Audience Research

After completing all the necessary research into three established magazines I have decided to choose to produce 'ICON'; a new student fashion and celebrity gossip magazine for students aged between 16-19. The subject matter for this magazine will be fashion, celebrity gossip and student life. The target audience for this magazine will be females aged between 16-19, with a demographic profile of between C1 and C2 and a psychographic profile of materialists, traditionalists and aspires.

The readers of ICON are defined as.....

• You don't mind spending that little bit extra to look good.
• You care about your appearance.
• Its only truly a party when your invited.
  
• You'd rather spend your Friday nights out partying then tucked up in bed.
• You know that Manhattan isn't just a place in New York.
• Your always up to date with the latest fashions.
• You always have time for friends.
• You want to achieve all your goals in life.
• You know when to be fun and when to be serious.

Five things I need to do to target my audience effectively....

• Use Sans Sherif font and informal language so the magazine appears fun and lighthearted.
• Use several, usually between three to four, reversed out straplines that are all in a different bold, bright colour e.g. red, blue, pink or purple.
• Use a Mid Close Up of the subject of the main sell.
• Include a freebie, competiton or other offer.
• Include a puff, price, barcode and date of issue.
  

Research Magazines

The first magazine that I have chosen to research is Cosmopolitan. This magazine is aimed at women around the ages of 16-25, with a psychographic profile of aspires, hedonists and materialists, and a demographic classification of C1. The subject matter for this magazine is based around relationships, celebrity news and gossip, fashion and female weight and body shape. They have used a celebrity as the model for the front cover, Kate Hudson, in a mid close up shot and use the colours of orange, pink, purple, yellow and red for it's design, this could connote vibrancy, full of life and energy and female confidence, both in relationships, they looks and body and in fashion and style. They mainly use a sans sherif font which could connote a fun, informal magazine that will use modern language rather than the proper upper middle class Queen's English. The language used in this magazine is informal and would therefore appeal to a wider audience of the female population. This magazine uses reversed out straplines, all in different colours, to draw the reader to each of the them individually. They are all in different colours to make it appear that there is a lot of different and exciting things in this magazine, more so than in any other. Finally this magazine offers the chance to win money (£40,000). This could connote that modern, fun loving women also are fiancailly independent and have a sizable income, similarly connoted by the £3.00 price tag that targets the more upper class business woman.

The second magazine that I will be analysing is Heat. Like Cosmopolitan, the magazine is aimed at women aged 16-25, with a demographic of C2 and a psychographic profile of materialists and aspires. The subject matter for this magazine is celebrity news and gossip and as such the models used for this magazine are celebrities, in this case Nikki from Big Brother. The colours used in this magazine are based around red, black and pink, with small parts of the magazine in pink and blue. As this magazine is targeted for a more general female audience the language is informal and lighthearted and by using a sans sherif font conveys a fun, lighthearted magazine that appeals to a wider female audience. However with this magazine there are no offer, freebies or competitions to help draw the reader in. On the other hand this magazine, like Cosmopolitan, has a bar code, masthead, reversed out straplines, date, price and MCU of the chosen celebrity that is also the main sell of the magazine.






The final magazine that I will be analysing is OK magazine. The target audience for this magazine are females aged between 20-30, with a demographic of B or C1 and a psychographic profile of succeeders, aspires, traditionalists and materialists. This magazine is aimed at more business or other professional working women rather than teenagers due to it's more upmarket price of 2.95 as many teenagers or other young females will prefer a magazine much less expensive due to their limited funds. The subject matter for this magazine is celebrity news and gossip and this is confirmed by the fact that they only use cover shots of celebrities for the magazine, in this issue the celebrity involved is Jordan and is therefore the main sell of the magazine. The cover shot is a MCU. The font used is sans sherif, and along with it's informal language, connotes a fun and informal magazine that would appeal to a wider audience. The colours used in this magazine are mainly bold and bright colours like red, blue, purple and pink. This similarly connotes a fun, lively and informal magazine and the use of a different colour for each story in the magazine connotes that in this magazine there are lots of different celebrity stories that also try and justify the high price tag. This magazine has also used reverse straplines that make the words of the other stories stand out and draw your attention to each story. Similarly with the previous two magazines this magazine has a puff 'First for celebrity gossip', a price, a barcode, date of issue, masthead and reversed out straplines.

Magazine Research

For the next step in my preliminary task, I will be completing research into successful magzines front covers that are similar to the one that I will be producing. Using the internet I found three successful magazines, that were aimed at the same target audience that I have identified for my student magazine. The target audience that I have choosen for my magazine is females aged 16-19, with a demographic classification of either C1 or C2, and with a psychographic profile of materialists, traditionalists, hedonists and aspires.

College Magzine analysis

The college magazine that I will be analysing is called Squash. The audience for this magazine was mainly males aged around 16-19. The demographic classification (the Jicnars scale)for this magazine is B, which means students that are intermediate managerial, administrative and professional, and from a psychographic point of view the target audience for this magazine is aspirers, achievers, succeeders and traditionalists. I was first able to recongise this as a magazine front cover because of the clear, distintive masthead, barcode, issue number, mid close up of the male student, straplines and the one reversed out strapline. Also on this magazine there were freebies; 'Cash prizes to be won' and above the masthead there was a puff; 'The no.1 magazine for students'. This magazine front cover also targets it's audience successfully. It does this by using the cover shot, the mid close up of the male student with a shelf full of books behind him in the background, suggesting a library and either a school or college. As this magazine's target audience is more upmarket and centered around students going to university and, with straplines deadicated to student fiance, good revison tips and writing the perfect personal statement, work in general.

Preliminary task Monday 14th Sepetmber 2009

My name is Leanne and this is my online blog as part of my coursework for AS Media Studies. For my preliminary task I will be producing a front page of a new college magazine, featuring a photogragh of a student in medium close up with an appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. I must also produce a mock up of the layout of the contents page.