Visiting The Clothes Show

The main fashion article is about The Clothes Show that was held at the NEC in Birmingham. I attended the exhibition with my friend, Hannah who studies the performing arts and saw this as an opportunity to gain knowledge and inspiration for her own ideas to pursue a career in this field.  I thought interviewing her on what she experienced and learned would be make the ideal story that would encourage teenagers to read our magazine and in return be influenced to actively research and experiment with fashion themselves.  

At the event I was able to photograph what was occurring around me that would be relevant in my magazine. This also gave me the idea to have the 3 equivalent high street outfits modelled as they were on the catwalk on the following right hand page. 

Time Out London Case Study

Out of the group of people who answered our audience research questionnaire nobody under 40 have read their regional magazine.  I would like to attract a younger audience but also keep the interest of our older consumers.  From the OCR email they advised us to do research into Time Out London magazine, which typically features popular culture articles.

Front cover analysis

Features:

•   Nightlife

•   Music, Arts and Culture

•   Food and Drink

•   Film

•   City Guide

These topics target the party lifestyle of youth culture in particular with offers and advertisements to exclusive events.  This is what I have planned to incorporate in the magazine with the right page of the double page. However these stories will not be prominent in our magazine so we don't alienate our older consumers. 


Distribution

·      Subscription packages- more affordable and creates a buying process that is easier for consumers as they don’t have to go out to stores every week to buy but the magazine can be delivered to their doorstep.  This is useful for younger audience in full-time education.

·      Print based and digital copies- more ways to access to suit the preference of the consumer

·      Blog- able to follow continuous updates on the go

·      Time Out has a circulation of 308,579 copies per week.

·      Time Out London is London’s most popular magazine with over 1m people per month reading a copy.                            

Advertising

·      Merchandising- the popularity of the magazine has turned into an iconic brand with t-shirts and posters available on an online store.

·      Circulation of adverts online- having connections to larger conglomerates such as Amazon may attract consumers to the magazine so they can gain insight into exclusive offers, which is ideal for students living on a budget.

·      Social media

·      Comments section- Emphasizes the idea of democracy where consumers can comment of the content of the magazines website.  Some of these comments may be critical and inform the company to change certain aspects to make it more accessible.

Content Ideas

I was confused about what stories I could include in our regional magazine and had to email OCR  for clarification.  The feedback I got from the email as regards of what to include was that the content must be recent and that the 'definition of a regional magazine is reasonably broad- in other words it doesn't just have to be geographical/regional  but could be young women in Birmingham- musicians in Liverpool- for instance.'

I think it's best to keep to my regional area of the West Midlands and Wolverhampton, where I am able to go and research possible articles.

Similarly to the layout in Wolverhampton Magazine, I want each double page of the magazine to be split with the main article on one page and on the other page, a full-page advertisement.  The reason behind this is because not only will our magazine document and praise the efforts of the public, but also will promote local businesses and charities.  Before designing the layout of the double page spread I think it’s most important to have the content of the articles sorted.

First double page spread idea 

Fashion and shopping were most demanded to feature in our magazine, according to the feedback I gained from our audience research questionnaire.  The content for the fashion article will be about The Clothes Show.  Including these particular events is an attempt to attract a younger demographic and make youths excited about their local area.  Also the marketing of this event is mostly through social media and their website which helps promotes the business and having an address at the bottom page encourages consumers to investigate into the story.

The Clothes Show will be the main article on the left side of the page and there will be stylised outfits on the right page.  I think this chronologically makes sense, so the reader will see a fashion vent where they can gain inspiration.

Second double page spread idea 

To find information about cooking and food events in the West Midlands I visited the local community centre and spoke to a couple of the workers and found leaflets about local events.

I found a small soup kitchen who operate on Saturday evenings. This is an ideal story to fill the demand of a cooking feature and encourage consumers to join because there are more upcoming events.  Also it has a website and social media accounts, so the consumers can interact and gain more information.  This story will be featured on the left page as the main article and on the right page will be an advertisement for the soup kitchen itself like the layout in Wolverhampton Magazine.  These articles will appeal to the new younger demographic we are trying to attract, as well as involve the main older consumers to be charitable. 

Audience Research Questionnaire

The audience research will give an insight into the consumer's interests.  I will incorporate their opinions into our regional magazine to make a "worth-buying" product. 

We distributed the questionnaire equally between males and females age.  However the demographic for the regional magazines tend to be more female- focused. With this, the consumers of my magazine were older adults ranging from the 30-60 category.  I will still plan to make my regional magazine have a gender-neutral identity to attract more male consumers.  There was a collective interest in shopping, exercising and cooking, so our regional magazine will definitely feature main articles on these topics. Also, a print-based magazine was the ideal format, despite the decline in print-based magazine as in general, this will be the best in attracting or older audience, as they are not as technologically aware and would probably find difficulty in accessing the magazine is an online format.   The lowest price option I had included in my magazine was £2.00 and was the most popular price people would pay to read my magazine. I expected this, considering the state of the economy and people to save.  Also I had one feedback suggesting the magazine to be free.

Production of a Magazine

Wolverhampton Magazine Case Study

Now that I have done research into the institutions, the distribution, advertising and audiences of regional magazine I wanted to analyse a my local regional magazine.   This will put into perspective the previous research I have done.

Front cover analysis 

Previous magazine covers:

Comparing previous magazine covers of Wolverhampton Magazine explores how a regional magazine attracts consumers by using variety of styles and how they manage to stand out from other larger conglomerate magazines.   

The first two Wolverhampton magazine covers are issues from 2014 with the latter two issues from 2015.  The 2014 issues showed a generalised perspective of Wolverhampton. The central image illustrate the theme of the issue; however, the heading of collaged pictures shows what else is featured in the magazine and contradicts the initial theme, for example; the winter image on the second cover with a wedding photo on a sunny day in the heading; this shows the articles do not follow a one theme per edition but contain a variety of topics.  However, each the pairs follow the brand identity of the magazine from that year with the same font and layout of images, puffs and captions.  The two 2015 covers share similar features of popular mainstream culture magazines, such as the central image of a glamourised local celebrity that focuses the topics of the articles inside the magazine. 

Contents Page Analysis 

Double Page Spread Analysis 

Advertising

Wolverhampton Magazine has the highest status of regional magazine in Wolverhampton and this is partly due to the fact their advertising strategies actually involve and reaches the public.
They attempt to promote their magazine through:

• Website- http://www.wolverhamptonmagazine.com/
• Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/wolverhamptonmagazine
• Twitter-https://twitter.com/WtonMagazineref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor 
• Newspaper- Wolverhampton Magazine also advertise in Britain's biggest selling evening newspaper, Express and Star. They include features of the monthly issues. The similarities of the two products being that they produce stories and subjects of interest about their community, will ideally attract the readers of the newspaper to then buy the magazine.  The magazine is a more luxurious read. 

• Wolverhampton Magazine do not advertise through billboards nor radio. I think this is due to the low budget of the magazine.  Also this magazine is considered to be a 'luxury' magazine and so probably do not to attract a mainstream audience.

Distribution

• Wolverhampton Magazine is delivered straight to homes to 12,500 Mosaic group  household  month.  9500 are regular letter boxes and 3000 are a selected rotation for 5 month periods. 
• They have over 100 subscribers
• 850 sold in retail outlets
• 14000 total print moth each month
• Available at premium outlets; golf clubs, health clubs, bars sporting venues, doctors', dental practices, accountants, solicitors and hotels
• Wolverhampton Magazine only sell print-based copies and do not include an online copy