1. TARGET AUDIENCE
RESEARCH
Singer-Songwriter Genre

2. Target Audience Research
To begin looking at the target audience for my chosen
genre of singer-songwriter, I decided to create a
questionnaire to research the expectations, interests and
opinions of different people when being asked about the
singer-songwriter genre.
The results of the research are as follows:

3. The Target Audience
• After asking people of different ages, I have discovered that the singer-
songwriter genre is most popular between the ages of 17-25 and 40-70.
Age
<17
17-25
26-39
40-70
70<
I made sure that I asked that same amount of
people of each age category so that I could get
a clear picture of the results as opposed to a
bias opinion if one age group had been
researched more than other.
<17 - Do you like Singer-
songwriter music?
Yes
No
Sometimes
What is it?
17-25
Yes
No
Sometimes
What is it?
40-70
Yes
No
Sometimes
What is it?
Here are some of the results from my data collection. For ages of 17-25 and 40-70
at least 50% of the people asked if they liked singer-songwriter music said yes.
However in contrast, among different ages like people under 27, 50% of people
said that they didn't’ particularly enjoy listening to singer-songwriter music.

4. Why do you like/dislike singer-songwriter
music?
I then proceeded to ask these people why they liked or disliked music from the
singer-songwriter genre. These were some of the responses:
• I like the genre because it’s made with actual instruments instead of computers.
• I don’t like it because it’s more boring than dance music.
• I like artists like John Lennon and Elton John.
• I like to know that the artist I'm listening to actually has the talent to write and
perform the song instead of other people doing it for them.
• I enjoy and appreciate the instruments.
• It’s just not my favourite genre but I do like some songs.
• As an artist, they are less manufactured. The Beatles, Eric Clapton and U2 are
what they are. They are not forced to create an image with their music.
From this research, I have found that a popular reason that people like the singer-
songwriter genre is because the artists are the ones creating the music and people
appreciate the work that the artists put into their work. They also like the fact that
the music is all made with actual instruments instead of being produced on
computers.
People that don’t like the music seem to dislike of mainly because they just prefer
different types of music or only like a select few songs from the genre.

5. Stereotypically, who is the audience for a
singer-songwriter music video?
For this question, I asked what people thought was the stereotypical audience for
these videos. This was in order to gain a knowledge of peoples interest and what
they would expect out of a singer-songwriter music videos.
• I think the stereotypical audience for a music video would be a younger audience.
Purely because the youth are more tech savvy than my generation.
• People of all ages. If they like the music then they’ll probably like the music video.
• People with something to say. Something to express.
• People who can play an instrument.
• Anyone of all ages, because they can interpret it how they like.
• Older people.
• People who appreciate the work that goes into the music.
• People who like all different genres of music.
From this research, I now know that there isn’t a completely clear stereotypical
audience for my music video. However, people do think that a stereotypical
audience member is interested in playing music as well as listening to it so that they
can appreciate it more. Many thought that is was open to all ages as different
people can like different singer-songwriter artists.

6. What other hobbies and interests would
fans of the singer-songwriter genre have?
It would be interesting to look at what other interests fans of the genre
would have to see if I could incorporate it into my video so that it would
appeal to the target audience more.
• Learning to play instruments like the piano and guitar.
• Just normal activities – playing football with friends, watching movies,
listening to music etc.
• Going to the cinema.
• Playing different sports – football, rugby.
• Playing in a band, hanging out with friends.
• Going to concerts.
It seemed as though people thought that many fans of the singer-
songwriter genre were also interested in making and learning to play
music themselves. Different sports was also a popular answer so it
seemed that apart from potentially learning to play music, the fans of
singer-songwriter music can have fairly general interests.

7. Music Video Research
After establishing who my target audience are, is it
important to me to speak to the people who fall into this
category and research what particularly interests them
about my chosen song and their ideas for it.
I firstly asked a group of people what they thought of the
song and how it made them feel.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Sad Happy Alone Peaceful
No
Yes
Here, we can see that the
majority of my target
audience liked the song
with the most popular
emotion from listening to it
actually being sadness.
This gives me the idea to
create more of a sad
music video instead of an
upbeat, happy one.

8. Music Video Research
The next questions raised were then where the music video
should be set; the locations and the plot.
Location
Home
Hospital
Romantic
Location
Other
From this question I found that the two most
popular locations to shoot my music video were
either at a hospital or at home. This reminds me
of one of the initial ideas of having an actor
becoming more ill throughout the video.
Plot
Man becoming ill
A relationship
Two children
growing up together
A family Renunion
The two plots that are the most popular among
my target audience are the man becoming ill
and a relationship. This can now give me an
indication of what music videos my target
audience would enjoy.

9. Fashion
After doing this research on my target audience, I have got the impression that
fans of the singer-songwriter genre wear fairly relaxed clothing – Jeans, baggy
t-shirts, flannels as it appears that all fans of the genre are stereotypically not
materialistic; they have other cares than what they are wearing.
Here, I have shown some outfits that I can assume fans of the singer-songwriter
genre stereotypically wear. Relaxed clothing like jeans and flannels but still
stylish.

10. Secondary Target Audience Research
• It appeared while doing research that fans of singer-songwriter music are
particularly loyal to the artists they like. For example, Ed Sheeran has
already sold out 4 nights at Wembley Arena for his 2018 tour and
currently has over 20 million followers on social networks including
twitter.
• For me, the fact that singer-songwriter artists such as Ed Sheeran are
able to sell out arenas such as Wembley show that the fans are able to
pay for pricey tickets as well. It could be appealing to see singer-
songwriter artists live due to the fact that they play more than one
instrument and produce the songs themselves. Many people would say
that singer-songwriter music is ‘real music’. This leads me to believe that,
on the NRS social grade scale, many fans of singer-songwriter artists
would be anywhere from C2 (skilled working class) to A (upper middle
class) as the music for singer-songwriter artists can sometimes be more
expensive to buy potentially due to how famous the artist is or because of
all the work it takes to produce a record like they do. Or that fact that it
appears that the fans of these artists enjoy seeing them play live,
although tickets aren’t always cheap and easy to get hold of.