Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I discussed this briefly in Question 4.

Firstly, the majority of my target audience are gamers, namely those who have played Hotline Miami or anything similar and have gotten into this genre through such means, after that comes general listeners of the genre without having played the game and who have gotten into the genre through either recommendation, musical diversity, or through internet streaming sites . These are probably less common than the gamers but still prominent as gamers spend a lot of time on the internet and it's likely that people on the internet who don't play video games have friends who play video games, linking the two things.

These two sub-groups of my audience make up most of my Primary Audience.

My secondary audience consists mainly of people who were alive during that time and so these people need to be addressed by true retro 80s elements of the genre.


In summary my audience most likely consists of the following:

Primary:

1. Males
2. Gamers
3. Sci-Fi fans
4. Action movie fans
5. Electronica, EDM, Dubstep, New Wave, Synth, or Drum & Bass fans
6. fans of 80's music or memorabilia

Secondary:

1. Females
2. people alive during the 1980's

How does my magazine appeal to these people collectively?

Males:

The magazine is clearly male-oriented. The colour scheme, the hard edge of the magazine's elements like fonts and it's imagery as well as the genre and it's dominantly male prosumer base (Mitch Murder, Lazerhawk, Mega Drive, Jordan F, Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, M.O.O.N to name a few are all young/middle aged males). The mise en scene of the magazine including the model and the artists shown are male and there are no females in the magazine. This is partly due to the fact that I could not find a female model for it as I would've liked to to help appeal to my secondary female audience and to provide gender equality in the magazine to avoid controversy or backlash.

Gamers:

The magazine is mainly intended to appeal to gamers as the largest consumer base of this genre knows about it through video games like Grand Theft Auto V and Hotline Miami's soundtracks. Gamers are not gender specific but it is a well established fact that gamers (especially hardcore indie gamers) are predominantly male. I have not provided any particular documented research into this as I felt that it was not necessary due to personal online gaming experience over the course of my life being adequate to confirm this statement.

I have made the magazine appeal to gamers by advertising a Nintendo Entertainment System and Power Glove to be won on the front cover and by theming the magazine heavily on the Hotline Miami game with use of neon colours, an image in the contents page of my model holding a pistol and the palm trees on the cover.

Action Movie Fans:

Similar to the gamer appeal, the use of colours, terminator-style clothing on my front cover model and Lazerhawk model on the contents age, my model posed holding the pistol in 'taking cover' pose and the palm trees are all linked to the stereotypical 80s Action Movie.

Sci-Fi Fans:

Also similar to the above two, the main appeal of the magazine to this social group is the excessive use of Grids imitating vector graphics, which is strongly associated with this genre and with the 80s seen in this artwork:

Also the planetary body in the contents page is intended for Sci-Fi appeal, and the use of stars in both the front cover and the warped star field imitating the iconic hyper-drive of the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars

Seen much more clearly in this Work in Progress version of the Double Page Spread, the warped stars stretched outwards, space clouds, and galaxy seen on the top-right of the background are very similar to the visuals seen during Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when the Millennium Falcon goes into hyperspace.

Electronica, EDM, Dubstep, New Wave, Synth, or Drum & Bass fans:

This is a music magazine and amidst all of the themes associated with gaming, action movies and sci-fi it can be difficult to maintain the establishment that this is a a music magazine.

In order to appeal to fans of similar music genres, I have made all talk besides the games console up for grabs solely about music and artists. The front page is dominated by the best album reviews, "TOP 15 SONGS OF 2014", and the 'exclusive interview' with LAZERHAWK "The man behind the music". This helps to secure it as a music magazine to anyone who would see it and my surveymonkey research confirms this.

Fans of 80s Music or Memorabilia + People alive during the 1980's:

These two are closely linked and are addressed for the same reasons. The NES and the double page spread are intended to build the nostalgia factor of the era which is the magazine's source of appeal for these two social groups. 

The cluttered style, wacky new-wave themed shapes, unnecessary '80'S' written in neon quartz, and over the top use of bright colours appeal to the true nostalgic and anti-conventional style of 1980's Pop media. This should be identifiable to these two social groups the most.

Females:

While the magazine and genre are overall male themes as they make up the primary audience, I felt that it was important to keep the magazine somewhat gender neutral in a way that while it would still appeal to a male audience more, a female wouldn't feel out of place reading it for her gender alone. In order to do this, I adopted the sci-fi theme of star fields and computer graphic grids as these do not identify to a gender. I also avoided implementing any female sex-appeal imagery in the magazine as not to make it appear to be objectifying women, as this would push the magazine further into male exclusiveness and arguably make the magazine appear misogynistic.