Monday, 13 October 2014

Focus Groups

In this post I show my proposal to other people within a small group consisting of five people who hear myslef explain who my magazine is catered too, what genre my magzine is aimed towards and what content will be included within my magazine such as articles, bands, imagary and so on.

The group then will give me visual feedback on what I have explained to them and offewr me any constuctive criticism on what I have proposed and explained to them.


One of the first points I noticed about the focus groups feedback is that they all decided that the name “Crunch” was better than “Spike” and that spike sounded too aggressive and that “Crunch” sounded a lot more appropriate and related to the genre of rock as quoted by Ellis Hilton “Crunch sounds less aggressive which will appeal to more people as an example” as an example of my feedback I have received. I was considering calling the magazine "Spike" as it sounded more aggressive and youthful which io thought may have had more of an appeal towards my target audience.

 

I agree with Ellis and the rest of the focus group that “Spike” did sound too aggressive, which could have alienated demographics within my target audience.

 

The second point I noticed from my focus group is that there were mixed reviews about my choice of colour for my magazine such as Siena Matkin had commented “The colours go well with the magazine” as opposed to the comment made by Hannah Herraghty “Colour seems masculine which is good if your target audience is predominantly male”.

 

I personally think that I will need to use less choice of colour than I proposed to the focus group so that I do not clutter the magazine in too many colours which may distract my target audience from reading so I will keep to three conventional colours of black, white and yellow as opposed to black, yellow, white, green and red as the three colours are defiantly gender neutral and therefore will appeal to more of my target audience as it allows less people to feel alienated to read my target magazine.

 

The third point that I noticed was that the focus group did like the idea of the images that linked with the double page spread of the magazine such as Emily commented “Cover and DPS link – good as it informs the reader they are the featured interview” meaning that this shows that I am following convention of a magazine.

 

I agree with Emily in that I feel that the main image should be linked with the highlighted article with the magazine, as that is typical convention for magazines in general.

 

The fourth point I noticed was that I was to make sure that the style of the magazine appealed to the socio-economic group that I am advertising my magazine too such as Siena Matkin commented “Make sure that the style of the magazine would attract 16-20 year olds (target audience). Make sure it is not expensive”

 

I agree with Siena Matkin in that I should consider every aspect of my magazine to appeal to my target audience in order to maximize interest for reader of my target audience and this also includes the price of the magazine.

 

What my focus group may not have considered was who my band/artist may be and how would that artist/band link towards my magazine? Would I require props? Would I require a dress code to follow convention of my magazines genre?

 

I personally consider that I will require a dress code is required to show what genre is being displayed for my main image and double page spread of my magazine to attract my target audience however I find props optional as I have seen very few magazine covers with main images with props within them so I think I will not be using props for the main cover of the magazine however I will need to consider musical props for my double page spread as while its still optional to obtain one in an image for my double page spread, it adds variety of imagery for my magazine.

 

I can use the feedback from my focus group to ensure that my magazine will be a complete success as it shows me that I am on target for following conventions of both magazines and music magazine genres and that shows me that my magazine will be a success as fulfilling conventions which fulfill my target audiences expectations.

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