How did you attract/address your audience? (Include evidence of audience feedback)

Kayleigh Mayne's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

When I first done my front cover, contents and double page spread, to get feedback as a class we done 'hot desking' here, I had people come over to view my product and write ways to improve it, for the first few comments it was things such as 'add numbers on your contents page' this helped me as a key element of a contents page is page numbers, to assure its purpose was fulfilled (to help readers quickly find the articles they wanted to read).
As well as hot desking I also tried to get feedback from people outside of my media in G18, this proved unsuccessful so i got together a focus group of 5 individuals from the same age group as my target audience and asked for their feedback on two draft magazines I had done.

The front covers image for my magazine was fairly conventional in this modern age, the both had three women pulling strong poses and body language with direct enticing eye contact, the direct eye contact would draw in the reader as well as how my image is black and white and the eyes are blue making them stand out even more. I used the idea of strong women as my target audience is predominately female and because according to researcher Sharpe girls, like to be like what they see in the media and now a days girls aspire for careers with artists like, Beyonce, Adelle etc being headstrong women who are career orientated.

Although they are striking strong poses, the outfits they are wearing are very everyday clothing, this enables them to relate to the audience and not seem intimidating but like one of them. My focus group commented on how they liked that I had used young females in everyday clothing making it clear who my target audience was and making it relatable. My focus group also said they liked how I used colours (like I mentioned earlier with the blue on the eye) and also the colours I used. They liked the colours I used as the red which has the connotation of being a sophisticated colour unlike pink connotate with child like magazines like Top of the pops. They also liked how I used black and white in my imagery and in my 'dated' part of my masthead as it reflected my genre of old cover songs and the red represented the new new which is why the word 'modern' was red. During the focus group they said they preferred the black and white image but not with red lips so I used a black and white image and gave them blue eyes instead.

The layout of my magazine is fairly conventional, On the front cover it had typical elements needed in any magazine this included; the date, the price and a barcode. Other conventions expected but not needed in a music magazine include range left, how all my strap lines are on the left with my cover line in the middle with a glow to make it eye catching and grab the audiences attention. Other conventional feature include the masthead being at the top of the page, using a medium close up shot so you can see the facial poses of the artists to drawn in the reader with eye contact while enabling the reader to see the clothes they are wearing which the readers may like and relate to. Also typical conventions on the contents page and double page spread such as a small gutter between columns so the text flows clearly without confusion between paragraphs or articles and a standfirst and drop caps on my double page spread, I kept these conventions as it kept my magazine as a magazine product however I challenge conventions with my slug line at the bottom of the page and making my main image in black and white and also adding images in between the text on the double page spread, they usually just have one main image on a double page spread.

I also attract my target audience with my originality- e.g. the masthead is very original as I learnt from my audience feedback the use of taking apart a cassette tape to write out dated with the tape, is not only original making my masthead memorable but my focus group also said it related to the genre of my magazine, they suggested I combine the 'Modern' with the record for a 'o' as the serifs on the typeface of modern stand out and is easy to read from a far, with the 'Dated' cassette tape part of the mast head from my second draft, so I did combine the two in my final magazine making it look original and intriguing.

My audience also said they were attracted to my magazine as it looked professional by how it flowed nicely because of my housestyle. I kept this housestyle by keeping the same colours, red, black and white throughout the whole magazine, I also used my masthead as a logo like Q in the top right corner of the pages of my magazines and on my contents and double page spread in the corner of the page I used a red box to give a template like housestyle so all the pages look like they belong. They also said they liked elements such as the flannel panel as it relates to their age group by including contact information on most popular websites of my target audience (that I found from my audience research), this also creates a convergence between my magazine and social networks making it multi-platform, even including scan codes so readers can simply scan it on their phone so it is easy to follow or contact us.


My focus group said that as well as the layout, images and colours, the hybrid genre of the magazine would attract people of their age group (my target audience age) and because the focus group were female it would also attract the gender of my target audience as my target audience is predominately female. The focus group said they enjoyed cover songs and agreed they were becoming increasingly popular and would want to see a music magazine about cover songs. My magazine is unlike any others as none have a magazine on cover songs and because cover songs come from all genres it creates a hybrid genre magazine like Q which could attract a wide range of readers who enjoy many different genres.