Q3.

How does your product engage with the audience and how would they be
distributed as real media products?

Ans. Audience is a very important part of the formula of media production,

marketing and distribution. This is because audience are the people who receive the
media product/text and they consume it. They are the consumers who give benefit
to the media producers, be it money for fame. Without the audience there to receive
a media product, there is no gain. Pluralist theory in sociology sees the audience as a
vital part of owners and conglomerates’ success in the media industry. The audience
must be appealed to in order to bring benefit. For our Advanced Portfolio and Music
Promotion Package, we conducted a survey on Google Docs. This helped us reach a
wide range of audiences. Our demography was variable, but vast. Even children of
the age of 10 answered the survey to age 45. We did not have a specific target
audience in mind in terms of demographics, as the media product we made was
supposed to be commercial and widespread, such is the genre of Pop where
“popular culture” takes over the masses. By not having a niche audience, we could
appeal to a large amount of people which is more beneficial than a specific target
audience. Nonetheless, we created a design of questions to find out what the target
audience most requires from our Music Video, part of the Music Promotion Package
for our artist – Qasim.

Through this design and the answers we received from our given (mixture of close
and open ended questionnaire) survey, we found that the audience really prefers the
getup of the artist to be casual and normal wear rather than glamorous and starry.
The star image would therefore be moulded in this way. Our audience also preferred
a performance based and narrative based music video, which is what we adapted as
our main project. A story of two friends, along with a performing male artist with a
guitar. A topic on friendship would be lighthearted and a lot of people could relate to
it as majority of people have friends and/or relationships that are similar to the story
we conveyed. It was easy to understand, with simple lyrics as well, making it not
complex at all and the message is conveyed strongly and reliably to a massive
audience. The song we chose is “Yeh Dosti,” a very popular local song known to all,
and a cover for it to be more modern as the original version is outdated. This song is
famous to even grandfathers, which means it’s very commercial.

The website is also very interactive. The fact that our artist Qasim is the first thing
the audience sees on the page, easily registers in the viewer’s mind and is
established. All focus is on the artist, till the viewer decides to look around. The web
pages are easy to navigate, with a merchandise and contact page available for fans.
Social media and external links for YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud etc are also present
coupled with his Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat so the audience can observe our
artist outside of his work. By showing the artist wearing cultural clothing as well and
in local locations, there is more connection and interactivity between the artist and
the audiences as an association is created easily.

The music video will be distributed and uploaded on YouTube. The new feature of
YouTube, YouTube Premiere helps notify audiences when a video is about to release
and prepares a mini countdown. This would hype up audiences for the music video
and generate fame for our artist. Youtube is a widely available feature across what
can safely be said, all devices with internet access. From laptops and smartphones to
game consoles and tablets, YouTube is also the most popular venue for music videos
to be viewed in present day. It will be distributed and marketed by BC Productions,
our institution. Using advertisement on TV is also effective. We will tease snippets of
the music video on channels such as HumTV, Dunya News etc which are popular local
channels. Even on YouTube itself, the video can play as an advertisement with an
included link to the original video. Using the actors to promote the video as well is
also effective as they will use their social media to hype up audiences by posting
behind the scenes and live streaming etc. The music video along with the album,
Khatta Meetha will be released on 30th July 2019 which is also World Friendship Day.
This corresponds to our theme of our music video and the ideology of our artist. We
will distribute our video on TV music channels such as ARY Musik, Indus Music, 8XM,
Jhoom TV, VChannel etc. Radio channels such as FM 89, FM 106.2 and FM 91 will also
play the song. Magazines such as Mangobaaz, Express Tribune, GraziaPK, Weekend
Magazine and The Nation are local magazines which will talk about the music video.
Bloggers will also market the music video further by posting on their social media.
This would ensure the media text reaches large audiences.