Competitors- GQ magazine

GQ magazine is another competitor for my magazine. They are a men’s magazine which focuses on their lifestyle involving music, sex, food, fitness and other things which will entertain and appeal to younger men.          Just as my magazine aims to do they are appealing to fairly young men, just a few years older than my average target age.

I feel they would be a competitor for my magazine as they are covering the same kind of subjects as me, however I cover music in my magazine in more depth. They have a vast range of different things in their magazine to read and many people buy it. However I feel my magazine would appeal to younger people more than older people as it is made for their age and the pictures and articles are based on a fairly young perspective.

GQ rate card

Total Circulation: 59,160

Adult Readership:154,000

Female:20%

Male: 80%

ABC1 Profile 81%

Median Age 34

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

For a magazine to be bought by many people the institution that the creator chooses to go with must be suitable for your magazine and have the power to distribute your magazine to the people, be able to fund everything and ensure that they have a large audience.

After extensive media research I have decided that Bauer media would be the appropriate media institution to go with due to the fact they have FHM and Zoo magazine which are both appealing to men as is mine. I think that although I have the competition of these two magazines mine would have the edge of music which would make it different from the rest. My magazine would fit in here because the institution has a vast range of businesses and I feel that adding my magazine would widen its horizons.

The Bauer media offers a lot of different ways of getting my magazine out there. They are offering horizontal integration as they have a number of different platforms; magazines, TV and radio which allows my magazine to be advertised through all of these. Not only does it do that but it gives my magazine the chance to be broadcast through this, i.e. UP radio. 


Bauer media probably has the most competition with 'Conde Nast' as they are one of the most popular publishing houses in the world. They offer a vast range of magazines, yet do not have a music magazine so Bauer would storm ahead in music magazines. 

Another reason why I feel this institution is good for my magazine is because they also have many magazines which have cross media coverage such as radio, website and mobile presence which I think will help market my magazine. The resources they have would help further my magazine. 

Competition to my magazine

FHM

FHM is a men’s magazine a bit like mine, ‘UP’, in the sense that they appeal to men and use the tool of sexual women to draw men into buying their magazine. The magazine was a magazine which I tried to imitate in a sense, they issue their magazine every month just as I have chosen to do and their price is around the same price as mine.

The encoder of FHM has made sure that the magazine appeals to men just like I have tried to do. They have a year FHM hottest woman of the contest, and if my magazine were to go into publish I would most likely try and do something along these lines.

They go for men who are around 18-25 such as I have done, and they are for the approach of guys who ‘work hard, play harder’ which is what I was going for but with a music magazine. They are eager to invest in upper class products and like expensive treats, with resembles the entity I was trying to get.

If my magazine were to go into publish I believe that magazines such as FHM would be competition as they appeal to men too, however 'UP' offers music as well as women and other things!

Results of my questionnaire from people trying to empathise

Figure 1

This graph shows that the majority of the people who buy the magazine are in the South which includes London. London is a central point for media and other things such as concerts and this could be why people felt the magazine sold better there.







Figure 2

 The graph shows that 85% of the people who took my questionnaire who were trying to see who my magazine appealed to felt it was aimed at men instead of women. Only 15% of the people felt that the magazine could be read by women as well, which is of course the case and merely depends on someones personal preferences.

This graph shows how many felt the audience I was going for would be owning their properties instead of renting them. This could imply that many people are earning a lot of money, thus making my price around £3.20 which could be considered expensive to some people.

The graph shows that the dominanting age of people is around 20-25 which is a good sign because people feel that it appeals to that kind of age which is around the age I am looking to appeal to. I am pleased with the result of my age one as it shows that the magazine appeals to that kind of age.

In conclusion it appears that people who have view my magazine feel that it is appealing to the imaginary entity I created.

Rate Card

How many pages in total will you have? I will have around 120 pages in my magazine as I feel this is a substantial amount of pages for a magazine.

Percent of Advertising pages: The percentage of pages that will be advertising will be around 45% which is 54 pages of advertising throughout my magazine.

Cover Price: My cover price is £3.20, but this can vary depending on the content of the magazine

Is your magazine weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly? My magazine is monthly

What do you hope your annual turnover will be? I would like my annual turnover to be around £2.3 million, which accounts to around 60,000 people reading my magazine a month.

Advertisers

Name five companies which would be interested in advertising in my magazine?

·         Calvin Klein underwear for men- fits in with the sexual bit, men looking to be attractive

·         Jaguar- for the men who like to live life in the fast lane

·         Davidoff aftershave- upper market, men looking good

·         Clarins skin care products

·         Rolex- liking the finer things in life

Offer one or two reasons why they should advertise in your magazine?

·         They should advertise in my magazine because this kind of products appeal to the kind of guys I am aiming my magazine at. They would like to indulge themselves in the products which would be selling.

·         As young men with hopefully a lot of money they’re likely to want fast cars such as jaguars to fulfil their lifestyle choice.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who were my audience?
The audiences allow media products to differentiate from other media products, i.e. a music magazine would be different to a gardening magazine because they are for different social groups and they would entail different aspects of the magazine, if you were to switch the audience for each magazine it is unlikely a avid gardener would enjoy reading about the next up and coming band.


For my magazine I wanted to ensure that the advertisements I would include if I were to, were aimed at younger people.

How many pages in total will you have? I will have around 120 pages in my magazine as I feel this is a substantial amount of pages for a magazine.

Percent of Advertising pages: The percentage of pages that will be advertising will be around 45% which is 54 pages of advertising throughout my magazine.

Cover Price: My cover price is £3.20, but this can vary depending on the content of the magazine

Is your magazine weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly? My magazine is monthly

What do you hope your annual turnover will be? I would like my annual turnover to be around £2.3 million, which accounts to around 60,000 people reading my magazine a month.

The companies I would most likely advertise in my magazine to entice my target audience and relate to them.

·         Calvin Klein underwear for men- fits in with the sexual bit, men looking to be attractive

·         Jaguar- for the men who like to live life in the fast lane

·         Davidoff aftershave- upper market, men looking good

·         Clarins skin care products- the new male way of looking after themselves fully

·         Rolex- liking the finer things in life, looks good, upper class

My magazine uses signifiers to ensure that people know what gender, age and social class my magazine appeals to. My magazine uses a range of semiotics to ensure that it was clear that ‘UP’ magazine was aimed at men through the pictures and the articles which in most cases would appeal more to men rather than women. The gender of the magazine reader was shown through various ways which meant my representation of a man came across through this magazine. I used the images mainly to show who it was aimed at, such as the front cover is clearly aimed at men and many women would not want to read a magazine with a scantily clad women on.

Another aspect of showing who the audience were was to make clear was the age. I wanted to appeal to a young adult such as 18-29 and did this through the kind of information I put in there. The images and stories were based largely around a party lifestyle and for younger people. Other articles such as “Beats, Boobs and Booze” are more likely to appeal to someone younger rather than older which helps identify my audience. The articles were largely aimed to signify my audience, as were the pictures.

Finally my magazine aims to appeal to men within the ABC¹   category, so people with a good salary would hopefully buy this magazine. The magazine uses “New York” as a chance to win which is an expensive place which would likely appeal to the people who I intend to read my magazine. Another signifier to the upper class is the price. The magazine is £3.20, for a magazine this could be considered more expensive. Many people with the C², D and E categorisation would not be able to afford this magazine necessarily, and furthermore the advertisements would not appeal to them as they are largely designer or highly priced items.

How I attracted the audience

Attracting the right audience was essential to make the magazine appeal to them and help signify who the music was for. I used a number of ways to help attract the audience such as puff and plugs to help readers want to read my magazine. I used these because this makes readers want to engage in my magazine and if this were reality I would want people to be drawn in by my magazine!

One way I attracted the audience to my magazine, UP, was through the puff on the front cover which immediately entices customers. I used the phrase, “The magazine where you get it all”, which is a puff and draws the reader in because they may think they will be getting more in this magazine than they would be in any other magazine. It helps attract them because instead of just having one thing they get the whole package and many readers would be interesting in getting more for their money.

Another way in which I enticed the audience was through plugs. I have noticed that many people buy magazines if they offer something; I myself have brought magazines purely for their plugs. In my magazine I offered ‘Win a trip to New York’ which in many cases would be appealing to people and would make them want to try and win it. This plug applies to my target audience as it fits the lifestyle they most likely live and many artist produce music there. Plugs are a useful tool to try and get people to buy your magazines.

The font is another way I attracted the audience. I used a font which stood out, Stencil, as my main front throughout. The font was punchy and plain, but kept the consistency and was noticeable. The font is basic and allows the reader to read it clearly, thus making them more interested. The font colour is all the same as well which shows the colours relate to the theme.

Finally another way in which I enticed the audience was through the pictures I chose to use. I chose to use a sexual picture on the front cover to entice the male target audience I was trying to attract. The picture shows some skin and is enough to draw the reader in and make them want to draw more. The pictures are shows some skin and is enough to draw the reader in and make them want to draw more. The pictures are also helping to create the image of the magazine and creating the specific type of reader.
  

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The representation is a great way for the decoder to figure out what kind of media product that is being sold. Using signs such as text, colours, pictures and editing is a efficient way to create the media product you want. In my magazine I have been keen to use signifiers to ensure the audience of my magazine is made clear.

The audience for my media product would be young males who like a lifestyle of ladies and other lavish things. The magazine is aimed at both their music tastes and their sexual desires. The target audience would like artists such as Rihanna or Kay Perry who are well known for sexualising their music and making it about the performance as well as the music. Many men are partially inclined to listen to their music and watch their videos because of the way they look. My magazine features an “artist” like this, who is sexualised.

 The stories also help signify the target audience as well as the pictures. They are stories which are more likely to appeal to my imaginary entity than someone who enjoys classical music. Stories such as “Hannah Stevens: Being a Sex Symbol” who is portrayed as an artist who is also highly sexualised.

The audience of my media product is aimed at younger men who would like to read about music with a sexual twist, look at pictures of attractive women and read articles about ‘influential’ men. 

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My music magazine, like many other media products, follows the idea of using different things which fit into the genre. Many encoders often use specific things to create their media file in with their genre, i.e. in a romantic film the music, images and speech will all be anchored to ensure the genre is made clear. This is the same in magazines whereas music magazines are largely focused around music and fashion magazines focused on fashion.

My music magazine creates the idea of sexualised music. It has people in who would want to be with the girls or be the men. The magazine is set within a genre and I created this through:

 

     I ensured the images were within the theme. My main front cover photo is a highly sexual photo which is seen to be in line with my magazine. The photo shows immediately that the magazine is largely based around men, music and their desires. The images on the double page spread also show a guy who is not a typical strong, muscular guy but a man that relates to men who are simply normal. The images show how anyone can do something they aspire to do.

·         The written communication on the front cover is both aimed at music and guys who consider themselves ‘players’. The genre is a sexualised music magazine and captions such as “beats, boobs and booze- the party never stops” shows how both of the ideas are being combined to make the genre come through. The article on the double page spread is essentially about an artist who has a highly sexualised, ‘fun’ and in some cases young men’s fantasies. This helps anchor the genre and make the theme of sexualised music consistent.

·         The colour theme is also consistent and red is usually associated with a sexual theme in many cases. Throughout the magazine I had the distinctive colour theme of black, white and red which shows the consistency in my theme. 

As the encoder of ‘UP’ I was keen to keep the consistency of the sexualised music magazine and make it fit within the genre.

I looked at different magazines to ensure that some of the other magazines to see if my magazine had any of the same conventions that others did. I found that FHM had the same colour scheme as I did, with the red, black and white, and they also had the sexualisation of a women on their front cover to entice men to look at their magazine.


FHM front cover



The magazine front cover here is similar to mine, they have used a bold title just as I did. The title allows the magazine to stand out and ensuring it is bold means this is likely to happen. The colour red has been proven to entice men and is seen as a more sexual/attractive colour, therefore the use of red shows how my magazine and FHM is largely aimed at men.

I then looked at other magazines double page spread, I found one. I reallised my magazine was completely different, their double page spread was more aimed at a mixed gender I suppose. They had a completely different layout to myself, different colours and a different type of context. Originally this was worrying, however I had to consider that my magazine was aimed at a completely different audience to this one, therefore the forms and conventions would be completely different to eachother.


In some ways I challenged the forms and conventions of a typical music magazine by making it more sexual and fun. I used many different aspects of convey the message of sex and music, so that the reader would be fully aware of what the magazine was about. I ignored things such as using lots of different fonts as I wanted my magazine to have a certain consistancy so people could differentiate that font from others and possibly associate it with my magazine.





Magazine Cover, Double page spread and contents page

 Magazine Cover

After recieving response on my magazine cover I have decided to change my magazine cover completely. I have made it more catchy and less boring, it has more to look at.

Double page spread

The double page spread is made to be aimed at guys who want to be like a stud, someone who is a player. In the article he tells of his wild adventures with ladies but also combines coversation about his music. It is intended to have a mix between the music and the player lifestyle.

Contents page

My contents page has the silouhette of an lady which shows immediately the magazine is sexualise.