Friday, 17 April 2015
How did you attract/address your audience? (draft)
The main way I attracted my audience was my magazine cover, which features a large image of a musician, who would be recognisable to the target audience of my magazine. The cover layout is also fairly unconventional in that there is very little text on the page, which would draw attention to my magazine cover as it would stand out on shelves next to more conventional covers. Since the target audience for my magazine, as mentioned before, is young alts or hipsters who strive to not be mainstream, a magazine which looks alternative or different is more likely to be appreciated by them.
This "alternative" theme is continued in the fact that my magazine is a print publication, not a gloss magazine, which is something that would fit the whole "hipster" aesthetic of retro styled clothing and items. Whilst researching I found general aesthetic appreciation is something that applies especially to the youth cultures I am aiming my magazine at, so I tried to give my magazine an "edgy" appearance, with a smaller minimalist logo which is not dissimilar to popular brands such as "Supreme".
Also there is a bit of a gap in the market for a magazine which covers "alternative" or lesser known music in general, not just one genre, but everything from indie to rap, so I think if a product is made to fill this gap it would be popular among the youth cultures I targeted.
The tagline on my cover "the spectacular musical genius" sounds like something that wouldn't be amiss in a magazine like "Vice" which, according to UK Tribes, epitomises hipster culture, so the fact that my magazine has similar features and text means it would have a good chance at being popular with the cultures I am targeting.
In terms of creating a credible magazine, which would want to be read by others, I think I have done fairly well, so that in itself should attract my audience to my product, as they have the motivation and disposable income to buy magazines, so if an interesting product appears, it will probably generate decent sales. At £3.99 it fits well into the pricing of current magazines, so it wouldn't be especially expensive or cheap, so it would be fit into the current market.
Thursday, 16 April 2015
Who would be the audience for your media product? (draft)
When making my magazine I decided that the target audience would be both male and females aged 16-25, who fit into the youth cultures "young alts" or "hipsters", who appreciate not only entertaining content but a well designed and aesthetically pleasing magazine.
When identifying the target audience for my I used a combination on the Channel 4 research "UK Tribes" and the YouGov profiler tool. According to UK Tribes, "Young alts" strive to distance themselves from the mainstream, and that is also something I tried to achieve in my magazine. According to the YouGov profiler, people who describe themselves as alternative are primarily 18-24 and then after that 25-39, the fact the majority of people who give themselves the alternative descriptor are within my target age range implies that they would be the audience for my media product.
I didn't specifically aim my magazine at fans of one specific genre, but rather alternative/niche music as a whole, which I believe is the sort of music a lot of young adults and teenagers are listening to in the modern day, most people don't simply like any one genre, rather a spectrum. This is backed up by the research I carried out on UK tribes, which speaks for the youth cultures of "young alts" and "hipsters" as liking "from heritage bands like The Smiths, to Scene Kid favourites Bring Me The Horizon and even the occasional urban sounds like Joey Bada$$ and A$AP Rocky."
I think its this variety of content and its popularity among youth cultures that allows me to target a relatively wide youth demographic, with overlap into the youth cultures of "skater" and "new casuals".
When identifying the target audience for my I used a combination on the Channel 4 research "UK Tribes" and the YouGov profiler tool. According to UK Tribes, "Young alts" strive to distance themselves from the mainstream, and that is also something I tried to achieve in my magazine. According to the YouGov profiler, people who describe themselves as alternative are primarily 18-24 and then after that 25-39, the fact the majority of people who give themselves the alternative descriptor are within my target age range implies that they would be the audience for my media product.
I didn't specifically aim my magazine at fans of one specific genre, but rather alternative/niche music as a whole, which I believe is the sort of music a lot of young adults and teenagers are listening to in the modern day, most people don't simply like any one genre, rather a spectrum. This is backed up by the research I carried out on UK tribes, which speaks for the youth cultures of "young alts" and "hipsters" as liking "from heritage bands like The Smiths, to Scene Kid favourites Bring Me The Horizon and even the occasional urban sounds like Joey Bada$$ and A$AP Rocky."
I think its this variety of content and its popularity among youth cultures that allows me to target a relatively wide youth demographic, with overlap into the youth cultures of "skater" and "new casuals".
Monday, 13 April 2015
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (draft)
My magazine would be fairly limited in terms of institutions that would wish to distribute it as I was aiming to and think I successfully, created a product that is fairly niche, or at the least targets a niche audience.
One such organisation which may distribute it are COMAG, which is one of the UK's longest running magazine distribution companys (since 1977), so they would have ample experience in how to best distribute my magazine. COMAG is co-owned by two larger parent companies (The National Magazine Company and Conde Nast) which mean that is has even more connections and experience within the industry. Another reason why I think COMAG would be a good choice is because they have a specialised division for niche or specialist magazines called "COMAG specialist", it's this sub-division which I think would make it such a good fit for my magazine.
Niche music magazines that COMAG currently distribute are some of the magazines that I found inspirational when making my own, such as Clash and The Wire, have a lot of parallels with my finished media product, such as targeting smaller more specific audiences and focusing on more minimal covers with emphasis on the photographic content as opposed to lots of text. They also feature, not necessarily the same music, but there is an overlap between the genres contained within each magazine.
I feel the foremost reason that COMAG would want to distribute my product is that they already have several successful niche music magazines, which I imagine turn them a good profit, so it follows that my magazine would do similarly well. Whilst it may be the case that they by already having similar magazines they may not want any more, however I think this is outweighed by the potential rewards of having a quality product and the resources to distribute and sell it.
Since the majority of most magazines revenue comes in through advertisement, it is important that the distributor of your magazine has connections to company's which would want to feature adverts in your magazine. This is indeed the case, with COMAG (Specialist) whose current magazines feature adverts from a mix of mainstream or more niche fashion and brands which wouldn't look amiss in my own media product.
Some other media institutions I looked at, but decided were not the best fit for my media product were the Baeur media group, and Dennis publishing. I reached this decision as Baeur doesn't really have any current niche magazine brands, they have KERRANG magazine, which whilst targeting alternative music fans, is more mainstream in its conventions. So therefore they may not have the correct experience to successfully distribute my product. Dennis publishing does not actually distribute any music magazines, so it's doubtful that they would want to choose a fairly non-mainstream magazine for their foothold into music magazine distribution. In terms of the type of presence my magazine could have online, there would be a partner website which could not only publish online-only content such as videos and downloadable content.
Some other media institutions I looked at, but decided were not the best fit for my media product were the Baeur media group, and Dennis publishing. I reached this decision as Baeur doesn't really have any current niche magazine brands, they have KERRANG magazine, which whilst targeting alternative music fans, is more mainstream in its conventions. So therefore they may not have the correct experience to successfully distribute my product. Dennis publishing does not actually distribute any music magazines, so it's doubtful that they would want to choose a fairly non-mainstream magazine for their foothold into music magazine distribution. In terms of the type of presence my magazine could have online, there would be a partner website which could not only publish online-only content such as videos and downloadable content.
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