Planning: possible magazine titles

I will choose one of these three titles for my magazine, i will try them out in different colours and fonts on photoshop as there is a wide variety of font effects that i can choose from. To help me decide which one to use i will ask people which title they think is the best and most appealing.

Institution: key company

IPC media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men - almost 26 million UK adults - while their websites collectively reach over 14 million users every month.

IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.

Their men's portfolio comprises a wealth of leisure brands including Country Life, Horse and Hound, Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME.

Their mass market women's division comprises famous women's weeklies including Lokk, Now, Chat and Woman; TV entertainment brands including What's on TV, TVTimesand TV & Satellite Week and, online, the goodtoknow network.

Their upmarket women's division comprises luxury fashion brands including Marie Claire and In Style, lifestyle brands including women&homeand essentials and home interest brands including Ideal Home, Livingetc and housetohome.

IPC media is the leading magazine publishing company in the Uk and therefore extremely reliable, it is important when making a magazine to choose a company that i can trust and that has a proven track record of publishing quality magazines. Using a company like IPC media will also help my magazine to sell as people will know that it is of a good quality if this company has produced the magazine.

Reference: www.IPCMedia.com

Institution: distribution and advertising process

Firstly the magazine must be sent to a reliable printing company so that the producers will know that there magazine is printed on time. Then a reliable delivery company must be chosen so that the magazine gets in the shops on time.

Advertising is very important because if people do not know about your magazine they will not buy it. The internet is a very effective way of advertising as it is widely used by millions of people, however you cannot just advertise it on any website because for example if you advertised a music magazine on a cooking website it would not be an effective way of advertising as your target market are unlikely to be looking at a cooking website. If possible oyu should try to advertise your magazine on a website such as PLAY.COM as this is a website that sells cd's and therefore is a website that your target audience are likely to visit.

Another good way of advertising, and possibly the most common way, is on the television, but once again the same rule applies as with internet, only advertise on a channel that your target audience are likely to watch, for example if it is a hip-hop magazine advertise on the MTV BASE channel. However although advertising on the television can be very effective it can also be very expensive so you would have to be sure that it would be worth it before advertising on the tv.

You could also advertise a magazine by putting up posters, this could be turned into a very effective way of advertising by putting up posters at venues for concerts, for example if you are advertising a rock magazine you could put up posters at a venue for a rock concert, this would ensure that your target audience would see the advertisement.

Institution: production process

The process of producing a magazine will often start with the editor and the publisher deciding on a date that the magazine will be in the shops for. Then the team who produce the magazine will be able to set deadlines for certain stages of the magazine production for example when the front cover must be completed.

once all the deadlines have been decided the production process can begin. Different members of the production team will have different jobs. Firstly things like layout, features, images and colours of the magazine will be decided. People will have to research the information that will be in the magazine, for example interviews with bands and finding out information of upcoming events in the music industry, while all this is happening the production manager will be constantly checking the progress of the magazines production. once everything has been decided, all research has been done and images taken the editors will start to produce the magazine.

when the magazine has been fully edited it will be sent to a printing press to be printed and then distributed to various shops.

Analysis of existing products: kerrang magazine

I think that this magazine cover is very eyecatching and also quite typical of modern magazines. the masthead is in the usual place and stands out well. However i feel that the main cover image and main cover line are the most eyecatching feature of this particular magazine. The main cover image stands out as the members of the band are pulling parculair faces and one of the memebers pictures is raised above the masthead which makes it really stand out. Also the colour of the main cover line really stands out. This cover is very busy which will give the audience the impression that there are manny different features in the magazine. As well as this there are names of various different magazines on the skyline which will allow the magazine to draw interest from a wider audience as there will be a wider variety of music in the magazine. Another good feature of this magazine cover is that it clearly shows the offer of free posters which could help convince someone who doesnt usually read the magazine to buy it, because some people may just want the posters but then read the magazine and be encouraged to buy it in the future.

Analysis of existing products: Q magazine

This magazine cover is different to other covers as it not as busy as a lot of other covers. It has the masthead and main cover image but then only one cover line which is uncommon, especially for this particular magazine. I beleieve that this magazine cover will not be as appealing to the audience as the front cover looks too plain. I think that it would be better if they had used more eyecatching colours as the colours they have used are very dull. Also i beleive that only having one main cover line could discourage people from buying this magazine especially if they do not like the group shown on the front cover. Whereas if they had used more images and cover lines with information of other features i think that people would probably still buy this magazine.

Audience

There are many diffenrent ways that companys categorise audiences, many companys use various theorys to judge who their product will be aimed at. Categorising audiences can also help companys determine when and how there audience will consume their product which could also help companys decide on what to include in their product. one way of defining and categorising an audience is by usingh the life matrix theory, it defines ten audience categories, it is based around values, attitudes and beliefs of the audience, which will be useful in letting the producer know what to include in their magazine to make it appealing to there target audience. the categories of audience in the life matrix theory are:

1. tribe wired- digital, free spirited, creative young singles


2. fun/atics - aspirational, fun-seeking, active young people


3. dynamic - hard driving, high involvement couples


4. priority parents- family values, activities, media strongly dominate


5. home soldiers- home centric, family orientated, materially ambitious


6. rennaisence women - active, caring, affluent, influential mums


7. rugged traditionalists- traditional male values, love of outdoors


8. struggling singles- high aspirations, low economic status


9. settled elders- devout, older, sedentary lifestyles


10. free birds- vital, activ, altruistic seniors

Another effective way of grouping an audience is by using their income bracket status as this enables producers to know the class of their target audience which will be a good of indicator of what content to inlcude in a magazine for example upper middle class would most likely read a formal magazine and people at the lowest level of income such as students would probably read a less formal magazine, however this does not always apply. Income bracket is in six bands they are, A. upper middle class, bankers etc, B. middle class, teachers etc, C1. lower middle class, nurses etc, C2 skilled working class, skilled workers etc, D. working class, manual workers etc, E. people at lowest level of income, students etc.

reference: http://www.slideshare.net/

Analysis of existing products: NME magazine

Current magazine covers are all very similar in the way they are layed out and what is on them, for example magazine covers are very busy with lots of text and images on them. most current magazines will have a large main cover image with large text, with information of the main feature, but the rest of the front cover will be crammed with text giving information of other features in the magazine, when i have looked at various different magazine covers i have noticed that there is hardly ever any blank space, this enables the magazine to look as apealing as possible as it will give the reader the impression that it will be full of exciting features, it also makes the magazine more eyecatching. something else that i have noticed about current magazines is that there is no structure to where things are positioned on the front cover, for example text will be often be at an angle and be off center on the front cover this is something else that will make a magazine more eyecatching. the colour schemes of magazines seem to match with each other for example the cover to the right is predominantly red and white which are two colours that go, however something that i have noticed is the colour scheme often changes with each issueoften depending on what band the main feature is about. Also the font size and style used changes alot on the front cover for example information of the main features will be written in a larger, more eycatching font whereas other smaller features will be written in a smaller font.

Current market research

In order to find things such as gaps in the market I researched current magazines like the ones above. I also looked at them to find out things such as how magazines are layed out, for exampe what colour schemes are used. Doing this research was very useful in order to know how to lay out my magazine so that it was appealing so people would want to read it. Doing this research helped me find gaps in the market for example I found that most of the popular magazines such as Q, NME and Kerrang focus mainly on indie and rock music which showed me that there was a gap in the market for magazine that focus on genre's such as pop, rap and hip-hop. I also looked at the content of the popular music magazines so that I knew what features to include, for example I found that there were alot of interviews with different artists and also previews of upcoming gigs and albums.

questionnaire

In order to produce a succesfull magazine I feel that it is important to know what people want, so I did a questionnaire to find out what type of music people liked, which would let me know what type of music magazine would be popular. I asked 20 people who were all aged 0-18.



Here are the result's:



pop- 3



rock- 1



indie - 8



hip hop - 7



rap- 1



classical - 0



country - 0



other - 0



Although indie was the most popular genre of music I did not decide to make an indie music magazine, this was due to my market research in which I found that there was not a gap in the market for a indie music magazine. Therefore I decided to choose the next most popular genre, which was hip-hop.