2. Industry

My magazine is going to be published by Bauer Publishing. They are highly prolific publishers and print the worlds No.1 and 2 best selling magazines at retail. Bauer have a diverse plethora of publications and print over 600 magazines, with a diverse breadth of content.

The first thing you see on the website is the slogan " We Think Popular." which indicates that whilst, I would like to give my magazine a more indie vibe, it must have a relatively mainstream, or 'popular'
feel to it. 

One of  Bauer Publishing's main fashion magazines, and the closest competition to my own magazine in terms of content is 'Grazia'. The Bauer website states that Grazia is: "Brave, bold, innovative", which are all aspects that I hope my own magazine will have, furthermore our magazines share a common AB audience. On the other hand, the Grazia audience is mostly female and older than my own, with the core demographic being "25-45 year old women". This means that it is plausable that Bauer could publish a more indie fashion magazine, aimed at a younger audience as the two publications would not be in direct competiton with each other.

Magazine sales in general have declined in recent times, for example 'Vogue' (a contempory fashion magazine) has seen its sales fall by 2.6% and 'Grazie' has seen drops in sales of 13.4%. To me, this indicates a deterioration in the breadth of people reading fashion magazines and hence a gap in the market for a magazine to break through and target the younger groups in society- something I aim to do with my own magazine.

Regulation for magazines is left to IPSO (Independant Press Standards Organistion) who are "the independent regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK". On their website they claim to "hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press."

One of the ways in which they do this is to make sure all publications uphold the 'Editors' Code'- which is a set of rules to ensure that any publication has integrity and is not damaging to society in its message. This is important to consider as I do not wish for my magazine to be censored, which can happen if information provided is innacurate, with a recent example of this being The Times' article on international politics sparked by the curruption within FIFA- where false claims were made about certain individuals.

Independent magazine production companies are not too common in the modern market, however in recent times a few have discovered success in niche markets. For example, Kinfolk Magazine is an indie magazine production company whose publication has gone worldwide and been translated into Chinese, Russian, Japanese and a readership of over 55,000. The fact that Kinfolk is independently produced but not independently distributed means that they can create a  "distinct ripple in the publishing world with an aesthetic all its own" (Portland monthly), whilst still being able to create and reach a large audience due to the publisher (Ouur).

Increasingly, it is becoming imperative that magazines exapand into all areas online in order to capture the largest possible audience while maintaining a synergistic brand image and converging back to a central hub. In this case, Vogue's instagram displays competant digital convergence by featuring the magazines iconic 'V' logo as its display picture, furthermore, the magazine converges digitally by featuring a link to the homepage. This not only makes it easy, but encourages readers to head back to Vogue's homepage, thus providing the reader with even more content and also exposing them to more advertising opportunities, which enables Vogue to generate more revenue.

1. Audience

The target audience for my magazine is the "culturally sophisticated, 16-25 class AB demographic".

To me, this indicates that the group of people that my magazine will be targeting are well educated, knowledgable and want a challenge. The Cambridge Dictionary states the definition of 'sophsticated' as: "[someone] having a good understanding of the way people behave and/or a good knowledge of culture and fashion". This is important to grasp as it is indicative of an audience who absolutely know the ins and outs of the fashion world, so my magazine will have to not only strike them as a source of reliable and accurate information, but will also have to strive to inform and present new ideas to an already 'culturally sophisticated' group of people. I have spoken to several people I know within the 16-25 age bracket about various media consumption, and 50% said that they would buy a magazine if they felt it was "something new" or interesting enough, while 100% of them said they used social media regularly every day- meaning that untilising social media will be crucial when trying to captivate my TA.


The graph to the right breaks down various media usage of young adults over the last (average) week and it shows that whilst there is a sleight discrepency between total adults reading magazines and young adults reading magazines (2%). I have also found data revealing that when it comes to fashion magazines, the percentage of young adults reading is 34% versus all adults, who total 22%. This shows that, of my target demoagraphic, over a third of them read my chosen media. Furthermore, 58% of my target audience group were said to "enjoy looking at ads in magazines" (QuadGraphics), indicating that magazine advertising is a highly effective method of selling to an already affluent target audience.

The social grade 'AB' represents the top 27% of society in Britain in terms of affluence (sourced from Ipsos MediaCT). Members of the group will have either "High managerial, administrative or professional" jobs (A) or "Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional" jobs (B). Furthermore, in the last 40 years, the percent of society in the AB classes has risen by 15%.
All of the information I have found out would indicate that I am tailoring my magazine for a increasingly large group of people who are all financially well-off. This could perhaps suggest that a higher price point for my magazine could be the way to proceed.
However, the jobs that the AB class would tend to have are likely to be very time consuming, and this partnered with the fact they will perhaps be paying a relatively high price means that my magazine will have to be a high-end product that justifies its expensiveness.
Additionally, the aflluence of my target audience means that the content featured both in and on my magazine will have to reflect the budgets of my TA, meaning top-end products should be advertised and when it comes to trends and movements in fashion, my magazine could disregard lower budget looks, brands etc. as this may not be what my TA are looking for.

NEA Prelim.

Since starting the NEA project on the 18th June, I have obtained and developed a range of new and pre-existing skills. I have received performance training, website training, studio training as well as developing my communication and teamwork skills. The biggest thing I have learnt about my performance would be to let go as much as possible, as this is when the best and most authentic shots are obtained.

I have created the first cover of two for edition #1 of my magazine 'Identity'. It is a streetwear/indie fashion related magazine. Prior to that, I had a 12-hour studio day on Monday 9th of July, where I directed a number of shots for my own material and modeled in many other peoples shoots, which helped me to be confident in my own. I also conducted thorough background research in order to ensure my own magazine would be conventional but also would have unique elements to set it apart.

I am planning to continue with my current project in September. I am also going to Central London at some point during summer in order to shoot some interesting (and 'street') backgrounds which I then may go on to use in September but they would more be to provide a possible option rather than a certain part of my project. I may also take some extra shots with another female model in September, but I do already have multitudes of material so these shots would be either for coverage, or most likely, for use on my website.

13. Closing Post

Dear examiner
                         Thank you for reviewing and considering my project. You will find all the relevant posts under the "AS Research and Planning" tag on the right hand side of this page.

This blog is now closed.

12. My Final Production

Here are my 4 final print adverts:

ADVERT 1

ADVERT 2

ADVERT 3

ADVERT 4

11. Production Review: My Production and My Intended Improvements

Below are the current versions of my adverts however, it was clear to me that adjustments were necessary. I decided to ask the opinions of my teachers and peers in order to help establish exactly what needed changing.

The main issues raised were:

• It might be a good idea to feature a slogan stating that the adverts were selling deodorants to ensure no confusion amongst the Total Film readers. I will aim to rectify this.
• The model in the 'Be Cool' advert is too small and should fill the space a bit more, so I will make her bigger in future edits.
• Some grading is required across the 4 ads which is something I will definitely add
• The packshot in the 'Cool' ad is too big in relation to the model so I will make it smaller
• The slogan in the 'Sport' ad is unclear- need to change colour

there were also some points raised by my teacher, such as the links made to a film in one of the ads-however after a brief explanation, these issues were resolved.

10. My planning evidence

Below are the different forms of planning that I employed in order to create an efficient ad effective campaign.

Rough Flatplans
These were important to create to not only help me decide what would work aesthetically but to also help me illustrate my ideas to others, whilst still remaining vague enough to let me make changes if necessary.

Risk Assessment

Important to remain safe whilst also enabling shooting to be as seamless and risk free as possible.

Cast/Costumes/Props List

 This is useful as it helps to communicate what you want from any actors as well as helping you keep on top of whats needed to shoot successfully.

Shoot Schedule

This is one of the most useful documents when insuring that you stay on top of timings.

Pack Shots

 It was necessary to create a pack shot relatively early on early on to help with branding as well as to help with envisioning the final product. 

The below image is just one example of what my actual product will look like (the sport edition), as I will have 4 slightly different deodorant bottles, one for each theme/advert.

This was also critical as it contains my wave logo, something equally important to my branding and aesthetic.