I now wanted to do some research into the uses and grats theory as it is about audience centered approach that focuses on what people do with media, as apposed to what media does to people.

The uses and grats theory builds off a history of communication theories and research. Jay Bulmer and Denis McQuail laid the primary groundwork in 1969 with their categorization of audience motivations for watching political programs during the time of the 1964 election in the United Kingdom. This eventually led them to develop UGT later on with their collegues.

From the screenshot below it is saying that the gratification theory seeks to understand why people seek out the media they do, so why they watch or read certain things in media. So it can be to fulfill certain needs or goals such as entertainment, relaxation or socializing.

In my case I expect people to be watching my video to motivate themselves to exercise and possibly to learn how to exercise and eat well.

 

Stage one of the gratification theory was started by Herta Hertzog in 1944 were he interviewed people who listened to soap operas he found three different types of gratification from this which were emotional, wishful thinking and learning.

Stage two was made in 1969 by Jay Blumler and Denis Mcquail studied the United Kingdom 1964 election and categorized people’s motives for watching certain polotical programs on television. These audience motivations formed the foundation for their research in 1972 and led to USG later on.

In 1972 they proposed four uses of media which were diversionm, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.

Stage three states that UTG has more relevance than ever as a tool for understanding how we as individuals connect with the technologies around us. These technologies span everything from the internet to video gaming to mobile phones. From the research into mobile phones they have found out that people seek a number of gratifications from their phones inlcuding affection/ socialility, entertainment and mobility and there are lots more. It also states that people use social media because of factors such as the need to vent negative feelings, recognition and cognitive needs.

According to the last paragraph UGT has been plagued almost from its inception by criticisms that it does not meet standards necessary to be a theory. The common criticisms of it are that they are more dependant on the researchers input on the subjects, that the audiences of different ages will have will have different motivations for watching the same media.

For me the uses and grats theory does have an input into my videos as people will be watching my videos for motivation and to learn how to exercise and eat well, I know this because of my audience research here Primary Research on promotional videos because in the research a lot of my audience say that watching other people work out motivates them.

J. Lloyd, J. and McClung, S. (2016). Uses and Gratification Theory – Learning Theories. [online] Learning Theories. Available at: https://www.learning-theories.com/uses-and-gratification-theory.html [Accessed 5 Mar. 2020].

I now wanted to look into the basics about how I want my videos to come across to my audience so I thought I would do some reception theory.

The reception theory was developed by Stuart Hall he speaks about how audiences reads messages that producers encode into their media. Different people decode these messages in different ways and sometimes the messages aren’t always read in the way the producer originally intended. This is because audience react to certain things in different ways so depending on the content that is put out the reader will either ignore the information or take it in.

Stuart Hall states that the audience members adopt one of these three positions when they decode the messages the producers have encoded the three positions are dominant or preferred reading, oppositional and negatiated reading.

Dominant or preferred reading is how the producer wants the audience to view the media text. Audience members will take this position if the messages are clear and if the audience member is the same age and culture.

Oppositional Reading is when the audience rejects the preferred reading and creates there own meaning for the text. This happens when the media release controversial themes that the audience member disagrees with. This can all depend on whether the audience has different beliefs, different age or culture.

Negotiated Reading is a mix of dominant and oppositional reading, where the audience accepts parts of the producers views but also has there own personal views. This can happen when there is a combination of some of the messages above for example when the audience member likes the media, is of the same age as you and understands the message, but the narrative is complex and this inhabits full understanding.

Many different factors can affect whether the audience is a dominant, oppositional or negatiated reader these factors can be becaise of the age of a person, the beliefs, culture, gender, life experiences or mood at the time of viewing.

From researching the reception theory I have now learnt how I want my audience to decode the messages I want to put into the videos I produce so I want my readers to be preffered readers and I am going to try and do this by matching what my audience have said in the Primary Research on promotional videos, because if I match it to their expectations and needs of what they want to see then they will see the messages clearly which is what a preferred reader is.

Revisionworld.com. (2019). Reception Theory – Media Studies – Revision World. [online] Available at: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-revision/reception-theory [Accessed 3 Mar. 2019].

I now wanted to get some basic research in just about what a promotional video is and the website I have harvard referenced below says a promotional video is an effective tool used to market a particular service. It can be in the form of a corporate video or a music video. Nowadays, it has become popular among non-profit organisations as well to promote awareness about their cause. They then go on to say a promotional videos purpose is to provide the most information in the shortest amount of time and maintain viewers interest.

This above gives some really good information on promotional videos and the reason I have made the last part bold is because that is something I need to keep thinking back to when I get back to my planning stage as I need to keep thinking does this give enough information and will it maintain peoples interest? This is why I did my audience research in my last blog here Primary Research on promotional videos, as I wanted to see what my audience expect and what motivates them as then if I put these things in the video it will maintain interest.

Royalty Free Music Blog by Proud Music. (2012). What is a promotional video? » Royalty Free Music Blog by Proud Music. [online] Available at: https://www.proudmusiclibrary.com/en/blog/faq/what-is-a-promotional-video/ [Accessed 3 Mar. 2020].

I now wanted to get some audience research in to see if a promotional video interest them and then to see what they would expect to see in one as then I can try and meet my audience’s expectations. I also asked what motivated them so then I could see what else I could add in to motivate more people to come and train with Josh. I sent this to my target audience by first of all going around my College to people I knew was interested in fitness/ working out, I then sent it to Josh for him to send to clients hes working or worked with as these are people that are clearly interested.

As you can see for the first question everyone is interested in my promotional video which is really good as this is what I have been wanting to make therefore I can now easily engage with my audience more as I know their interest.

For this question I wanted to find out what my audience expect to see or want to see in a promotional video and a lot of there answers were similar and very similar to some of the inspiration I looked at in this blog Inspiration- Personal Trainer Promotional Videos.

As you can see they do just expect to see clients working out, the personal trainer showing them techniques etc, some also said it would be good to see some testamonials from some clients so this is something else I could add in to suit my target audeinces preferences in this I could maybe add in a photo of there progress or ask them to talk briefly about there progress as some people said they would expect to see clients progress in the videos. Some people also said to show people using different equipment doing different exercises and just showing them working hard.

I now asked what motivates them to workout so I could add some of the stuff that motivates my audience into the videos to try and attract them to come and train with Josh. A lot of my audience said motivating/ upbeat music motivates them so it is important I pick a good workout style song that will hook people in to watch the whole minute of the video. Other people also said seeing peoples progress motivates them so this can been how much weight they have lost or how much muscle they have now gained from when they first started. A few people also just said seeing people workout motivates them which is of course something I will definetly be adding in.

From this audience research I have got some good feedback to go forward with as I now know what people want to see and what motivates them so I know what I need to work on and research to get the best shots for my audience to make sure they watch the whole minute and feel drawn in and want to train with Josh.

After doing lots of research on the internet I want to now discuss the reasons why I am using video to promote Josh’s personal training. First of all, when looking at a video on YouTube I found out some good information on why businesses need to start video marketing.

This video above states that using video increases sales because in a video you can explain your service or product a lot faster and easier than on a normal written post this is one of the reasons I want to do video as rather than write about how Josh trains people or what he does I can show it visually which people find easier and it’s also easier for me as a creator to make a video than it is a written post.

Another reason that makes me want to do video over any other marketing method is because according to this video 70% of users who watched a video related to a product simultaneously bought it, this is huge numbers and it really shows how successful videos can be if the video is good. So hopefully if I can make a really effective video I can increase Josh’s sales/ clients massively.

Another site called dreamgrow says that videos appeal to mobile viewers, which as we all know a lot of people surf the internet of there mobile or Ipad so this is another reason why I want to do video because as you can see by the chart in the screenshot there is a huge rise in mobile video views from July 2013 to September 2016 and this date isn’t recent so I am sure it has grown even more since.

Here are some more mobile statistics below and you can see that a lot of social media videos are viewed on a mobile phone, as 90% of Twitter videos are viewed on a mobile, more than 50% of YouTube videos are watched on a mobile phone and the sharing rates of videos off mobile devices are also very high this just shows how powerful video is for marketing as so many people use their phones on social media and these statistics are proof.

These statistics above are exactly why I want to do video marketing as the statistics are outstanding and doing these two promotional videos will help Josh massively.

This next site also states that people prefer videos because of the visual experience as people don’t want to read 500 word paragraphs due to the short attention span of today’s consumers. This is because an effective video can be easier to digest and provide as much information by communicating to the viewers through aesthetic means while saving valuable time.

Just from this information, I can see that today’s consumers do just prefer to watch a video rather than read information as its easier, less time consuming and more visually attractive.

Youtube.com. (2018). YouTube. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvrD2TaWz0c [Accessed 2 March. 2020].

Dreamgrow.com. (2020). [online] Available at: https://www.dreamgrow.com/8-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-video-marketing/ [Accessed 2 March. 2020].

Rocketium Academy. (2020). 75 Video Marketing Statistics (2019) | Rocketium Academy. [online] Available at: https://rocketium.com/academy/75-video-marketing-statistics-2019/ [Accessed 2 March. 2020].

Website, T. and Davies, J. (2020). Top 5 Benefits of Adding Video to Your Website. [online] Digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk. Available at: https://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-video/top-5-benefits-of-adding-video-to-your-website/3656 [Accessed 2 March. 2020].

I wanted to do some research into target audience, as it is a personal trainer promotional video my target audience will be people that want to get into the gym and even people that already work out but just need that extra push from a trainer, so my videos will hopefully push them to come to Josh and train but what I need to do is see what will attract them to come and workout.

When looking at how personal trainers attract more clients one of the ways Alan Ashley discusses was getting past clients to leave testimonials as the site also says that over 97 percent of consumers look at a product or service before making a purchase. So having a testimonial from previous clients you have worked with can work well. This helps me because this is something I could add into the one minute videos as I can just get one or two clients to give a quick testimonial, this then may attract more people to use Josh as a personal trainer.

I now wanted to look into how I am going to attract people through video in general as when looking into why video is so important in marketing I found a video on YouTube by Amplomedia and it says that people are 39 percent more likely to share your content if it is delivered via video, this means that visitors will spread your story through social media, which in turn means more people will view your website/ social media which increases traffic. This implies that by just creating a video you are more shareable than just a normal post, so this is a great way I am going to attract my target audience even more.

Ashley, A. (2019). How To Get Clients As A Personal Trainer In 2020: 5 Fast Hacks. [online] Paperform.co. Available at: https://paperform.co/blog/get-clients-personal-trainer [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

YouTube. (2017). Video Marketing Explained. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOudDCVxykk [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

 

 

As I was looking at inspiration for workout/ personal trainer videos in my last blog I now wanted to look at how to film them so again I went on YouTube and started to look through videos to analyse.

This video below by Jono gives some very good advice on how to film workout videos, first of all he said being different and getting angles others wouldn’t get is what makes you different as a creator and getting those different angles make it more appealing, he shows a great example were when the guy is doing a pull up he gets infront of him and films his face and follows his face up and down as its a different angle others wouldn’t get and showing the facial expressions shows the reality of working out. He also said to film in slow motion as its more cinematic, the next point he made was to get angles that show the muslces so you can see the impact of what his workout is doing.

When watching this video I wanted to take some important information from it that will help me when shooting the videos. One important point he made was that getting low angles are important in workout videos however he didn’t say why so I will look into this for research. He also follows the movement of the weights a lot to add some nice transitions in, so he will follow it from one point to another and the direction it goes they will continue to move the camera that way and then in post production they will speed it up into another shot. I also notice that when he is shooting he gets a lot of different angles of the same workout so when editing he has a lot of different footage to play with.

These two videos have given me a really good starting point of what I need to do when shooting I now need to keep developing my ideas and also practice some of these techniques before I shoot the actual videos.

YouTube. (2018). HOW TO FILM GYM/WORKOUT VIDEOS!. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNkR3rgR5QI [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

YouTube. (2019). How I Shoot EPIC Gym Videos!💪🏼🎥| Fitness Film Tutorial. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK2KY5zWSPE [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].