Question 4:

Target audienc

e

Who is my target

audience?My target audience consists of both male and females who fall into the ABC1 category. 60%

are female and 40% are male but despite most of the audience consisting of female, both

genders are similar in their interests, personality and interests. The median age of the audience is

17, and 97% of my audience are students.

I conducted research into my target audience to find out their preferences, interests, hobbies and personality to

what I could do make my magazine as appealing to them as possible. From this research I found out my audience consists of both male and female, but

is predominantly male.

These three magazines are all aimed at a similar audience to mine, so I researched into these to get a better idea of how I can appeal to my

audience. I have used similar color schemes as the red, black and white connotes

danger, anger, violence and death. I was also inspired by the photographs on my cover, the font choices and the mise en scene. I also decided to use

the effect of the cluttered layouts to connote chaos and mess.

Question 5: How

does my magazine appeal to my target audience?

In my audience research, I found out they would prefer to see features and interviews with bands/artists, photographs of them, upcoming tour dates, posters and recommended songs. To appeal to them, I included

details of these things in the page references in the right third of the contents page. These were all things the audience thought were conventional to.

Since my target audience were mots likely to buy Kerrang or Metal Hammer, I asked them what bands they would like to see in my magazine. The results

showed that the most popular metal was Slipknot, Machine Head, While She Sleeps, and Architects and so I included these and other similar bands

in my magazine.

My target audience showed they are most likely to buy Kerrang, Metal Hammer and NME, although NME is not metal this shows that the audience is versatile and probably wouldn’t mind occasional softer rock or indie bands featured in my metal

magazine.

The survey helped me find out the interests of my target audience.

The results showed that 1/3 of my target audience play either drums,

guitar or bass, and that they are most likely to shop in Topman,

Band merchandise stores, eBay, Charity shops and Drop Dead.

Using this information to my advantage to entice the audience, I photographed the artist featured

on my double page spread wearing a denim Drop Dead jacket and

clothes that would appeal to them.

In my focus group interview, I asked them what they would most like to see in my magazine that

they haven’t seen any where else. They responded with an idea that I have incorporated into my contents page (the left third where the brief descriptions of the pages are), which is a

large interview mash up consisting of metal artists from various bands, both well known and

relatively knew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky96HYuGdU

Audience feedback

I got audience feedback by sending out a survey on surveymonkey.com. I asked a range of different questions regarding different features of my front cover, contents page and double page spread. Gathering this feedback enabled me to determine my strongest and weakest points of my magazine and to see how successful I was in making it conventional and appealing.

The first question I asked was very general to ensure the audience took the time tolook at my cover and decide what they liked from first impressions.

I found out the strongest features of my front cover was the creative mise-en-

scene, through the use of make up and creating the ‘scary’ character that I aimed for.They also liked the fact my front cover is conversational, which was a priority when

developing the magazine’s mode of address. From my audience research, I found out they were likely to be more attracted to my magazine if they felt more connected and understanding of how they were being addressed. For example the quote “Giant killer posters” is colloquial yet reflects the nature of metal music.

Another strength was the layout, I made it look very cluttered and chaotic to reflect on the personalities of my target audience. This seemed to be effective since my audience said it makes the cover look interesting.

Strengths of my cover

I found out the main weakness of my cover was the masthead. One person from my target audience said they did not notice my masthead instantly which would be an issue if I were to publish the magazine. Another person said it was similar to other mastheads and that it doesn’t stand out against other fonts,

although with it being similar to other magazines of the genre, I ensured it was conventional and would appeal to the audience.

Other weaknesses were only minor things that were effected due to the quality of the programme I used to produce my magazine on. The date was slightly blurry due to the style of font I used, which could’ve been resolved if I were to use a different font. Due to a printing error part of the number ‘25’ was missing, and the text on the yellow banner at the top of my cover was slightly hard to read, which I could’ve improved by using a slightly more contrasting colour, rather than yellow.

Weaknesses of my cover

Fonts

The general rating of the fonts used on my front cover ranged from 8 – 10, with one person rating a low 4. This may be related to how my masthead was not the most successful.

Colours

The colours I used were rated mainly 10’s, one 9 and a 7. This is very positive and shows the colour scheme I used for my front cover was both conventional and appealing to my target audience.

Photographs and Images

The photographs and images were the most successful parts of my front cover as they were rated all 10’s except one 9. This shows my use of mise en scene and editing was conventional and suited the expectations of my target audience.

Strengths of my contents page

The main strength of my contents page appeared to be the general layout. I made it organised yet quite chaotic so it still represented the extravagant personalities of my target audience but was also easy

to read and easy on the eye. One person said the layout made it look like a real magazine due to the competition and the editor’s notes section.

Other than the layout, another factor which seemed to be very effective was how I edited the photograph of Charles to make it look slightly tampered with, I used this effect since it reminded me of a distortion which occurs when sound is turned up extremely loud which of course is related to metal music, and therefore it was no surprise that this effect appealed to my audience.

Weaknesses of my contents pageThe weaknesses of my contents page was mainly the use of the gold/yellow colour, according to my audience it did

not compliment the red and therefore made it look slightly unattractive. Another negative was the font choice, since it was slightly difficult to read for

one person, and also the fact the competition takes up a large proportion of the contents page. One person suggested it would be better if I was to make this smaller and relate back to it by saying “turn to page 4”, however, in the responses to the strengths of this page, one person said they liked the competition section which shows yet again that different sections of my magazine are appealing to different members.

Fonts

My target audience rated the fonts on my contents page ranging from 6 – 10. This is quite a wide range and therefore shows the different styles I used have appealed differently to different members of my audience, despite taking audience research into consideration when deciding on which fonts to use.

Colours Photographs and Images

The ratings given to the different colours on my contents page were also very versatile. They ranged from 5 to 10, this shows that as well as the different fonts, the colours I used also appealed to different members of my target audience. This differs from the front cover as most of my feedback were mainly 9’s and 10’s

The feedback on my photograph's and images on my contents page came back relatively positive ranging from 7 – 10. This is a smaller range than the ratings given to the use of fonts and colours which shows the photographs are my strongest part of my contents page.

Strengths of my double page spread

The strengths of my double page spread include the effect that I used on the photograph of Ben; how it takes up both pages and also how he

is a conventional model to the genre due to the fact he is wearing Drop Dead and looks quite stereotypical.

They also liked my heading and how I used a play on words in “Stanhope or no hope?” and said it grabbed their attention. This is what I was aiming for since I needed something very simplistic and short but was also straight to the point and outstanding.

Another strength was the use of a pull quote placed within the main body copy, this attracts the readers attention which is what I intended for it to do.

Weaknesses of my double page spread

My feedback showed that the audience thought that nothing could be improved, other than the fact the body copy was slightly touching part of the photograph, to appeal to them to the fullest possible degree I would move the body copy slightly to the right to make sure it was not touching the image.

Colours Photographs and ImagesFonts

The fonts used on my double page spread seemed to be very successful since people rated them all 9’s and 10’s. Despite the fact I haven’t used as many fonts as on my front cover or contents page, people seem to like the few font styles that I have incorporated into my double page spread.

The colour scheme which I used was even more successful since it received all 10’s and one 9. It only consisted of reds, blacks, greys and whites which is very minimalistic and therefore quite masculine which, from what I found out in my audience research, is what my target audience would prefer to see.

The use of photographs and images was also very successful with only one 8 amongst all 10’s. I used one photograph which took up the majority of the double page spread which is a conventional layout and therefore was likely to appeal to my audience.

I asked my target audience their opinions on the general layout of my magazine; whether they would prefer it if it was more cluttered, chaotic and messy, or if they’d find it more appealing if it was neater and more

ordered. I predicted that my target

audience would like to see a cluttered layout to reflect their rebellious and chaotic personalities, but at the same time would be attractive to a layout

that was easy to read and well spread out.My results showed that only one person out of seven was not happy with the

over all layout, and this is because they thought the front cover was slightly cluttered, but liked the double page spread and contents page.