Defining An AudienceTask 2

Abby Downing

Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan Target Audience

The target audience for Cosmo is Women aged 18-35 that are in are middle class. Women who read this magazine are usually very spirited smart women interested in the topics in the magazine including: Relationships, men, health, beauty and fashion. It is also for women seeking advice which the magazine gives a lot of. The magazine itself is produces in 35 different languages and distributed to 100 countries. The magazine has an estimate of over 1.6m readers. The topics included in the magazine are female orientated which helps them gain their audience, including things like beauty and fashion. The advertisements are beauty products such as perfume or make up which also indicates that it is a female magazine. A big percentage of women that read this magazine are single, this is because the magazine is a lot to do with sex and advice, this attracts a single audience as they like to read about it and learn how to improve looks wise and physically. Also a large percentage go to university which is at an age that a lot of people are experimenting and trying new things.

The image on the front is always a long shot of a well known famous female; which covers the entire front cover-with no additional images. This is very essential for the target audience that the female is well known; it attracts the audience because they are very likely to know who she is and be interested in what the magazine has to tell about the person. The women is usually presented in a sexual way to look attractive to the audience. The image relates to the writing presented to the right of her that says Megan Fox naughty or nicer? You decide

Images

The images inside the magazine are usually medium sized and relate to the writing also. For example this page has an image of Robert Patterson in the section about Himself. The images always stand out as theyre on a plain white background and are surrounded by bright colours either on the font on in the boxes. The bottom right image also relates to the text which is next to that in topic of sex which attracts the young female target audience from 18+.

Words
The important words are always in bold to catch the audiences attention and are sometimes in girly colours such as red and pink which connote love. All of the words on the page stand out a lot and usually appeal to the target audience- such as Love Your Body girls are always wanting to improve their looks so this attracts this audience. They also have cosmostories which are real life stories they add into the magazine and usually cosmopolitan puts the headline onto the front cover to make the audience want to read the magazine.

In this magazine they talk a lot about sex or reference it. This relates a lot to the target audience because on the readership image it stated that more single women read the magazine, this is due to them being more interested in having sexual encounters but wanting to read and learn about it. Also from the image I have taken out that a lot of people from university have read the magazine, these people are usually really well educated and like to read magazines that have an edge. The people of the age range that go to Uni are really interesting at experimenting and like reading a lot about sex, this also relates back to the target audience again because the magazine offers a lot of subjects theyre interested in.

Colours
The colours of the text are always bright girl colours such as reds, yellows, pinks, oranges- all warm colours. This attracts the audience a lot because the magazine is clearly aimed at females when associating the colours. Megan fox on the front looks all beige with her lips at a nude colour and her dress also, this is to make her big brown beautiful hair stand out from the rest and creates an idol look for young females. Cosmopolitan is easily recognised for its bright bold pink headline that is seen around the world and always had this theme to it. Throughout the magazine the same pink is on text and also in text boxes.

The colours on the page are usually the same and are either black with bold or The bright pink with bold. The images on this page are associated with the top beauty and are showing of products the audience are likely to consider buying. The products are shown in highly bright colours which stand out so the audience immediately looks at them. The colours are there to attract the audiences eye, because cosmopolitan use a white background it is very good to only use little colour on important things because this usually attracts the audiences eye when they look at the page first.

Fonts
The font in every cosmopolitan headline/logo is Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed with the spacing reduced between each letter. This is a very big bold font to attract the audiences eye. Cosmo changes its font throughout the front cover and the whole magazine depending on what the words actually say. For example love yourself is in a very girly font which is curly, this is because love yourself is something all girls want to achieve and do, this is in a different font to stand out towards women and make them immediately look at them two words when they see the magazine.

Inside the magazine they also use various different fonts to meet the audiences needs. For example it says Bold Moves so this is presented in bold and a very simple printed font which is enlarged. This is to make sure it stands out from all the other fonts because it is what Cosmo wants to audience to see first. The other fonts on this page are also very simple but with different spacing as theyre about different things and placed at different points around the page.

Layout
The layout of this image is just to place all the text around the main image of Megan Fox in the middle. The main image is in front of the logo blocking the opol this doesnt really effect the magazine because the magazine is very popular and has a set house style-most people know what it says anyway- especially the target audience. This shows that the front cover is kind of crazy and wild which also relates to the target audience of the middle class. It also suggests that its not a formal magazine. All the texts are of different sizes dotted around the page to make this look unorganised as well, which is how its supposed to look. They have also positioned the colours in the layout really well and have put a lot of thought into it. As you can see they have a colour scheme of black, white, pink and red on the front. So you immediately go from looking at the big bold pink Sex survey to the white writing to the white writing in the pink circle. Then you read all the black writing across the page, this is really clever because it makes a person who looks at the front cover be attracted to read all the writing across the page, which is most likely able to persuade the audience to read the magazine.

The theme of it being messy runs throughout the magazine itself -with the images being dotted around the page at different angles and on top of text and also under the text. The text boxes are also messy and dotted over and around the text as well. This really attracts a reader of age 18-35 because it makes it look really creative at first glance and girly so it attracts the reader to actually read the page. Having loads of make up around the page is very attractive to the target audience because at this age and with the interests of men and being attractive women are very likely to wear quite a bit of make up and like different brands. So it is essential for this type of magazine to promote them.

Captions
Next to the main image of Megan Fox it says Megan Fox naughty or nice? You decide for the subtitles which could be like captions, they just describe what youre going to find in the magazine- this really attracts the audience to read more because it has a rhetorical question which makes them want to seek out what it says about Megan Fox being bad. This also applies to the target audience because people at this age are really likely to be inspired by Megan Fox because she is a well known famous actor, so having that caption will really encourage them to read the magazine.

Inside the magazine itself is where you will see the captions for the images. On the left hand side of the page is where the main image is that is in link with the text about fashion and beauty, next to the image is a caption presented in a lower case small font explaining the meaning for the image. The same applies to the image on the right.

Anchorage
The anchorage on the front cover of Cosmopolitan I think is the Naughty or nice? Because when you look at the main image of Megan Fox you see that is she is looking quite mysterious of which she is telling you nothing about her. And when you see the naughty or nice it then tells you that no one in fact knows and the story is inside to tell you. The Anchoring also on this page is the pink, it instantly tells us that the magazine is cosmopolitan because of the colour scheme.

I dont think there is any specific anchorage in the magazine. But on this page it says Instantly irresistible Which automatically makes you think that it is about the products surrounding that statement which attracts the audience to them even more after seeing the bright colours. The text will make the audience immediately read the descriptions about the product straight away to see what makes them irresistible

Codes and conventions Colour Scheme

The colour Scheme is warm colours on this front cover mainly reds and pinks. The colours stand out most from everything else because they are the brightest. The other colours apart from these are nude, black and white, which do not stand out. The colours connote what the magazine is about. Pink connotes love, relationships, warmth and sexuality which is involved in the magazine and red connotes Love, sex, physical courage, excitement and also warmth which is again topics included in Cosmopolitan.

The colour Scheme carries on throughout the magazine because these are colours girls usually like most and stand out to them. The colours around this page are all warm colours of products which have the same idea of attracting the audience to buy them by putting the colours the audience like most on the product.

Codes and ConventionsPhotography

The photography on this front cover is a long shot that is high quality, high brightness and also high contrast. The image is produced to a very good standard to make women look good. This is relating to the target audience because Megan Fox is looking directly at you the reader feels equality and its almost suggesting that you could be as pretty as her which is what the magazine is about beauty and keeping your body good. This magazine is about boosting women's confidence and advice on beauty and health so the image quality is supposed to look really good for the audience to want to take on the advice. The Photograph is very professional which is what the target audience will be looking for and will want in a magazine because it tells us that the rest of the magazine will be professional and high quality.

The same high quality photography carries on throughout the magazine having long shots of beautiful girls that have a high brightness and contrast. The photographs are also very bright and colourful which goes with the colour scheme. By using a model like this it relates to the target audience because theyre really interested in what other women wear and how they wear it.

Codes and Conventions Writing style and language

The writing throughout isnt very formal but sometimes speaks directly to the audience. For example they use phrases like you can have. On the front cover the writing is telling you Whats in the magazine but not revealing everything. For example it says you voted him the hottest but in Hollywood and covers the mans face, this makes the audience want to read more to find out who it is. It says you throughout the magazine suggesting that the audience is represented as one person that as all the same likes and dislikes.

The amount of writing on each page varies. On some pages there are a lot of different stories and parts of writing in different coloured boxes in different fonts. But in others it could be a double page spread with one full image and a page full of writing on the other side. This also relates to the target audience, as a lot of people read the magazine from university, the well educated people like reading long stories in there spare time.

Codes and Conventions Picture and text ratio

On the front cover the image is much larger and stands out more then the text. It is essential for a front cover to be mainly image over text for an audience to buy it. Although there is a lot of text on the front cover it is all broken up into different parts of the magazine and the words are in bold. This lets the audience read the bits they would like to.

On some pages it is mainly over Image, this could be due to the image being more important then the text itself. For example the image on the right is to do with the clothes the women is wearing, so the page is more about showing of the clothes rather then what it has to say. The bits of texts are captions about the clothes. It is very important to consider Picture and text ratio because it only takes 7 seconds for someone to decide whether they want to read a page or not. So cosmopolitan always has big bold images with high quality and pages with lots of colour and not a lot of text. This attracts the young aged target audience really well because people dont like reading a lot of things depending on the subject.

Codes and Conventions- modes of address

The magazine, as you can see from the front cover, talks directly to you. you decide you on top. This is a really good technique in which to hold the target audience to the magazine, because of this age range the reader wants to feel as if its part of the magazine, for instance if the magazine is talking directly to them about advice, for example loosing weight, then theyre more likely to try it out. It is also a good convention of Cosmopolitan because it immediately stands out when the target audience sees it in a shop You so theyre very likely to pick the magazine up to see what it says on the front cover, this is also why front covers are very important.

Throughout the magazine the writer is still going for a direct approach towards the audience. This is essential for this type of audience because this it the type of magazine theyre looking for, so it becomes an important convention. Otherwise the audience are not likely to buy it.

Audience Reception
An audience will not always like your product so it is crucial to get audience feedback, this will help maintain an audience, make an audience bigger or help improve the product. It is also important to create a test product first to see what the target audience thinks about the magazine.

o Focus Groups o Audience panels o Trailing o Complaints

There are different ways in receiving audience feedback:

Focus groups
This is a group of people coming together to talk about the product- it is usually for talking about the design. For example asking questions about the logo or a new house style.

Audience panels
This is a group of people that regularly get contacted over a certain amount of months/years and get asked questions about the product/magazine and whether they still like it or not.

Trailing
Trailing is where you create a trial product for a selection of the audience to receive feedback. This is important because it allows you to make a few changes to the magazine to make it better for the target audience.

Complaints
Complaints are also good in a way because it again allows you to be able to make changes to suit the target audience. It allows you to know whether a change to your magazine is liked or disliked. Social media allows many ways to get in contact with a magazine company.

MensHealth
The target audience for this magazine is Men from the ages 18+. You can see this straight away from the title Menshealth so it is obviously a magazine about Men wanting to gain muscle and be healthy. Menshealth is the largest Mens magazine in the whole worlds. With readership views of 12,359,000 people worldwide. Having muscular men on the front can actually attract men, because they want to read about how they achieved a body like theirs. The percentage of people who have a full time job is higher then the percentage of people going to college, this fits in with the target audience of 18+ and is most likely because at the age where they have a job, they are earning money, and money means that theyre able to afford going to the gym a lot, which fits into the magazine topics of fitness, this magazine inspires men to get fit and gain muscle. The percentage of people who have their own home is also high, this could be due to them wanting to read the magazine because they have purchased fitness equipment in their homes.

MensHealth Demographics

Images
The image on the front cover is usually a long shot of a Man who is very fit and healthy with big muscles. The images can occasionally be females or men and females on the front, but again the women is always fit and healthy as well. The images are always very good quality with high contrast. These images attract males because of there very good physique. The man is usually very posed in a way all his muscles are on show. The image relates to the words around Look better then ever build bigger arms