My Focus Group Analysis

For my focus group, I asked the the same questions after I had told them each of my ideas to my focus group. I thought that this would make it easier for them to answer the questions as the idea would be fresh in their mind.

The response I got from my focus group for the first idea was mixed, they thought they had heard the idea somewhere before and sounded similar to something ‘Glee’ would do. However some of the girls felt that it sounded like a nice story line as it was heartwarming. They all liked how it was brought up to date by using the social networking idea. One of the girls liked the ending and didn’t think it needed to be changed as she likes happy endings, the rest of the group agreed with this. They all thought that this was a more ‘typical’ musical. To be improved they thought that something different needed to be added to it like, a twist where she was really cool the whole time but nobody knew, and that she was rich and popular with a different groups of friends and that it was all a practical joke.

I think from asking questions on this and the responses I got, I wasn’t as keen as doing this as an idea as my target audience, didn’t seem too keen on watching it. As I particularly wanted to get males to enjoy musicals more, they did not seem to keen on it. As there were a lot of pauses between each question, I think they were trying to think of positive and unique things to say about it. From the way my target audience wanted me to improve the story line, it would have been very hard for me to fit all the information in with in 10 minutes.

From the responses I got from my second idea, they seemed to be more optimistic about it, both genders. They all had input on how to have a different ending, and I think they seemed quite excited about this idea. They all said that it would be interesting to watch and it an original idea for a musical, as it is something different and that it would be able to relate to present day as people do get bullied. They felt that that I needed to explain more about the characters, and the reason why she got bullied, which means when filming I need to get this across better, which may be difficult. But they thought, once I explained a bit more, that they seem like ‘typical’ teenagers of today. The question about how it could end differently, really seemed to spark up some ideas. They decided that didn’t want her to die and maybe one of the bullies to come and save her, I then told them my idea to have her post her suicide note as a status to show me including the social network again, which would allow someone to see it in time and stop her dying. It could be seen as a twist as well, which would be a unique selling point, along with the idea of having a suicide, bullying and a generally darker musical.

From asking them questions about the second idea, I think that they seemed much more interested in watching and seeing how it ended, once they had put in their ideas. I think getting feedback from them has definitely made my ideas much better to me, and allows me to see what it is my target audience likes.

From my third idea, the males seemed much more keen on it than the females, as there was a gay couple involved. However they all did say that the story line was quite boring and didn’t really go anywhere, I agree with this, but my unique selling point for that would have been the lesbian relationship. They thought it was original because of the unique selling point. They tried to add in a twist to this film as well, by saying that one of them should be playing a practical joke or actually be in love with a boy and just faking it. They thought it was basically like a typical love story and something better needed to happen.

When asking them what they would be most interested in would be idea 2, if it included a mixture of the ending that they included. I think this was a good idea as I think that it is definitely something different to other musical and had several different unique selling points. It was also the only idea that my focus group, and target audience seemed to really get into. They also thought that this was the most original idea, this shows that not going with a ‘stereotype’ would suit my target audiences preferences. They wanted me to improve idea 2, their favourite idea, by making the ending happier, I think although this is typical of a musical, they shouldn’t be too dark because otherwise some of my target audience weren’t as keen on watching it. The music they expected from idea was more rocky and guitar, this gave me an idea for when the girls are bullying her and then a slower guitar one for the girl being bullied, however something upbeat to show her anger. Their least favourite was between, idea 1 and 2, which shows that my target audience would want to watch idea 2 which made me feel like I should definitely focus on doing that. They did think I should be careful on getting all the information involved, which is something I need to think about as I plan it.

From doing this focus group, I think it has helped me realise what my target audience would actually like to see in a musical. From the question about having a different ending, most of their ideas showed that they wanted a twist involved, I saw this as good as I do not know of any musicals that have a twist, I thought this could be part of my unique selling point, for whichever idea. I also feel that by doing this I got several more ideas for the ideas, mainly for idea 2 as it was what they all preferred and were more interested in watching.