Main Task - Research and Planning

To begin with my research, I decided that it would be useful to gain a wide range of background knowledge on what the music press actually was and how it was effective in magazine production and distribution to their target audience. Here are a few questions and answers on the music press which helped me understand my market:

 

 After the knowledge gained on the music press in today's media, I decided to do some in depth research on my case study; Kerrang! It was essential to know the target audience of my case study and to find out the specifics which Kerrang! magazine has to adhere to. Here is my Kerrang! Case study research:

 After this, I decided to research further by understanding my institution of my case study; Bauer Media. It was useful to know facts and statistics regarding my conglomerate institution to understand the significance it has on media worldwide. Here is my research on my institution: 

To add to this, I developed my knowledge by drafting a mock-exam response on my case study of Bauer Media to expand my knowledge on the statistics of the company. Here is my draft response:

What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?

‘Magazine chiefs urge industry change from burning platform to growth’. Marcus Rich, chief executive Marie Clare, owner of IPC Media.

The development of digital media platforms are vastly growing, especially within media institutions and for the target audiences. In particular, Bauer Media as an institution is efficiently widening their target audience through the use of one of their products ‘Kerrang!’

Bauer Media group is the institution of Kerrang! Magazine and many other magazines sold in the UK. Bauer Media is a conglomerate, multi-platform institution which reaches over 22 million UK adults each week through their products. 6 out of the top 10 magazines are owned by Bauer; Bauer Media is Europe’s largest media group alone. Bauer offers a lot for the media; 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. Their workforce is made up of approximately 11,000 employees in 11 countries; this shows that they are very successful and have a significantly high workforce for their industry. Bauer has overall revenue of 2.4 million euros (according to figures from 2013). Bauer says that their business is based on influential brands, and that their ‘strategy is to connect audiences with excellent content through broad, multi-touch point broad platforms.’ Bauer Media, overall, is clearly a successful industry regarding the media in the UK. Their first successful magazine was released in 1953- since then, Bauer has developed massively. This is through the help of synergy and advertising through their products, for instance this is shown exceptionally through one of their music magazines, ‘Kerrang!’

Kerrang! was published on June 6^th, 1981 by Bauer Media. It has gone on to be the world’s biggest selling music weekly magazine. The target audience of Kerrang! is generally 15-24 year olds. It is not gender specific; the gender split is generally 50/50 but the male gender wins the majority by 5%. Kerrang! was originally a magazine, but it is based on its TV and radio channels. Each year, Kerrang hosts a tour which is sponsored by Relentless that has different (and the latest) acts each year.  Kerrang! also hosts an awards ceremony for their acts each year. All of these help Kerrang! to promote their name and acts and helps to widen their target audience.  Kerrang! is clearly a successful product created by Bauer Media, and through the use of synergy through its variety of media platforms, both Kerrang! and Bauer Media gain and develop through their industries.

Kerrang! uses a range of cross-platform media. These include: print magazine, T.V, social media, radio and online; each one of these types of media are effective in advertising both Kerrang! And Bauer media and widening their overall target audience, but in slightly different ways. For example, print magazines limit the target audience simply to people who go to the shops and purchase magazines, whereas radio could be useful in advertising aimed at people who are often busy and could listen in the car. Social media, online and mobile would typically be aimed at the younger generation, who would generally be the main target audience for this as they are more familiar with technology, whereas the older generations would prefer print or radio. Through these types of media, it is clear that Kerrang! Is successful in targeting both its own audience and audience for Bauer media, significantly developing media technology and platforms for their brand and audience.

Afterwards, I decided to analyse a few Kerrang! front covers, contents pages and double page spreads to identify what techniques Kerrang! uses to connect to their target audience. Here are my annotations:

 I identified how the audience of Kerrang! could be prosumers by interacting with the magazine on the different platforms, such as online, print, radio, mobile and social media:

After I gained a lot of knowledge on what conventions are used on Kerrang!, I decided to further my knowledge through analysis of two typical Cosmopolitan magazines to explore possible other ways that I could advertise my music magazine.

Now that I have gained an excellent amount of background knowledge on the codes and conventions used for music magazines from both my case study and other research, I decided to make some ideas for the masthead of my own magazine. Here are my ideas:

After I'd chosen my masthead, I decided to detail 5 options for my main central image on the front cover for my music magazine, Here are my ideas:

After detailing my possible options for my main image for my music magazine front cover, I decided to create a mock-up plan including how I will arrange all the features on my front cover. I also did this for my contents page and double page spread. Here are my flat plans:

To develop my planning, I came up with a list of possible sell lines to make my magazine link with my target audience effectively. Here are my sell line ideas:

After this, I decided to carry out some market research on my target audience to find out what exactly would interest them in my magazine and to give me some more ideas on what to include. I will hand these questionnaires out to my vertical tutoring class, ideally giving me a range of results and data to use with finding out what techniques and content will interest and connect with my target audience most effectively. Here is my questionnaire: 

 

 

I handed out my questionnaire to my vertical tutoring group, with a range of age groups within my class. These age groups ranged from year 7's upto year11, sixth form and teachers. I also gave my questionnaire to one 'other' who was my parent. Handing them out this way gave me the opportunity to collect a range of accurate data for efficent market research for my music magazine. Here are just a few of my results:

 

 

 

 

From these results, I now know that the most popular music preference for my potential target audience is the Indie genre. I will create my mock-up music magazine in accordance to this genre to target my market the most effectively. The majority of people who carried out my questionnaire who prefered the indie genre were between the age groups of Year 10 to Sixth Form. From this, I concluded that this age group would now become the age range for my target audience. Since the gender was split equally, my target market will be gender neutral. Also from the results, I gained a lot of ideas from the people who carried out my quetionnaire as to what I could include in my magazine to make it more enticing for them.

 

 

 

After this variety of planning,l I finally made a mock-up front cover of my magazine with ideas based on my research. I designed this on PagePlus to help me develop my skills for my final music magazine front cover. Here is my mock up:

This next front cover is my alternate mock up front cover with a different name. I decided to change my title of 'CLASH' as I discovered it was (unknowingly) already a name of an existing magazine. However, I decided to change it to RAW as it is also an effective onomatopoeia which sounds equally as enticing and creates a statement on my front cover. I specifically chose the masthead title of 'RAW' to directly link with my target audience and to connect with them, as I would like my magazine to include musicians with raw music talent.  

Here is my new mock-up front cover with a new title:

I also liked this new title of 'RAW' as it obeys fittingly to the rule of thirds for my magazine front cover; thus making my magazine look a lot more professional and aligned. 

To practice and demonstrate my skills even more, I also designed a mock up contents page. Although it does not display and include all of the typical contents page codes and conventions, I designed this to give myself an idea of what would feature in my magazine and what would be included, also to give me an idea of how to describe my stories page by page. Here is my mock-up contents page:

Continuing with my planning, I decided to annotate some further double page spreads to ensure my knowledge on their conventions in preparation for my mock up. Here are my annotations: 

After this preparation, I designed a mock-up of the layout of my double page spread including all of the codes and conventions which I will plan to include in my final mock up. Here is my mock up, featuring conventions which I identified from my annotations: 

After planning my double page spread layout, I typed the article for my double page spread nd completed my mock up. Below is my typed article: 

Double page spread – Article (Lana Del Rey)

Our favourite feminine rebel vents to us about the motivation behind her freshly released album, her emotions and past…

We probably thought we knew all there was to know about our National Anthem in her Blue Jeans, but all is proved wrong as Lana’s new album ULTRAVIOLENCE is released – with a bang! Ultraviolence is beginning to be Ultra-Successful. We caught up with the lady herself to find out all about her and the new album that all the critics are talking about.  

Today we see Lana’s true personality unveiled through just a glimpse of her new album on which she appears even more phenomenal and masterful than before (who would have thought!). A range of new and interesting themes are poured out to us through Lana’s new track list - sung through the mysteriously dark tones which we recognise from Born To Die; we discover an even more powerful tone to Lana through her stronger lyricism though. In the title song, she sings from the midst of an abusive relationship, ‘I can hear sirens, sirens. He hit me and it felt like a kiss. I can hear violins, violins. Give me all of that ultraviolence.’

As we caught up with the exceptionally beautiful Lana, dressed in a simple grey hoodie, skinny dark-blue jeans and a crisp white T-shirt, we asked about the meanings behind ULTRAVIOLENCE and the depth of emotion in every track. ‘I feel like everything I wanted to say, I’ve said already,’ she explains. She goes on to communicate the truth of her story… born Elizabeth Grant in New York City 26 years ago, she was raised upstate, until age 14 when she was shipped to Kent School – a strict boarding house in Connecticut -  by her parents. Rumour has it that she was kicked out as a result of her rebellious, bad behaviour, which prompted her move back to NYC at 18. She then enrolled in Fordham University to study Metaphysics, whilst playing in clubs and bars. ‘It was just me, my guitar and a microphone,’ Lana admits.  ‘It was like that for a long while, until I was offered a recording contract two years later, which made me move to New Jersey to live in a trailer park!’ 

It seems that Lana has always had that secretive persona, Lana Del Rey, whom she has hidden behind ever since the release of her new album. Lana explains: ‘I've never understood this controversy about whether ‘Lana Del Rey’ is real or fake. All artists have a persona. She's not put together by some company. These are her songs, her melodies, her singing - she's always had this Sixties aesthetic.’  Although Lana claims it is the persona of her alter ego, she goes on to reveal perhaps the main reason beneath her darkest lyrics and past…

 ‘It was nine years ago...’ Between the ages of 13 and 18, Lana began drinking; heavily. Perhaps Lana Del Rey is an escape from Lizzie herself… ‘That's really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14 - to get sober. I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. I thought the whole concept was so f***ing cool.  A great deal of what I wrote on ULTRAVIOLENCE is about these wilderness years. A lot of the time when I write about the person that I love, I feel like I'm writing about New York. And when I write about the thing that I've lost, I feel like I'm writing about alcohol because that was the first love of my life. Sure, there have been people, but it's really alcohol.’

Talking about how she got over her extreme alcohol addiction, Lana admits, ‘I was worried. I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else. I was like, I'm f***ed. I am totally f***ed. Like, at first it's fine and you think you have a dark side - it's exciting - and then you realise the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it.’

Lana claims that being a music idol as big as Lana Del Rey may have been her ‘cure’ for her drug problem. Writing her deep and dark song lyrics may be Lizzie venting through Lana… but who is for sure?  Of course there are more secrets which Lana is hiding from us, but we are soon to find out even more as Lana reveals her hopes for a third-album which she is already thinking of releasing next year. 

Keep your eyes and ears peeled, Lana Lovers!

After drafting my article for my double page spread, I transferred it into my mock-up double page spread and improved all the finishing touches to my double-page. Here is my completed mock up: 

Now that I have completed all three drafts of my components for my main task and I feel that I'm secure with my knowledge of music magazine codes and conventions, I am now ready to move on to organising and planning my main task final pieces.