Research

Genre Mood boards

The first piece of research I did was make 4 mood boards, each for a different genre. This was very helpful to me because it not only contributed to deciding which genre to pick, but also because it helped me to understand the audience of each one and what they are like. The 4 genres I picked were hip-hop, indie, electronic and pop because they are 4 very diverse groups in terms of type of music and the fans they attract.

Hip-hip

The first genre I decided to make a mood board of was hip-hop. I chose this because I believed it had a very strong audience around it and a distinctive style of clothing. This mood board proved my theories correct when I found out just how strongly some fans feel about the genre. For example, one woman had an artists name tattooed on of forehead. The primary target audience for this genre is mainly men aged 20-35, which is quite a wide range. I also found out that Vibe, XXL and The Source are hip-hops key magazines, which will help me in the magazine timeline task.

Indie

Next, I chose to do a mood board on indie music. The main reason chose this genre was because I am planning on doing a magazine catering to this genre as I had not seen many magazines for this before. From this research I found out that I was sort of right. Many magazines often show indie artists on their covers, but only as a one off and the genre of the magazine is often not indie. The only indie magazines I found were Acoustic, The Fly, Under the Radar and Spin. I also found out that indie fans have less strong feelings when it comes to this music genre than hip-hop's, however they are still passionate about it. The main target audience for this genre is men or women aged 16-30 (similar to hip-hop). I found that many people (like hip-hop fans) had tattoos of the lyrics from some songs because they feel so passionate. After this research, my ideas still haven't changed toward doing an indie magazine.

Electronic

After that, I chose to do a contrasting mood board on electronic music. The main magazines for electronic music are Dj, mixmag and URB. I found out that they do not have such a devoted audience because there are so many sub-genres in this genre. For example dubstep, techno and house music. However, for these sub-genres, there is a lot clothing and merchandise available for the audience to buy. The target audience is the same as hip-hip. Overall, I found out there is less of a over powering audience for this genre because it is so diverse.

Pop

The last mood board I made was for the pop genre. The main magazines for this genre are Top of the Pops, Billboard and We Heart Pop. This has the most clear fan base of any because all of it is so similar so if someone likes one artist, they are likely to like any other pop artists too. From the covers of these magazines, I saw clearly that the primary audience is 12-16 year old girls. The secondary audience is women in their earlier 20s. I found out that very few males like this genre, which I didn't find surprising because of how many boy-band type artists are in this genre. The fans of pop are the strongest all of the research I did because of the age group and how easily influenced they are.

Podcast

This is the podcast I made summarising my genre mood boards and comparing them.

Link to podcast on website

This is the script for my podcast and making this was an important step towards the final podcast:

Click Here to view my Script

Magazine Timeline
My second research task involved making a Prezi to present different magazines through time. It was hard to understand Prezi at first but once I got the hang of it I really enjoyed it. This task brought me closer to overcoming my hatred of new things and different technology. Also, it clearly showed me how much more interesting my work is when I do something a little differently to how I would normally.

This Prezi task has helped me to decide on a genre for my music magazine. I have chosen indie and I am hoping to aim it at older teens depending on what my market research suggests.


Link to Prezi page

Analysing different parts of music magazines

The first analysis I did was of the front covers, contents pages and a comparison of the two magazines I wrote about. I analysed two different magazines because it gives me a wider range and view on different parts of the industry and construction. It showed me the difference in conventions and why this is. 

Click Here to view my Essay

Summary of my findings

I used GoAnimate to make an animation about what I found out about music magazines from my textual analysis.
Summary of my Textual Analysis by naomikendall2907 on GoAnimate

Survey Monkey

The next research task I carried out was making a questionnaire on survey monkey. This is what the survey will look like to the people taking it:

I after I made the survey, I posted about it on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr asking people to fill it out. This was so that people knew about it and it would get responses.

Facebook

Twitter 

Tumblr

Reflection of survey monkey results

Since I posted my survey on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr on Monday I have received a tone of responses, 65! I was very surprised, and also please, which this response because it will help me to analyse the results and relate them to my target audience more easily. The results will influence how I make my music magazine, however will not change all of my initial ideas.

I am not going to analyse the first question of my survey because I don't feel it will influence my magazine in the end because I plan to aim my magazine at both males and females.

Q2) What is your age?

In this question, the majority of people taking the survey were 16-21 years old (53/65 were). This shows the majorty of other answers asked will be relevant for this age group and therefore they are my target market. One problem with this question is that it may be biased because people on my Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are 16-21 years old.

Q3) What genres of music do you listen to?

Most people in this question answered pop as one of the genres of music that they listen to. However, because other music magazine industries have already picked up on this, the market for this genre (and the next favourite genre of rock) is saturated. After pop and rock, the next most listenied to genre is indie, 44.62%. From my previous research I have concluded that there are only 2 music magazines dedicated to this genre, and even they have some articles which are unrelated to this genre, which are Under the Radar and The Fly. As well as that, from my previous research I was unsure whether people wanted a indie magazine and this survey has shown me that there is a need for one. Therefore, this question has convinced me more than ever to do indie as the genre for my music magazine.

Q4) How often do you read music magazines (roughly)?

I was surprised when I found out that 36.92% of people I asked didn't ever read music magazines. However, of those that did regularly, most people read them monthly. Therefore, my music magazine will published monthly. 

Q5) How much would you be willing to pay for a music magazine?

This question showed a lot of diversity in what people were willing to pay and therefore how much music magazines mean to them. The most popular price was £2, at 21.88%. However, there was one person difference between the £2 category and the £1.50. Because of this, I will price my magazine at £1.99 because not only are most people willing to pay that, but also because it is a selling technique - the .99 makes people believe it is cheaper. This will help my magazine be more of a success.

Q6) How much does the front cover of a magazine influence you to buy it?

This question was a little different to the rest in that it was completely down to personal opinion and judgement. However, it was a question I could tell would really help me in making different decisions in the construction of my front cover and double page spreads. Most people answered that the front cover "helps to make the choice" and also "heavily influenced by it but not the only thing to buy it for". This was not a surprising outcome to me because I thought the same answers and I'm also in the key demographic for my magazine. This will mean that I need to spend the majority of my construction time on the front cover, however the magazine will not be a success if the article has had no time spent on it. Therefore, I will need to time manage this part of my coursework strictly.

Q7) What content do you look for in music magazines?

I was looking forward to the answers from this question because it will tell me what to make my double page spread article about. And the results from this question show that I should make my article an interview with an artist/band. This is what 73.02% of people thought. As well as that, I should include some parts of it to do with an album because 66.67% of people I asked also liked this idea.

Q8) If you have ever bought a music magazine in the past, which of the following did you buy?

This question is a difficult one for me to analyse because there are two ways of looking at it. One is that the most popular magazine (NME) shows the sort of magazine style and genre that people like, which would influence me to do a magazine like this. The other way of looking at is is that this magazine market is already saturated and I should not do a magazine of this style. I will use a mixture of both ways - taking the good parts of NME magazine and putting them into my new magazine that is different to NME.

Extra Research

After I carried out the first piece of research I noticed that most people in my last survey did not purchase music magazines and I was left wondering why. So, I decided to do another survey, with questions based around why people in my target audience do not buy music magazines.

Q1) Why do you never buy music magazines?

This question showed that 62.5% of my target audience don't buy music magazines because they are "Too Expensive". To attract my target audience to buy my music magazine, I will market it at a slightly lower price than the leading magazines, e.g. NME, and the price it will be is £1.99. I came to this decision from my last question on price as well as this one. Another 25% said they didn't buy them because they are "Boring" and therefore I will make sure my magazine's article is completely to my audience's tastes to attract them and make them want to repurchase it.

Q2) Which, out of the following, would make you more likely to buy a music magazine?

The majority of my target audience said that free gifts would make them more likely to buy the magazine. Because of this outcome, I have made another survey of one question asking my target audience what they would like as a free gift for my magazine to include. One person chose the option "other" and gave the answer of a name of a specific artist. From this I can conclude that they would want a very specific genre or person.

Q3) If one  of the options above was changed, do you realistically think it would change your mind about buying music magazines?

The overall outcome from this question was that most people said yes they would change their mind. However, it was a joint answer between just yes and "Yes, but still only buy the magazine rarely." This shows that I should definitely change one of my options as it would increase the amount of people buying the magazine by 75%.

Q4) (Extra Question) Which free gift would you like in a music magazine?

This question showed that most people would want concert tickets if they were to have a magazine with a free gift in it. Obviously, this option would be expensive however I could counteract this with having only "a chance" to win concert tickets because that would mean not everyone who buys the magazine get one, but will increase the amount of sales by a lot.