There's not too much colour" and "It has a similar colour theme to real newspapers" 

I felt these two responses were extremely positive as I wanted my colour scheme to fit in with a real newspaper, and by including small amounts of colour I feel I have achieved what typical newspapers do. 

• "It needs more colour"

This completely contradicts my previous comment, however, I continue to disagree with this comment as I feel if I added more colour to the newspaper it would not fit into typical codes of a newspaper and therefore would not feel like an authentic product. If I was creating a newsletter it would be something I would consider, however it is not appropriate for my product. 

Layout/Content

• "Its great how you have included so many things on both pages making it look very authentic! It also has a contemporary style to it which makes it more appealing to someone of my age, as well as including my age group in the articles!"
• "It has a nice contemporary look, unlike most newspapers"

Both these comments talked about the modern, contemporary style of my newspaper, which as it is something I wanted to achieve, I am pleased with this comment. It seems that this more contemporary style makes it appealing to my target audience and therefore I have achieved my ideology. I also learnt that including the target age group was a good decision as it encouraged my target audience to read my newspaper as they felt there was a positive representation of themselves within it. 

• "It has the layout and graphology of a newspaper."
• "The layout of the newspaper looks professional"
• "Attractive clean style without being bland or oppressive or overwhelming

All of these comments told me that the style of my newspaper was appropriate to both my product and my target audience. I was pleased that it looked professional as whilst I wanted it to be aimed at a younger audience than most newspapers I was worried that a slightly more modern style may take away from the professionalism of the design. However, from this feedback I can see I have achieved my aims in altering the layout for my target audience but keeping with the essential conventions of a typical newspaper. 

• "text/adverts etc. are placed in appropriate places"

Again, I was pleased with this comment as it meant my style was in-keeping with my newspaper. I learnt that whilst some people in my pre-production surveys commented on their dislike of adverts, that my use of them did not put them off buying the newspaper and they were able to see how they were appropriate to the style.

• "You should fill the blank space around headline and justify the text."
• "To truly look like a newspaper it almost should look rushed and squashed. It should feel like every single inch of space is being taken by either text or advertising"

These were my main two negative comments about my layout. I found that whilst real newspapers look rushed and squashed, I felt this was something to achieve with a newspaper I am meant to take careful consideration with as I found it hard to get the balance between looking rushed and looking messy. Upon reflection, I found it difficult to fill such space because it was hard to know what to fill it with that would still attract my audience, without putting them off by cramming the page with too many things. I felt that in a local newspaper there was much less to look at on the page as generally in a local newspaper there is a lot less to fit in and therefore if I was to make such changes it would probably be in the case of creating a national newspaper. I was also told to justify the text, which whilst I tried to do, the programme I used, Adobe Photoshop Elements 12, did not allow such editing. Therefore, if I were to create a newspaper again I would research and find a programme that allowed this, or if I had more time, manipulate my current programme into allowing this.  

Pictures

• "The MP doesn't look too pleased to be giving Ben an award. I think it would be better if he was smiling!""

Whilst I can see this point, in that the MP doesn't look too friendly, I took both smiling pictures and serious pictures but I felt that the serious one was better at conveying my ideology. This is because it creates stock characters in this picture, the figure of authority in the form of the MP and the hero in the form of Ben. I wanted the figure of authority to be clear as although this is a newspaper aimed at young people, I do not want it to seem as though they disrespect adults and still understand that they are above young people. Furthermore, as I took the photo on a level setting, and not looking up at the two characters, I felt that this would be the correct way to display his authority.

• "Add another picture or two at the bottom to draw the readers eye there."

This is similar to the comment about filling blank space, however I did not feel there was enough blank space at the bottom of the page to fill with pictures, and reflecting upon my pre-production feedback it would draw the audiences eye away from the main article and towards the sub-articles, which is not what I wanted. 

Poster
For my poster and radio advert I concentrated on showing my product to my target audience, and then wrote down the verbal feedback I got. I divided this into positive comments and areas for improvement as many of the comments were broad and could not be defined down to individual codes and conventions. 

Positive Comments

• "It is very clear it is an advertisement for a local newspaper"

I was extremely pleased with this comment as I felt that some of my earlier drafts of my newspaper were not clear enough on what they were advertising and therefore to have achieved this in my final poster is something I am happy with. 

• "I like the colour scheme"

From this comment I learnt that my overall house style was good as I used the same colour from my newspaper and this was something that was clearly appropriate to my audience. Furthermore, it reassured me that I did not include too much or too little colour on my newspaper. 

• "The inclusion of social networks makes it easily accessible"

As this was noticed by my target audience this is good as it means that it encourages them to become interested in my product and it is clearly something that does attract them. I have learnt that in order to attract a younger audience you have to go online otherwise they will not be interested. 

• "It looks inviting to young people"

Considering this comment was said by someone who was not aware of my target audience, I was pleased that they noticed who it was aimed at. I tried to create the same contemporary look as my newspaper and I learnt that this was indeed the right way to invite young people to buy and read my newspaper. It shows that my poster helped to achieve my ideology.

• "The rhyming in the slogan is good"

I was pleased they picked up on something that was a more subtle part of the poster, as I learnt that literary techniques such as rhyming and personal pronouns in my slogan were important in attracting my audience. From this comment I can see that my slogan achieved it's aim of summing up the newspaper in an effective way. 

• "The white background is good as it means it can be re-printed easily and I like how the W makes a statement - it is different to other advertisements I have seen" 

As a comment on the overall look of my poster, I was glad that they felt it stood out as an advertisement, as I tried to take an auteur approach to my newspaper campaign and I therefore feel to an extent I have achieved this. In addition, it was important for my poster to stand out to attract a new audience, therefore again reaching my target audience and achieving my ideology. 

Areas for improvement

• "I found it difficult to immediately see what the question at the top was about!

This was one of the things I was worried about when including this question/idea on there, however as it is still clear that the poster is a newspaper I feel this was only a minor problem to worry about. I do think that upon reflection I should have made the 'two sides of a newspaper' concept slightly clearer, perhaps making it a separate part of the poster. I learnt that maybe my poster could have been more simple. 

• "I would liked to have seen some more information about what exact local area the newspaper covers  and other facts such as that"

This would have been good information to include, but also information that could be included on links, should they be made active. I did not want to make my poster too crammed so I felt that logically, if people should want to know more, they would look on the links available. 

• "The words that cover the W are perhaps a little too over dramatic for a local newspaper"

I agree with this in that perhaps local newspapers do not contain the same 'lies' and similar as national newspapers, however I feel that I was making a point that this is young peoples perceptions of newspapers even if not how they actually feel and therefore I feel such a dramatic point was essential. However, if I would were to do my poster again I would perhaps consider perceptions of local newspapers and not newspapers in general.

Radio Advertisement

Positive

• "It sounded really convincing and like a real advert"

I was extremely pleased with this comment as my aim with all 3 of my products was to create real life looking products. I was also happy to learn they felt convinced by the advert as this demonstrates my use of 'hypodermic needle theory' in order to convince my audience. 

• "I like how you used people our age"

This told me that my ideology was effective as by including people of my target audiences age I would therefore be able to enforce my ideology better, therefore I learnt that this was the right choice and in future I should continue to include my target audience in my products.

• "It was good because it wasn't too long and it was upbeat"

I learnt from this comment that I was accurate in predicting my audience would enjoy my advert less if it was longer as clearly they enjoyed the advert because the information was given to them quickly. In a way this is similar to inverted triangle theory, where the audience would like the information as easily and as fast as possible and this is something I now know I have been able to achieve, especially given they described the advert as 'upbeat'.

• "The mix of narrative and voice over was good"

Again, I was pleased with this comment as it showed my choice to use both of these things was effective in attracting my audience. I felt I did not want to include too much of one or the other as it would feel repetitive and therefore I am pleased that this was not the case. 

Areas for Improvement

• "In some parts you could hear noises that weren't part of the advert"

This is something I would aim to improve if I had the chance again, however, with the equipment I had available, whilst I strived to remove this noise, it was unavoidable. I did not have access to a professional recording studio and therefore I was unable to create the clear, undisturbed sound my audience may have expected.

• "I would have liked music all the way through"

In some ways I agreed with this as I felt the narrative at the start was slightly bland, however, I also feel that if I had included music at this part then it may have taken away from what the characters were saying. In addition, the music signalled the difference between the narrative and the voice over and as an important transition I felt it was key that this remained. 

• "Some more information about the newspaper was needed"

I admittedly found it difficult to get the balance between providing information about my newspaper and overloading my audience with information. Whilst I was happy this audience member was not overloaded with information, others may have been and therefore whilst if creating it again I have learnt to perhaps include a website, I am also certain that if they were wanting more information my target audience would remember the name of the newspaper and then search for it on the internet at a later point.