Distribution Research - HGTV

For HGTV magazine, its website initially features a couple main articles with bright, colorful photos. The overall theme of these articles is about home decorating and home improvements. This means that the majority of their consumers are homeowners or people who would enjoy using modern gadgets and techniques to improve the decor of their home. As you scroll down the page, there are also some articles mainly based on gardening and plants. These articles seem so be both educational and also just for fun, since some are about easy ideas to improve your landscape or garden. This means that another large group of their audience is crafty and handy with landscaping and the outdoors. As you continue moving down the page, you can also find a section of recent popular videos. This means that they may also be aiming their product towards a younger group who enjoy watching videos online rather than spending the time to read an article. Finally, at the very bottom of the page, they have a text box area that says, "Follow Us", with links to multiple social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. This also makes the company more accessible to millennials or anyone who normally uses social media or the internet.

Distribution Research - Traditional

For a traditional magazine, most would use methods such as displaying their product in stores, through online ads, through emails, social media, and other techniques. One example of a good distribution model is the company Hearst which includes popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, two products that have similar themes and target audiences to our magazine. This company uses techniques like advertising their product in popular grocery stores such as Publix and Target to increase their distribution rate. Additionally, their use a wide variety of online and digital distributions methods such as advertising through social media, on their websites, and through emailing lists. These techniques not only advertise their product but attract millennials and other technologically attracted consumers to their online product. There has been an overall decrease in the amount of revenue gained from paper products like hard copies of magazines or newspapers. Therefore, many companies have turned to the Internet as a more productive method of gaining consumers. Overall, using techniques such as using websites, social media, and emailing for distribution and as ways to increase circulation will be methods utilized in our product.

Revisions - Photo Shoot Planning

To improve the content in my article, I want to add some better pictures and more photos with people in them. However, to do this I need to use a good camera for good photo quality. Within the next couple days, my new iPhone 7 should be coming in so I am waiting for that so I can use its camera for the photo shoot. I should also upload the revised photos on the article and TOC pages within the next week.

Super Bowl Commercials

The first commercial we evaluated was an advertisement for the NFL. This commercial featured persuasive techniques such as humor, well-known celebrities, and popular music. Also, it was most likely geared towards somewhat older people in their 30's, female viewers, and millennials who use use social media. The next advertisement we watched was for the upcoming Olympics. It included athletic celebrities, music geared towards empowered women, and photos of the athlete as children to trigger nostalgia. It was probably meant for millennials, parents with kids, and athletes with similar interests. The final commercial we saw was a Tide commercial. It used humor and celebrities to intrigue their audience. It was also aimed towards millennials who are the majority of viewers of TV shows with the celebrities in them. Overall, most of them utilized humor and celebrities to promote their product and make the most of their minute long advertisement.

Revisions - Branding

To add more professionalism to our magazine, we decided to add branding to the bottom of our pages. It includes the issue date (month and year), magazine title, and page number. This allows readers to be able to see which issue the magazine is on any page of the product. Below shows the edited branding in the new draft:

              TOC                                           Article Page 1                         Article Page 2

        

Revisions - Cover Page

Initially, I began editing the captions and advertisements on the cover page to fill the empty space and make the title page more intriguing to consumers. Below is the before and after of the cover page. I added larger, more colorful fonts to the captions and added more eye-catching text boxes to make them stand out. This allows readers to immediately know what the topics of the articles are in the magazine, hopefully persuading them to purchase our product. We also decided to change the title page to a more bold, professional font. Although we originally wanted a font that matched the theme of artsy, crafty designs, we realized that the rest of the magazine, pictures, and other text can show that theme while the title should be more professional and constant since it will remain the same for all other issues of our product.

Before                                     After

Target Audience Research - HGTV

For this magazine, it contains a similar theme to the theme of our magazine. It describes creative ideas for home crafts and easy home decor. Additionally, it was found that the majority of consumers were female (approximately 60%). It was also found that most people who read this product ranged from ages 25-54 years old, and there were fewer users from ages 18-49. Also, the majority of users were home owners and 40% had a college degree. This means that there are probably a large amount of people who have some free time at home to do simple crafts like the ones advertised in HGTV magazine and our magazine. Therefore, HGTV has a similar target audience to ours.