RESEARCH INTO TARGET AUDIENCE
For my pre production Media Studies Foundation Portfolio
Research Task, I carried out Target Audience research into my fashion magazine.
The purpose of my primary research was to establish my target market, to find
out- who they are, what their interests are and how to make my product
appealing to them. In this research I have focused on completing- an initial
questionnaire which is aimed at my desired target audience. This information
will help me to create a potential target audience profile and to develop
fashion magazine ideas. This will incorporates research data into a magazine
that is visually attractive to potential readers.
TARGET AUDIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
SURVEY ANALYSIS
Age
My
magazine will be aimed at readers aged 16-18. Due to 50% of the people who
filled out the questionnaire, fall into this category, this will make me focus
on half of the results due to the age categories having different interests in fashion magazines.
Gender
The
target audience for my fashion magazine will be predominantly female. As 80% of
the questionnaire participants are women, my results will mainly reflect the
wants and desires that my target market anticipates in a fashion magazine.
Purchase
My
results show that 80% of the people who answered the questionnaire do buy
fashion magazines. This shows the majority of people who I interviewed are
fashion conscious, making my results reliable as they are based
on fashion magazine buyers.
Interests
The
interests of the questionnaire participants seems to be mainly fashion
articles, beauty, celebrities and hairstyles. This is helpful information as
now I can develop my magazine front cover with more focus and detail on these
aspects, as that is what my target audience are looking for in a magazine
Appeal
The
participants ticked more then one box when it came to what appeals to them.
With reference to my questionnaire results, it seems 43% of readers like to see
pictures in fashion magazine. I will take this into account when developing the
magazine content.
Features
Fashion
magazines tend to give readers the chance win prized or to small include
freebie beauty products. I wanted to find out if this is attractive to the
target audience. My results show that 67% said yes and 33% said no. This
indicates that the majority participate in these competitions and would likely
be more drawn to fashion magazines with this to offer.
Purchase
I
inquired about how often the audience buys fashion magazines in order to decide
what kind of magazines issue I should create- daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
magazine. The results reveal that participants buy magazines monthly or yearly.
This maybe be due to Serbia not stocking magazines in their language but also
because big fashion magazines such as Vogue tend to produce magazines monthly.
Existing Fashion Magazines
Big
brand fashion magazines are very successful, yet all different in their own
way. Vogue is sophisticated, Seventeen is young and Glamour is stylish, all
these different styles attract different audiences. By knowing that 34% voted
for Vogue, I can focus on displaying my magazine in a similar way to Vogue‘s
magazine layout.
Cost
I
have collected my results from the questionnaire and it can be seen that 50% of
the target audience is willing to pay £3-£4 for a fashion magazine. This could
be because that is the cost of big brand fashion magazines such as- Vogue, Elle
and Marie Claire. I will put the price of my magazine in the region of £3-£4,
in order to attract the target audience.
Feature
Existing
magazines tend to give their target market the opportunity to write into the
magazine to express their views and opinions on current topics. I wanted to
find out if audiences find this appealing. 70% said yes which indicates that
readers want to hear what others (similar to them) have to say. This is a
feature I can work into my magazine in order to attract this target audience.
Layout
And
finally I questioned what kind of layouts appeal to my target audience, since
22% of people said they were interested in fashion articles in a previous
question. I gave Busy, Simple, Colourful and plain as options as I know some
readers don’t like distraction when they are trying read and others like to
look at images that are relevant to the article. 60% said that they are
attracted to colourful articles. This is an aspect that I will work into
my- front cover, content page and double page spread of my fashion magazine.
AUDIENCE PROFILE
This is AIMA , who is a typical member of
my target audience. She is ages 16 and is in year 10TH grade at high school.
At school she enjoys Art and Geography as
she likes painting with bright colours and
learning about world cultures. She considers herself fashion forward as she
likes to keep up with the latest celebrity fashion and loves to read about high
fashion cat walks and rising designers. AIMA has her own style that she likes
to combine with upcoming trends and would considers herself to have a sweet and
casual style.
AIMA receives pocket money from her parents ,which she likes to spend on beauty products, clothes, jewelry and fashion
magazines.
AIMA is a typical girl who enjoys movie
nights with her friends and quality time with her family.
She enjoys talking about celebrity red
carpets with her friends and trying out new beauty home remedies and
hairstyles.
Additionally AIMA’s favorite season is
summer- so likes to exercise and go on bike rides in order to get ready for the
summer fashion trends.
AIMA is confident but tends to let what
people think of her get in the way of ability to achieve her goals. She is
sociable and polite, but also enjoys participating in group debates and is not
afraid to voice her opinions about subjects she is passionate about or
something she disagrees with.
Even though she follows all the fashion
trends AIMA tends to ignore the ones she doesn’t like, never changing her
style to fit in with the latest media craze.
AIMA has various social media apps which
allow her to keep in contact with her friends (Facebook) and to explore images
(Instagram).
She favors photo based social media applications such as Pinterest
and Instagram
where she likes to follow bloggers and look up ‘traveling’ and fashion images.
AIMA favors classical teenage fashion
brands such as-
•Abercrombie
and Fitch
•MANGO
•Gilly
Hicks
•Victoria
Secret
•H&M
•Primark
•ALEXZENDAR MCQEEN
•MAC Make up
•BOBBY BROWN Make up
Her purchases consist of-
•Hair
products
•Makeup
•Jewelry
•Clothes
•Cinema
tickets
•Food
(Lunches Out)
•Fashion
Magazines
•Snacks
AIMA has some brand Loyalty to
businesses that she prefers. She enjoys- clothing brands, food brands and magazine brands but is not to fussed
about other products.
Here's some of the brands AIMA Prefers
and buys from regularly-
•Hollister
•Cadbury’s
•Truth
(jewelry)
•Vapianos
(restaurant)
•Nandos
(restaurant)
•Apple
(electronics)
•Juicy
Couture (perfume)
•Benefit
(make up)
Here are some media pages that (like AIMA) my target audience would use-
•Facebook
•Instagram
•Pinterest
•Snapchat
•Etsy
•Ebay
•Amazon
•Vine
•Youtube
•Skype