Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

It was important that I did research into what target audience I wanted to aim my magazine at because I needed to know what I needed to do to meet the needs of my specific target audience, by doing this I could also see what the conventions where to meet these needs.

Existing reader profilesI looked at reader profiles for existing pop magazines so that I could extract the relevant information that would help me to find out what target audience I should aim at.

• Mostly male readers

• 15-24 biggest age group

• 68% college graduates

• Average household income $212k

Studying these reader profiles allowed me to make one based on what I would expect my reader to be.

Reader ProfileI put images of existing pop magazines on my reader profile as a representation of the pop genre and show what the readers of my magazine would want.

I used the image of the iPhone and the twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and iTunes logos to show that my audience are mostly interested in digital products and social networking. This allows me to know that I need to incorporate these things into my magazine to meet the needs of my target audience.I chose to put the logos of MTV and the official chart because my target audience are very interested in the latest music and by using these I can make sure that my magazine is as up to date and therefore as appealing to my target audience as possible.

The pictures of big pop artists like Taylor Swift and Beyonce show that the audience of my magazine are interested in the big artists, by using big artists in my magazine I can meet the needs of my target audience.

I used pictures of these fragrances to show that my target audience is girls, and by doing this I am clearly stating that this is the target audience of my magazine to rule out any confusion.

These shops are shops that my audience are most familiar with, they also sell a lot of mainstream clothes that fits in well with my product because pop is very mainstream. By looking at the clothes from these shops and using them as inspiration I can make sure that the costumes in my magazine will be as appealing to my target audience as possible.

To research my audience and what they would want from my magazine I did an initial video and asked them questions about what they would expect to see from a magazine. It was from this video that I changed my mind as to my target audience, I was originally going to aim my magazine at an older audience, but in the end decided to go with a younger audience.

I put the following questions to a selection of people from my target audience to gain some audience feedback. I asked 5 people that where between 16-17 and both boys and girls to gain some feedback.

Questions:• What gender are you? • Would you say that my reader profile accurately portrays your

interests?• What types of technology do you use in relation to music?• Where do you most like to buy music?• Would you rather see designer or high street shops advertised?• What hobbies do you like to participate in?

From these audience feedback questions I learned that I had been accurate with my reader profile and had accurately portrayed the interests of my target audience. Most of the people I asked where girls, this is good as my target audience was teenage girls, so by asking them I was gaining useful feedback. The people asked said that they would prefer to see high street shops advertised because this is more within their price range and that is where they most commonly shop (shops such as River Island, New Look and Peacocks). In relation to technology the people of my target audience said they tend to use their iPhones to listen to music and use iTunes a lot to purchase their music, they said that they also use Spotify a lot. Most of the people I asked said that they don’t really have any hobbies aside from listening to music and shopping. From these answers I can make decisions as to what to advertise in my magazine.

DemographicsIt is common for magazines to look at demographics when deciding who to aim their magazine at. To choose my audience I had to decide which social class I was going to aim my magazine at. To understand demographics I looked at the demographics table.

I decided that my target audience would be in band C1. I chose this band as the people in this band have more money than in lower bands which would mean they could spend more on a magazine which would give freedom to pay for the bigger names to appear in my magazine. It could be argued that a bigger market is amongst band D&E however I think I could make my magazine very appealing to people in band C1. By looking at this table I could also decide how much to charge my audience, because I went for a more affluent band I can choose to charge more for my magazine.

Target age group

The age group I have decided to aim my magazine at is 16-19 year olds, this is because I think I have more insight into this age group. Also a lot of media is targeted at this age group, such as television channels like MTV and 4music, which meant that I could do a lot of research into what these where doing to aim at this audience. Initially I was going to aim my magazine at an older audience, however after thinking about it I realised that this would be difficult as there are not a lot of existing products aiming at this age group so market research would be hard to do.

How could I have made my target audience more obvious?

I think I made the target audience of my magazine quite obvious but there could have been a few things changed to make it more appealing. The colour scheme

of my magazine could be slightly confusing. Because my target audience is females, I should have used a more female associated colours such as pinks and purples rather than black and red which suggests the product is aimed at both

sexes. Also I tried to fill my magazine with as many artists as possible, however I think this could have come at a detriment because it could create confusion as

to the genre of my magazine. For example, Disclosure are electronic/dance music. Furthermore, I decided to price my magazine at £4.50, looking back I think this may have been slightly too expensive. Although I did research into other magazines prices and looked at a demographics table to decide which

social class I would aim my magazine at, further audience feedback has said that my magazine could be too expensive. Overall however I think I did a good job

and created a product that attracts the right audience and I think it is quite obvious what the target audience of my magazine is.