Mainstream vs.
Niche
Mainstream:
-Mainstream
Publication is one that appears to a lot of people (broad public appeal)
-Mainstream
Magazines: -NME, Q, Chat, Bella, Kerrang! etc.
Mainstream Advantages:
-Hope
for big sales, means more profit
-Wider
target market and appeal to advertisers more because of more people interested
in it
-Covers
more subject matter
Mainstream Disadvantages:
-Flooded
market/proliferation of product
-No
specific targeting of any one group
-Mainstream
magazines are usually owned by multimedia organisations with links to record
labels
-This
cross media convergence can manipulate record sales
-You
have to be careful to what you include on a mainstream magazine; you can’t
offend such a large group of people (no offensive nature)
-Mainstream
magazines can lack credibility
Niche:
-Niche
is for a small, specific and dedicated audience
-Examples
of Niche magazines are: -Terrorizer, Pitchfork, Fangoria etc.
Niche Advantages:
-Niche
magazines have credibility as they only target specific groups of people, they
can focus directly on one subject
-Writers
of Niche magazines can be more expressive
-The
consumer (audience) is usually more dedicated (fanatical) which means they will
frequently buy the magazine
-Doesn’t
have an advertiser which means they won’t get negatively shown
-Niche
magazines can get away with using technical terms and jargon in their magazine
Niche Disadvantages:
-Niche
magazines are aimed at specific groups, so the audience of them is smaller than
that of a Mainstream magazine
-Hard to
get noticed as not many get publicized
- Not
many people have heard of Niche magazines
-Niche
magazines can be quite expensive
-Doesn’t
have an advertiser, so less money will be received
-Niche
magazines can be lower quality as they cannot afford a top designer to create
the magazine
-The
aesthetic quality (way that it looks) can be lower
In times of economic pressure,
people stop buying luxuries like magazines. In the last half of 2013, magazines
lose 6.3% of print sales. (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-magazines-lose-print-sales-average-63-cent-full-abc-breakdown-all-503-titles)
Magazine
which has lost sales: Women’s Way Cookbook
Women’s
Way’s Cookbook has gone down by a massive 44.5%. This could be for a number of
reasons such as even more now, supermarkets are making it easier and more
convenient for everyone to buy food which is already made and other products
which are pre-made are offered to help with the hassle of cooking something
from scratch. Therefor people nowadays do not need any magazines or articles to
tell them about how to cook food as majority of it can be bought already made.
This shows that people are becoming lazier. Another reason could be that people
are trying to go for healthier options when it comes to food and certain food
magazines specialise in healthy meals such as Waitrose. Due to this magazine
not being specifically on healthy food, less and less people are buying it and
opting to buy a magazine which can offer them healthier alternatives.
Magazine
which has increased Sales: Thomas and friends
Thomas
and friends has increased its sales by 42.3%. The reason for this could be
because as the target audience for this magazine is around 3 year olds, I can
infer that more people were having children around 3 years ago which would be a
cause in the increase of sales. Another reason could be as the new Thomas Land
opened. From this the cartoon Thomas is being advertised and shown more and
this could be why the sales increased on this magazine.
Socio-demographic indicators used
to help design our target audience
A: Upper
Middle Class- higher managerial, administrative or professional
B:
Middle Class- Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1:
Lower Middle Class- Supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative
or professional
C2:
Skilled Working Class- Skilled manual workers
D:
Working Class- Semi and unskilled manual workers
E: That
at Lowest Level of Subsistence- State pension or widows (no other earner),
casual or lowest grade workers
-My
magazine is going to be aimed at the categories C1, C2 and D. My magazine will
be a pop one and this will appeal to people in these groups.
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