(P1) Produce a Proposal for the Original Media Product to Meet the Client Brief

The purpose of this document is to create and group ideas for a new magazine that I will create with a certain theme. I will create a client brief and a target audience profile sheet to define my audience. I will then assess competitors in the franchise and discuss how what I create will follow the same conventions, but will have unique aspects.

Purpose -

The purpose of my magazine will be to entertain an audience. This means that I will need to use engaging and interesting text and facts. This also means that I would use text and speech within the magazine in a more friendly and comedic style, rather than formal. This means that the magazine would be more interesting to my specific target audience, which is a younger more modern audience that have a huge interest in cars and motorsport.

Making the purpose of my advertisement to entertain is also a positive for me as it means that I have a better chance of fitting my chosen target audience. One of the interests of my audience is definitely comedy, so I will aim to use a lot of comedy in my magazine. This will also reach a younger audience, which is good as it means that I can have a more modern audience for the magazine.

Secondary Purposes -

However, I will also include elements of informing and educating in my magazine as I write sections such as reviews and news updates for sports and new releases. This means that I can engage an audience in a different way, which benefits me and it becomes more interesting to them. This also means that I can add variety in my sections which helps keep the flow of the magazine and provides something different for the reader to both read and look at.

This also links more to the older consumers of my product, who would want to read the more informative sections of the magazine, as they may be planning to buy a vehicle of this description. In order to keep these readers, I will have some more serious sections with genuine vehicle reviews and facts about the cars. To keep up with modern trends and standards, I will also used celebrity endorsement in these sections, and take quotes from popular people who are associated with the theme of my magazine. For example, I would use quotes from people such as Jeremy Clarkson and Lewis Hamilton.

The market of this magazine theme is mostly to inform and to educate. Magazines such Autocar and Auto Express mostly use informative styles to get their content to an audience. These are more serious magazines than my magazine idea, so they do not have many sectors where their magazine entertains the audience.

Target Audience -

The target audience of my magazine will be predominantly males who are interested in cars and motorsports. The audience will be predominantly male as the market for magazines such as car magazines is mostly male, as through statistics, I can see that many more males are interested in cars than females are. Some statistics to support this are the viewer demographics of the Top Gear Magazine. The genders of viewers of this magazine are cut into a 80% male and 20% female split. This shows that many more males watch car related media compared to females.

Needs -

The need of my target audience would be a magazine which covers all the information of a car magazine, but also has elements of fun and comedy which keeps the magazine interesting to read. This means I will have to assess the humour of the target audience and use it within my magazine. To keep the content interesting, I will also try and shorten descriptions such as reviews so that the audience do not have too much to read, which would make them more likely to get bored of the content.

Jobs and Income -

The audience will also be made up of more affluent consumers, as the content will be aimed towards luxury, sports and super cars over the years. These cars are very expensive to an average person so my target audience would be people who earn more money than most.

However, This is not completely the case as you do not have to want to buy the cars to consume and enjoy the information from the magazine. This means that I could potentially broaden my viewership for my magazine by targeting individuals regardless of their income, which is both more effective and more ethical to do.

Interests -

The interest of my target audience will definitely be cars and motorsports. The magazine will not only involves fact files and reviews about cars but it will also update the consumer on popular motorsport news such as F1 and Le Mans.

Demographics and Psychometrics -

The psychometrics of my target audience will mostly be the aspirer, with some of the explorer's aspects within it. This is because the people who will read my magazine will aspire to have something that is very valuable, classy and expensive. This fits into the aspirer category as they will need to earn a lot of money in order to be able to afford the cars that they aspire.

The age demographics of my magazine would be anything from young adults (17+) until as old as 65. This is a broad age demographic as it covers everyone who could be interested in cars. The age of somebody does not matter much for my magazine, however, I will try to achieve a more modern car magazine. This means that some of the older age groups may not be as interested in this magazine. However, this is okay as my target audience does not specifically cover an older age demographic.

This is also different from the other popular car magazines being published in the UK. These are magazines such as Autocar and Auto Express. These magazines have modern features to them, however they still use the traditional conventions of car magazines. I will use some of these conventions such as reviews and fact files, however I will add in some new more modern content to compete against the most popular examples of these magazines.

Form and Genre -

Layout Conventions -

The conventions of layout will need to be considered within the production process of my magazine. These will be essential in the creation process, as if I used more notorious design conventions, I will be more likely to gain more of an audience, as they are familiar with modern magazines.

The first convention I will need to consider is using a masthead. My masthead will be my logo, which is the Title of my magazine, Cruise Control. This will be in the top of my magazine. The placement of the masthead at the top of the magazine is a very useful convention, as it means that the name of my magazine can be seen in the showcase areas for the magazines in the shops. This means that people can see my magazine in stores when it is on show, and they know that it is Cruise Control.

The margins of magazines are usually at least 10mm. In order to stick to the most common magazine layouts, I will be following this rule and will use at least 1cm of margin space on the edges of my magazine. This ensures that my magazine does not look out of place compared to the most popular magazines that will be in stores next to my magazine.

AUTO EXPRESS CONVENTIONS -

Review -

I will include a review of a car within my magazine. This will be aimed towards the people reading my magazine that would be interested in buying a car. The view will be light hearted and comedic however it will feature the serious information needed to provide a good review. This will be on honest evaluation of both my own opinions and other people's reviews of the car online.

Content -

The content of my magazine will follow the codes and conventions of popular magazines of the same topic. I will have a lot of information supported by images, and then some aspects will be more fun in order to keep a reader focused and make sure that they are enjoying the magazine. The content I use will be completely copyright free, as I will be using my own work within the magazine. This is assets such as graphics and images.

Images -

I will use images in my magazine to give the reader something to associate the text with. The official definition of magazines says that they should contain 'articles and illustrations'. This shows to me that i should be using images alongside my research and writing as it allows for a longer attention span from a reader. This is simply because images give the reader more to look at so their brain will naturally focus for longer. Using this idea I should also add in more colour, as that would be more interesting than a monochrome image.

Resources and Personnel -

My magazine will be created completely by myself. This means that I will not need the help of any external members of the production process. This also means that all of the assets that I use should be completely my own. E.g. I need to take all of the photos that I want to use in my magazine by myself. This means that I also will not need to depend and rely on anyone else during the creation process of the magazine. Working on this by myself also means that I can make the decisions that I think will be the best, and I can create a product that is completely directed at my target audience.

Equipment -

For my magazine, I will need a small amount of high-end equipment. I will need a computer, a camera and an SD card adapter to get the photos I take from my camera to my computer. I will need the computer to run any software that I need to create my magazine. Due to the software that I will be using, I will also need a fairly powerful computer to run this content with ease. The last component that I will need is a DSLR camera. This means that I can get quality images of vehicles to use in my magazine. This is a priority as the only photos I can use in my magazine are my own to avoid any copyright infringement.

Software -

For my magazine creation process, the software I use will need to be industry standard, high end software. TO fit within the industry conventions of software, I am going to be using Adobe software to produce my magazine design. I will use Adobe Lightroom to import and edit the photos I will be using in the magazine. I will be using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create, produce and export any designs that I need for my magazines. This is things such as logos and graphics. Finally, I will be using Adobe InDesign to create the magazine its self, and create the layout that I will use to produce my magazine.

Job Roles/Responsibilities -

I will be the only person within the production of my product. This means that I will need to take responsibility of all job roles in the sector, as I will need to create everything myself. This is a positive as I do not need to worry about anyone else in my production, and I have full creative control during this creation which will benefit me.

If this was a real magazine production, I would have a team of people with different jobs, such as directors, camera workers, set design and managers. These people would have different roles on set, and would control their own areas.

I would need individual people to employ these jobs with, so that I could make sure that progress was smooth.

Distribution and Marketing Methods -

Distribution -

My magazine will be produced for and sold in shops such as supermarkets and petrol stations. They would be distributed in these areas as people are more likely to impulse purchase something from a smaller store, for example when they are paying for fuel. For example, 64% of supermarket purchases and revenue is impulse purchases (Science Direct). This means that putting these magazines in supermarkets people are more likely to see the magazine, and if they take interest in it they would purchase it from an impulse decision.

I will also distribute my magazine around supermarkets all across the UK, as there is no specific part of the UK which is interested in my subject more than any other part. However, if I was to make a different subject in my magazine, for example off-road vehicles, I would distribute my magazine to more rural areas that have less roads.

Joint Venture -

If I was to produce my magazine as a joint venture, I would produce it with the new version of Top Gear on Amazon Prime, The Grand Tour. This means that the magazine would approach the perfect audience, as The Grand Tour has an audience of people who both love cars, and enjoy comedy driven media. This means that I would be more likely to gain sales from the representation of the Grand Tour image alone, but I would also have a huge advantage with the theme and subject of the magazine.

Customer Profile Sheet (Target Audience) -