The target audience of a magazine differs based on factors such as age, gender, one's values, and more. Regardless, magazines market in ways that appeal to specific individuals and gathers their attention. My class analyzed the target audience, demographics, and psychographics in varying magazines under our genre. From there, we created an audience profile to represent the target audiences of our magazine.
BBC Good Food Magazine
Demographics:
Age: The cover of the BBC Good Food magazine predominantly attracts an audience of ages 30-40. Due to the complex dish in the cover image, one may assume that it targets adults; they may have more time on their hands. The main image also features a dish with more exotic ingredients than a typical recipe. Therefore, the cover appeals to more experienced home cooks. The magazine covers recipes for family gatherings and budgeting, and since adults ususally handle these areas, this magazine's target audience would entice the age range of 20-40.
Gender: Since the main color in this magazine is pink, it may attract a predominatly female audience; the pink background and occasional pink texts portray femininity and love.
Education: The magazine above doesn't target an audience with a specific level of education; it is simply sharing recipes that anyone can make and bring to events, no matter their educational background.
Social Class: This magazine targets middle-class individuals due to the recipes requiring more kitchen equipment—such as an air fryer and a slow cooker. Similarly, the gold masthead targets upper-middle-class people since it represents wealth and luxury.
Ethnicity: Since the recipes involve diverse recipes and ingredients with varying origins, the magazine targets all ethnicities. More specifically, the cover spotlights recipes such as trifle (from the U.K.), korma (from the Indian subcontinent), and nachos (of Mexican origin) which come from contrasting countries and cultures.
Profession: This magazine doesn't target a specific profession, yet it implies that the recipes are for those with full-time jobs and busy schedules. In particular, "quick-fix" and "no-cook" indicate that some of the magazine's recipes pertain to people with little downtime.
Psychographics:
Lifestyle: Lifestyle: This magazine targets people with busy lifestyles. Due to the advertising of time-saving meals, the magazine targets an audience with little time in their schedule.
Activities: The BBC Good Food magazine above focuses on those that enjoy cooking, baking, and getting together with family and friends, considering the genre of the magazine and the phrase "celebrate together."
Personality: This magazine targets outgoing individuals who enjoy being sociable and attending events since the recipes are for events and gatherings.
Values: "Let's celebrate together" signifies that this magazine is for those who value time with loved ones. This magazine further targets those who want to "cook smart" and be sustainable—such as by budgeting and reducing waste.
Woolworths TASTE Magazine
Demographics:
Age: The Woolworths Taste magazine targets an age group of 25-35 since it highlights extravagant, elegant recipes that most adults lean towards and require materials (such as an air fryer) that children may not have access to. The recipes are also intended for single individuals, hence the term "solo" and "uno." Since the main cover image spotlights a recipe that uses alcohol, adults would be more interested in these recipes.
Gender: This magazine doesn't target one specific gender since the color scheme, predominantly black and red, is gender-neutral.
Education: Whether the reader has education or not doesn't affect the target audience of this Woolworths Taste magazine. In other words, the amount of schooling one has attended doesn't influence their capability to execute this magazine's recipes.
Social Class: The targeted social class in this magazine is middle class since its recipes require appliances and higher quality ingredients that other recipes may not entail—including lamb and pork.
Ethnicity: The magazine above doesn't target a specific ethnicity.
Profession: This magazine targets all professions due to the diversity of the recipes. The cover page presents in-depth recipes for those with downtime and uses words such as "easy" and "fast" for busy individuals. Therefore, it targets all professions, to whom anyone can incorporate these recipes into their lifestyle.
Psychographics:
Lifestyle: This magazine targets those with a busy and calm lifestyle, considering the recipes accommodate their hours of availability. It further targets those where cooking is a major aspect of their lifestyle since it implies that one can "master the art of cooking per uno." As such, if one practices these recipes often and incorporates them into their lifestyle, one will become a more experienced cook.
Activities: This magazine mainly targets cooks and bakers, considering it is a magazine that fits under the Cooking, Food, and Beverage genre.
Personality: The magazine targets ambitious people, or those who want to get out of their comfort zone by trying 'impossible' desserts (such as the 'impossible citrus flan') and mastering cooking, which may not have been one of their strengths.
Values: The magazine values comfort, learning new skills, and achievement since it emphasizes 60 recipes to warm oneself during the winter, and one can master cooking through practice.
Creating My Own Audience Profile:
Using my research/findings from the target audiences, demographics, and psychographics from the magazines above, I learned about the components that create these targets. For example, I learned how color scheme plays a considerable role in attracting the attention of specific audiences; color gives meaning and can attract certain genders, social classes, and more (pink and goal can indicate femininity and wealth, respectively).
Demographics and psychographics are crucial factors in accurately marketing a magazine's intended audience. To correctly target the magazine's audience, they must consider age, social class, lifestyle, and more. It is necessary to mention that a magazine's target audience may vary depending on its genre, as each has a different intention.
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