Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

My audience is mainly teens to young adults aged 15- 25 but can stretch much further in to adults aged 40-60 and children aged 10-12. However children younger than 15  aren’t usually into the types of music in this magazine such as Slipknot or Bring Me The Horizon. The reason my magazine attracts teens is because they see a guy on the cover in his mid-20’s and aspire to be like him. The guy on my cover looks the part and is a ‘rock star’ and at some point in every person’s life they either want to be a footballer, a ballerina or a rock star.  Similarly with young adults might view the model as an aspirational figure.

Other reasons the image on my cover attracts the audience is because it captures both the male and female gaze. He would fit both the gazes as he is a good looking man so he would appeal to the females and he looks manly with all his tattoos and would appeal to men. This is a huge reason why my magazine appeals to the audience.

Another reason it attracts an audience is the colour palette I used. The red writing stands out enormously on my background on the cover and throughout my magazine. I kept the same colour palette throughout and made sure that I used the black and white which contrasted with each other and one other feature colour to stand out and highlights key words. This worked really well to entice my audience as it is eye catching and helps draw in readers. As well as the colours being eye catching they are also gender-neutral colours. This helps to keep the magazine open to either gender increasing the size of the audience. 

The artists featured in the magazine are worldwide artists which attracts readers from everywhere across the world instead of limiting my market to just the UK. This also gives them an idea of bands not from their country that they may not have heard of and may like to check out or go and see, if they are touring, or information about when they are touring and in which country.

I have also included contents about festivals. Festivals attract huge audiences, for example Download. So news about the festivals in my magazine would also attract readers. The people who go to festivals are predominantly young people, meaning that the magazine would draw in young readers who might become subscribers or common buyers

As well as this my double page spread talks about how a band has made it and how they became so successful. Also it talks about how they are still working all the time to become more successful. Other bands that aren’t yet very successful will want to read this article as it ultimately tells them step by step how they became successful and gives new bands hope and a guideline to becoming successful. This means that people in bands will be attracted to buy the magazine as there may be future articles about how people who came from nothing made something of themselves. As well as this the main content is about bands in the magazine so there is plenty for them to read.

Another thing in my double page spread that will attract a following is that the public might want to know what successful bands listen to them. On the bottom right of my double page spread there is a box which tells the reader the favorite songs that Black Steel listened to on tour. This attracts the audience as they can feel like they are able to listen to the same music as successful bands if they read the magazine.

My article also helped me to attract my audience by people knowing the band and wanting to read about them and find out more from the article. They can only tell from the front cover that the band is inside and featuring, but they can’t tell what the article is about until they look inside. This creates a sort of suspense and makes the magazine intriguing. The article also helps give people some sort of idea what it’s like to come from nothing within a few years.

My magazine also creates a sense of belonging to the audience by giving the younger readers something to aspire to. The older members of my audience usually look similar to the band member on the front cover, although he may have better tattoos etc, he still is similar to my audience. Another thing that engages my audience and creates a sense of belonging is the box on the double page spread telling the audience what music the band listen to. This gives the audience some music to try out and have a listen to or that they already listen to and can relate to. This engages my audience and draws more people in to buy the magazine as they can find out more about the band and the music they like.