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.