How did you attract/address your audience?
I analysed and described my target audience in detail in the last evaluation question and will now look at how my music magazine is able to attract this audience. However, it should be noted that a lot of factors in the magazine I consider to be appealing to all types of people, which is in a way better than just doing things according to my target audience as it means there is still a possibility of people from outside my target audience taking an interested. If I had based the entire magazine solely around what my target audience liked and no one else did then any potential impulse buyers could feel alienated and be put off. To be honest though this would be unlikely to happen, as I am targeting a mass audience which means their likes and dislikes will be considered the norm for society as a whole.
The first thing one notices when looking at my magazine's cover is the large photo of the cover girl, Kerry Anne. It has to be assumed that Kerry Anne is an ex-member of a well-known pop band, and that people are interested in her, as unfortunately my actual pop star friends were unavailable for a photo-shoot at the time I was taking the pictures. With this assumption one can see how giving Kerry such prominence on the cover would be effective in attracting my audience, as they would see on the shelves an image of a famous pop star and take an interest in the content relating to her within the magazine. The pull-quote/lure of "I'm done with the band, it's time to move on" heightens the potential buyer's interest, as the quote is likely to make them think "Wow, I wonder what that's all about" and then purchase the magazine to find out more.
Another thing which is likely to appeal to my target audience is the section of text in the black box at the top of my magazine cover. I've included the image on the left to show how my header fits in with those used by real music magazines; the fact that these are popular things to use obviously show that they are good at attracting the target audience since if they weren't good magazines wouldn't include them. What's more, each of the headers in the picture I took from the front covers of monthly music magazines, and as my magazine is also monthly it shows that I am doing what is particularly liked by the audience of monthly music magazines. The content of the header itself is about three boys who made a youtube video but rose to viral infamy. One should assume that this "Rockability" band's video is on a similar level of fame to Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain", and so the hipper internet-savvy people will have heard of it and be interested in learning more.
As was basically the case with the previous two points, the audience is likely to be most interested in content relevant to artists they are particularly fond of. This means that putting the names of popular artists who are written about in the magazine would be a good way of attracting my audience, and so it would make sense to try and fit as many artist names as possible on the cover without becoming over-obtrusive. This I achieved with my plus section, an idea which I took from other popular music magazines (see pictures). People will now have even more reason to buy my magazine, since as well as being interested in the main story they may be interested in one of the bands/singers mentioned in the plus section.
The mode of address is defined as the ways in which relations between addresser and addressee are constructed in a piece of media, which is in this case my magazine. My double page spread article was where I addressed my audience most through text, and the pictured section has things which show how I did this. Firstly one can see that I used colloquialisms, such as "chilly", rather than more rigid sounding terms like "cold" or "low temperature". This is good as my audience are unlikely to be looking for extremely formal passages of text when buying a music magazine, and so the non-formal language will appeal to them and make them feel comfortable. Saying that her flat is in Stevenage is effective at addressing my audience in a friendly tone, as it is giving the contextual information that would be provided were they having a conversation with someone. The talking about of what the interviewer is impressed by adds to this; the reader feels closer to the interviewer and understands his thoughts and feelings. When the interview starts we actually hear Kerry speak directly, and this is appealing to the reader since they almost feel as though they are talking to this amazing pop star directly. I also used square brackets to show the surnames of the other band members, to show how close Kerry was to them that she only refers tot hem by their first names. This adds to the realism of the magazine and again makes it more like actually reading what someone has said.
I did actually find it quite difficult to attract and address my audience directly, and feel that I ended up including things that would just appeal to anyone. This is because I defined my audience as being a mass audience who would be in varied age groups and have varied interests which made it difficult to pick up on particular things they would like. In this regard it may have been easier to make a magazine themed around the rock metal genre of music, as I would have known to use lots of dark colours and jagged fonts.
I analysed and described my target audience in detail in the last evaluation question and will now look at how my music magazine is able to attract this audience. However, it should be noted that a lot of factors in the magazine I consider to be appealing to all types of people, which is in a way better than just doing things according to my target audience as it means there is still a possibility of people from outside my target audience taking an interested. If I had based the entire magazine solely around what my target audience liked and no one else did then any potential impulse buyers could feel alienated and be put off. To be honest though this would be unlikely to happen, as I am targeting a mass audience which means their likes and dislikes will be considered the norm for society as a whole.
Another thing which is likely to appeal to my target audience is the section of text in the black box at the top of my magazine cover. I've included the image on the left to show how my header fits in with those used by real music magazines; the fact that these are popular things to use obviously show that they are good at attracting the target audience since if they weren't good magazines wouldn't include them. What's more, each of the headers in the picture I took from the front covers of monthly music magazines, and as my magazine is also monthly it shows that I am doing what is particularly liked by the audience of monthly music magazines. The content of the header itself is about three boys who made a youtube video but rose to viral infamy. One should assume that this "Rockability" band's video is on a similar level of fame to Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain", and so the hipper internet-savvy people will have heard of it and be interested in learning more.
As was basically the case with the previous two points, the audience is likely to be most interested in content relevant to artists they are particularly fond of. This means that putting the names of popular artists who are written about in the magazine would be a good way of attracting my audience, and so it would make sense to try and fit as many artist names as possible on the cover without becoming over-obtrusive. This I achieved with my plus section, an idea which I took from other popular music magazines (see pictures). People will now have even more reason to buy my magazine, since as well as being interested in the main story they may be interested in one of the bands/singers mentioned in the plus section.
I did actually find it quite difficult to attract and address my audience directly, and feel that I ended up including things that would just appeal to anyone. This is because I defined my audience as being a mass audience who would be in varied age groups and have varied interests which made it difficult to pick up on particular things they would like. In this regard it may have been easier to make a magazine themed around the rock metal genre of music, as I would have known to use lots of dark colours and jagged fonts.
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