Magazine Research

Other magazines that seem to be appropriate for a college student audience consist of such magazines as 'Campus Cosmopolitan' and 'OK!' for the female aspect and magazines similar to and 'Sport' for the male audience.

'Campus Cosmopolitan' and 'OK!' appeal to the stereotypical female interests such as fashion, beauty and celebrity gossip whereas the magazines considered 'Lad's mags' focus more on the sexualisation of women and the common ground of sport which the male gender are more interested and attracted to than fashion and beauty. Our magazine should include some of these topics however the topics and images must be appropriate for the target age. Most magazines aimed at teen audiences focus mainly around the idea of gossip, whether it be celebrity or just general gossip it is a real attraction to the teen market. It is because of this that makes magazines like 'OK!' so successful. Teenagers see it as a right that they should be 'caught up' on the latest gossip as they see it as socially unacceptable to be out of touch with the latest celebrity news and gossip in our society. The reason that this makes magazines so successful is because of the ideology that teenagers have of celebrities, by wearing similar clothes and following similar trends, a young person feels more confident and stylish because it is what the 'big names' do or wear. A secondary topic that teenagers are involved with is the music scene, they are always up to date with the latest top 10 and the newest album releases. Magazines like 'Vibe' cater to this need and focus solely around new music releases and have up to date interviews with new and famous artists such as 'Eminem' as shown below.

Ideas that we could take from these magazines to use in our own could include using attractive/alluring models to appear as the main picture boost and using bold mastheads and callouts on emotive appealing words on topics which the target audience can relate to such as celebrity gossip as seen on the cover of 'OK!' magazine above. On top of this, the picture boost would have to be of a person aged 16-18 as this will cause the audience to be able to more easily relate to the people and topics included in the magazine. Another thing that causes these magazines to be chosen over others is how sometimes the picture boost overlaps the main banner, this makes the picture loom out of the magazine and causes it to be even more eye catching, this is also enhanced by the use of bold colours which are carefully selected to compliment each other and are really appropriate for the teenage target audience. This considered, using the right choice of colour for the banner is important, as if a contrasting colour is used for the picture boost then it will cause the magazine to look less high quality.
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/campus/cheap-fashion/cosmo-on-campus-exclusive-offe
http://www.ok.co.uk/home/
http://www.vibe.com/
http://www.sport-magazine.co.uk/