Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

During the previous evaluation question, I discussed what sort of people make up my target audience. In this evaluation question, the techniques used to attract my audience will be brought foward. However, as stated in question 2, other audiences need to be attracted besides the main audience due to topics such as news within my magazine, which may affect different social groups.

Images

The main way I tried to attract my audience was by

the images throughout the magazine of my artist, Rory Phelan. A female or homosexual audience would be interested in my magazine due to the fact that they may find my artist attractive. Also, a straight male audience may be interested in Rory because they may admire/idolise him. The clothes he is wearing are fairly neutral and normal, therefore relating to my target audience because he is not wearing anything over the top like many artists nowadays - such as Lady GaGa. They also belong to the 'Hollister' brand, a high street shop, which many people may have in common with him. Also his gaze enagages the audience as if he is looking directly at the reader, we could even say (in an extreme) that he is hypnotising my audience into reading the magazine.

The image used in the contents also relates to my audience in terms of costume and props. Rory is wearing a checked shirt and a pair of jeans - both from Topman, another high street clothes chain. This is an extremely popular brand which most of the audience can relate to (the sister brand being Topshop for women). Also the headphones he is wearing are from the 'Skullcandy' brand. These headphones are extremely popular among teenagers because of their unique looks and their impressive bass enhancing technology - with the bass of music being an important aspect of songs recently.

Cover Lines

'50 Albums of the Decade' should attract my audience to my magazine because they should have been alive for the 2000 - 2010 decade. Therefore they should be interested what albums made it into the top 50 because it is music that has defined most of their lives. Even if this decade does not relate to the audience (for example the 30+ people who may not particularly enjoy much new music) they may be interested just to see who came top.

The main cover line 'Rory Phelan Exclusive' should attract my audience. Exclusive means that only this magazine has an interview Rory Phelan, therefore the fans will purchase only my product if they want to read about him, which they will because of the type of artist he is. Also the story linked to the main cover line has content that will relate to my audience and will interest my audience - such as Rory's rise to fame and how he is coping with the media attention.

Colours

The colours used throughout my media product are black, white and blue. These colours are extremely neutral colours (despite the generalisation of blue for boys and pink for girls) therefore both genders will be attracted to my magazine. The colours also work with the cover image and the main images on the contents page and double page spread - giving it a greater aesthetic value.

This mix of imagery, content and colours all add up to a means of attracting my audience. It should work effectively due to many other magazines using the same techniques.