Evaluation question 4 - Audience.

Target audience

When I first started planning my media product I decided that I would make it to appeal to college and university students aged 16–21, from both; males and females. When I made my questionnaire I asked a several students aged between my T.A age range and mixture of both genders. I asked several questions to help me create a target audience.

        First question I asked was; ‘What draws your attention to a music magazine?’ Most people I asked said that the main image was most important to them, so when creating my magazine I made the main image my main focus. The second most popular answer I got was, the Masthead, so I made them two features my main priority. I think my finished product meets this as I focused on my main image. And I changed my Masthead several times to meet my target audience’s needs. Therefore I think my front cover meets the requirements of the TA.

        Then I asked ‘What would you tend to read about in a music magazine?’ most the people I asked said they’d prefer to read about upcoming gigs and festivals, then the next popular answer was the featured celebrities and then interviews, so when planning my contents page I included this features. When I was planning my dps I made sure I that included the tour date of my artist as this is something my target audience wanted to see.

        When I asked ‘What colours do you associate with pop?’, the main answer I got was pink, however when Becka and I were planning our magazine, we decided that she would do the November issue and I would do the December issue. At first I wanted to use Christmas related colours, green, red etc.. When it came to constructing the magazine I tried these colours but when I looked at my similar product research I noticed that existing magazines don’t represent the December issue through Christmas colours. So then I changed the colours I was going to use to red and a bluey/purple so the magazine appealed to both genders and didn’t fall towards females. However looking back at my work now I can see that my magazine pages have fallen mainly towards females, however it still could appeal to males.

        I asked my target audience ‘How often they buy a music magazine?’ And more than half said they buy a music magazine monthly, so when I planning and constructing my magazine I took this into consideration as it was what my target audience wanted, and this is why myself and Becka made monthly issues, Becka made the November issue an I made the December issue.

        The next thing I asked my target audience was ‘If you were to buy a music magazine, why would you read it?’ I had various answers from this question; the main response I got was to read about gossip, then to find out about gigs, festivals and tours, and also to read about your favourite artists, because this is what my audience wanted I tried to include these features. I also had one person say they would like to receive freebies with ‘LYRIC mag’ but looking at my similar product research, I noticed that freebies are generally given to young target audiences.

        The final question I asked was ’Do you use social network sites, if so which ones?’. I asked this as it would be a way to advertise my and Becka’s mag to students and other people of my target audience age range. The people I wanted to buy my magazine are my kind of generation, and I know that most people in my generation use social networking sites. So I used Twitter, and Facebook to ask people questions about my magazine, to help me plan it. By having a Twitter and Facebook link on my magazine front cover I think this helps to appeal to the target audience I was aiming for.
        I think I could have stuck to my target audience research a bit better, looking at my finished magazine pages, I think I fell towards females over males. But I feel my magazine definitely represents student life.