Music Magazine Evaluation- Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I worked mainly on my front page to catch my target audiences eyes because it would be the first thing they see out of the whole magazine, and that will decide whether they pick it up or not, so I used a lot of my methods of attraction in my front cover.

 On my front cover I attracted my target audience (black teenagers aged 11-19) by using a popular trend amongst young black teenagers which is a street name/ rap name or in slang a “tag”. By taking the tag/ street name “Gabz” and surrounding it in a stamp like box to make it stand out. Also to make it very appealing to teenagers I made sure that the font was defaced or deteriorated (destroyed_aero).

I also asked my model to add facial expressions to his pose and squint his eyes/ screw up his face slightly or as it’s known by teenagers in slang “screwing”. Screwing is usually done to show some kind of attitude problem, so I did this so that teenagers can see this and they can relate to it and will pick up that he’s screwing very easily so they become intrigued as to why he is screwing meaning that they will pick up the magazine to find out.

The BBM bar code was very useful in attracting as well because it involves technology which is a popular thing amongst teenagers of the age group (11-19) in particular social networking and BBM is a kind of social network which will appeal to my target audience. Sticking to the topic of technology I included a “free I-Tunes download” on my bar code which will appeal to the target audience because it means they can use their laptops and phones to download whatever they thought was being advertised for free download, because to download technology (usually modern) is needed and as I previously stated teenagers are very attached to technology and it plays a huge part in the lives of most.

In my cover lines I used well known popular rap names to entice my audience and at the same time keep to the genre of the magazine. Also the names bar at the top which has names of featured artists and people in the magazine had a lot of popular UK rap artists which can interest the target audience into looking to see if they can support them. Also I included an NBA basketball stars name “Dwyane Wade” and then put the cover line “King of the court, NBA’s greatest players” to really watch the viewers eye on such a big star featuring in a rap magazine.

On my contents page I used the pose of calm, mellow and as teenagers like to put it “zoned out”. That means to be in their own little zone or world, and I did that in this picture by making my model illustrate he’s alone with his thoughts and I got the idea from a tumbler picture that quotes “when you’re lonely music is your only friend “.

I asked for him to listen to music to show what teenagers do when they want to get away from problems in life, or when they need something to motivate them and help them through problems. I wanted to show this without including the actual quote itself in the magazine product that for teenagers sometimes music is their only friend, and a lot of teenagers can relate to that so I decide to definitely use that method of attraction.

Also when I took my double page spread I used a similar method, asking him to put on a serious look so that in a way he came across as angry or annoyed, and a lot of teenagers are known for being rebellious and angry at society so the facial expression worked well in contrast to what I wanted to achieve.

Also to appeal to my young target audience I gave the magazine masthead an original name and made it appealing to my target audience by calling it “Young World” which makes my product a niche product because it pretty much warns off the older age groups (people above 19 or 20) as they would feel uncomfortable reading a magazine at their age entitled “Young World”.

However by doing this it appeals further to my target audience as they won’t really see people above 26 reading it so they would see it as cool, young, trendy and fresh.

 Also their parents would not be reading the magazine because they may not understand it and it would be viewed as inappropriate for them to read it so the teenagers (my main target audience) would feel safe reading my magazine knowing their parents would not be able to keep tabs on what they are reading. 

Also I attracted my audience through colour scheme which consisted of 2 dark colours which were very strong on the page and 2 light/ bright colours which were very eye catching, 1 of the two very vibrant on the page, catching peoples eye.

The red, black, yellow and white colour scheme was very contrasting with the red and black looking very strong on the page which would mainly draw the eyes of males because they are very boyish colours and a lot of young males in London (black in particular) like to dress all black or as they say “blacked out”.

The white and yellow were subtle touches to appeal to the female side of my audience along with the colours of the costume I made my model wear so that the females didn’t see the magazine as to masculine and would make them shy away, I used very smart-casual, light coloured clothes to allow my model to appeal to the female audience, still look masculine but contrast with my magazine.

Also I made my model wear a brightly coloured costume to contrast against the dark background, and made sure that my model had one of his clothes (his jeans) dark and in the end we went with black jeans as well as the brightly coloured striped grey jumper.

Also I made sure the photo I took of my model showed a soft side, but the facial expressions gave him a masculine look appealing to both genders. I made sure I appealed to both genders consistently, for example by making the main cover line rugged and very boyish with a black background with white deteriorated font, but the costume was very subtle, but not feminine, however because he is well presented it would appeal to my female audience as they may find he has a sex appeal or swagger that strikes their interest.

This is known as female gaze theory, because a male is on the front cover that females might find particularly attractive the females may choose to pick up the magazine due to that one factor. Two of the images taken were in the same costume but different poses.

Throughout my magazine I used mostly Standard English and some slang that can be understood by mainly the young and the slightly by the older because if some people didn’t understand slang then to use it throughout the content of my whole magazine might alienate the reader, and I didn’t want to further narrow down my audience by aiming it at fully ghetto slang speaking teens.

However I used swearing in my double page spread to appeal to my young audience as swearing is part of a lot of young teen’s vocabulary and also it is a type of rebellion so they would relate to it.