Evaluation: Addressing an Audience

Evaluation: Technologies

Evaluation: Target Audience

Evaluation target audience from Megan Gilham

Evaluation: Institutions

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

I would want my magazine to be as successful as possible, and to make this a reality I would have to take risks. I would try to get Bauer to publish my magazine, as they publish some of the largest and best-known music magazines that fit into my target audience (Kerrang!, Q and MOJO), alongside many other types of magazines that fit into other categories (health, films, celebrities, lifestyle, vehicles).

Bauer publish 107 different brands and more than 570 magazines, over 300 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations. More than 600 titles worldwide reach out to all the key target groups, especially women. 56% of women read a magazine from Bauer, selling approximately 433 million issues each year, of which 96% are retail sales and subscriptions. 25 of their magazines are among the 100 highest selling in retail sales. They are also market leaders in consumer magazines in weeklies, premiums, youth, people and lifestyle, children, listings guides and more. With such a wide audience purchasing magazines published by Bauer, I may be able to stand a fair chance with a dominantly rock music based magazine, as rock is a very large genre of music and one of the most commonly played in radio stations. I could even have my own radio station later down the line if the magazine is successful enough to justify it - expanding my audience even further.

Two magazines published by Bauer - a celebrity-based magazine and a magazine about motorcycles.

In order to make the deal work, I would have to make sure the advertising pull is fair and justified in my magazine to keep it relevant. For example, it would make sense to feature some of Bauer's other published magazines rather than an advert for a car, as they would benefit more from it. I could spare a few full pages for Bauer's advertisements knowing that my audience would be far larger, rather than self-publishing or using another method. However, this does mean I have less space to display actual content, of which would be available with a smaller publisher. 

Evaluation Forms & Conventions

Evaluation: Representation

In my magazine, I have chosen to target the audience of rock fans. This means, stereotypically, predominantly male students. However, for my magazine, I decided to aim more openly in order to create a more sensible brand identity; my magazine is directed to both males and females of a teenage audience, choosing neutral but appealing language terms to communicate with the reader (straying away from using grouping terms such as 'guys' to describe my audience). This type of mature audience are usually prone to finding interest in the internet, socialising (going out, partying), playing games, reading, and studying. My front cover, contents page and double page spread are stylized in order to appeal to anyone in my target audience of teenagers/students (using 'neutral' colours like black, white, red and yellow and photos of both a male and a female) rather than directed at a specific audience - for example male students.
Kerrang! uses its model and cover line to appeal to its audience straight away with minimalistic effects of other images on the page. They stand out against bright backgrounds, whereas I went for the opposite effect and chose to have my model against a dark background. If I were to change this aspect of my magazine, I would experiment with brighter colours used as backgrounds throughout it. This may appeal more to my target audience as rock music can be very flashy and exciting, which is the approach I want to take with my magazine in order to relate to the reader. When photographing my model, I had to consider their posture, expression, choice of fashion, lighting and more in order to create the most appealing images. I chose to take inspiration from models used in other music magazines (such as Kerrang!, Q, etc.) which all supported neutral, sensible expressions and gestures which makes the product feel more professional. All of my images were shot in a studio using ambient and artificial lighting sources, and were edited in the final products to be brighter and flashier. If I were to take these photos again, I would be sure to do so in brighter light (perhaps outside) in order to stand out more against the background.

I wanted to show that my products are willing to take risks in order to create a house style and brand identity, by using a unique colour scheme and display. While I kept to guidelines using other magazines (position of header, cover line, main image etc), I wanted there to be some diversity in the type of magazine I have created compared to other largely-known magazines. 
I used colour to change up how I got points 

across, such as the large yellow stroke around
the cover line. 
My photos are all fairly similar to each other, using neutral expressions and postures to appeal to as many people as possible without being too flashy. Ways that other rock fans in photos differ to this is by using hand gestures, extravagant expressions and more excitable poses, which is something not really used on magazine covers.