FMP - Product Assessment

Focus Group

After completing production, I set out to assess my product. I did this in the form of questionarres and a focus group. Below is the focus group I recorded:

From this I found that my magazine was appealing to the audience I interviewed which were all part of my target demographic (teenagers/young adults). They all liked the style featured and thought that it fitted the retro style I aimed for. Their criticisms were the spelling & grammar, and the fact that there weren't page numbers. (Because of this I went through and changed the grammar in the digital version that can be found on my brief).
Also from this I discovered that the advertisement was effective and the style stayed consistent to match the magazine. The advertisement was effective because most said they would buy it or consider buying it which I thought was good.

Magazine Survey

To get a more in depth insight from a range of ages and genders, I created two surveys to get feedback about the magazine and the advertisement. This is the survey about the magazine:

I sent this survey to the Tempa Media facebook group and my friends & family, receiving a total of 38 responses. The majority of people who took the survey were 24 and under, with only 15% being over 30. This however meant most results I got were from my target demographic.

The first question I asked in this survey was "What was something you liked about this magazine" and most of the responses I gained mentioned either the layout, interviews or photographs.

I was happy with these results as when I started out with this project I described that I wanted to 'encorporate photography & design into one product' and 'speak to creators/find out about what they do' in my Statement of Intent. It was also pleasing to see that people found it creative and inspiring, and gave them opportunity to find out about different artists.

Next I asked "Were the topics it focused on interesting to you?" and the majority of the answers were a yes. Some individuals answered things like "Not sure", "Somewhat" and "Interesting but not very relevant to me", but after reviewing the answers individually it was made apparent that these results were from the older participants. From this I found that this magazine was appealing but only to the target audience. If I wanted to make this magazine more accessible to a wider range of people I could consider changing the content to make it more interesting for all ages.

Another question I asked was "Do you think the ratio of photos to text was appropriate?" and from this I got similar answers which led to to make amendments to the magazine. Again most of the answers were yes's, but a fair few commented on the end pages which featured photography and collages but no text for context, which I didn't realise until getting the survey results. Because of this I added some descriptions to the photographs and collages at the end, which can be seen in the digital version of the magazine of the magazine on my brief.

I also asked if there was anything that could be improved about the magazine. A lot of people commented on the length i.e. make it longer, which I would do if I had more time and went on to make this into a professional brand or product. Another common answer was the simplicity of the title pages for 'Art', 'Music', 'Fashion' etc. and how they could have been made more interesting by including colour or some more design assets. 

All 38 individuals who answered this survey said they would consider buying the magazine, which suggested that it does well as a product and contains intriguing content as well as impressive design and photography.

 3 out of the 38 individuals (~8%) said they would prefer it as a digital product. The majority said that they would prefer it as print because they like to have a physical thing that they can hold and something to show for the money they've payed, which tells me that if I were to sell this magazine as a product, I should sell print copies rather than digital for it to be successful.

By carrying out this survey I was able to get a wide range of results telling me useful information about my final product which helped my improve some things about it and gain knowledge on how it would do as a real product.

Advertisement Survey

After creating the video advertisement for my magazine, I made a short survey using Google Forms to get a wide range of feedback on it. Below is the survey:

I also sent this survey to the Tempa Media facebook group and my friends & family, this time I only received 17 responses. 3/4 of the people who answered were up to 24 and the rest were 30-50-year-olds. This meant most people answering were part of my target demographic. There was a fairly even balance of male to female too.

After getting the individuals to watch the advertisement I asked some questions about it. The first question asked "What did you like about the advert" and most said the colours and music. In my statement of intent & pitch at the beginning of this project I stated that I'd like the advert to be stylised, retro, have heavy editing and be timed to timed to music and I think it lived up to this. The answers show that the audience thought this too.

When asked what could be improved on the advert the people answering the survey said that it was a bit fast at parts therefore being hard to read, and more information should have been included. If I were to make another advert for the magazine I would make sure that the text lasted on screen a bit longer, however this advertisement isn't actually trying to sell a product as it's just a mock advertisement. It's more of a stylised video to go alongside the magazine and it's theme rather than something trying to sell it.

Another question I asked was if the retro style worked well and all answers claimed they liked it. This is good because I chose the style to be retro for its visually appealing, nostalgic nature as well as its similarity to the magazine theme. This links back to how I first described the advertisement at the beginning of this project and the style has worked very well.

The last question I asked people was "Does the advert make you want to buy the magazine?" and only 60% of people said yes. This shows that if the magazine were a standalone product more people would be inclined to buy it than if it had an advert to go alongside it. I found this interesting and it has made me consider the effectiveness of the advertisement as a sales promoter. Maybe a video promoting the magazine or giving information about the magazine would be more effective than a commercial advertisement.

From assessing my products I was able to get a lot of helpful insight from an audiences perspective as opposed to my own, which has helped me improve it further.