Music Video audiences

Music videos are aimed at everyone - they are promotional tools/ devices to promote the artist/ band and their music. Each artist has a particular demographic they will appeal to and therefore they cater their music videos to suit their target audience.

There is often the misconception that all pop music videos are aimed strictly at teen audiences. Although there are music videos particularly aimed at teenagers for example Kyle Minogue and Jason Donovan aimed their videos at teens in the 90s, not every artist is aiming their music video at teens.




In order for the music video to target a specific audience they have to aim at a specific demographic. A demographic is a set of objective characteristics that describe a group of people. So for music videos they must target people who will be willing to watch the music video. The characteristics that make up a demographic can be age, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, location, lifestyle etc.

This shows that the common misconception of music videos being just for teenagers is wrong. There are many music videos that try and attract a certain gender also. An example of a music video that came from a film originally is 'What Time is it' from High School Musical 2. This music video is aimed at children because it gives them the idea that high school is fun, that people sing and dance. There is also lots of colours used and different kinds of groups including drama club, basketball players, cheerleaders, geeks etc. This encourages children with different interests to watch the music video and really targets many different children and they are not aware that high school really is not like its portrayed in the music video.





Another example of a music video that is aimed at teens besides Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan's songs is 'Party In the U.S.A' by Miley Cyrus. This song encourages both male and female teenagers to watch the music video because there are lots of teenagers having a party and dancing in the music video. Teenage boys would want to watch this music video and they may find Miley Cyrus and her friends attractive and teenage girls want to watch this music video because the party looks fun and many teenagers party.

An example of a music video that is aimed at adults is 'I Want Love' by Elton John. This is because the music video is quite serious and there is no teenage 'partying' or fun 'children dancing' the only person in the music video in Robert Downey Junior who is a middle aged man and therefore Elton John is aiming his music video more at fans who are nearer his own age.




This knowledge of how producers of music videos target specific audiences will be useful for me when I create my music video because I will know what elements of the music video I can specifically use to target an audience for example, to attract an audience of teenage girls I could have an attractive young man in the music video, if I wanted to attract children I could make the music video fun with a lot of colours etc.