Magazine analysis & IPC case study

Magazine analysis

X Factor

My opinion is that the target audience for the X factor magazine is around 11-17 year old's. I get this impression from the celebrity icons presented on the magazine cover and bright colours such as orange and pink. This magazine cover has many codes and conventions, the first of which is the masthead located on the left hand corner of the page, the large 'X' displayed immediately shows us what the magazine is, the X factor. Furthermore it uses a pug where is says 'WIN!'. Again this is in the colour pink which tells me as well as it appealing to 11-17 year old's, it's more aimed at a female audience rather than male. Another piece of evidence of this is would be the splash, in this instance it's Nicole Scherzinger, already a celebrity icon for a female type of audience so the headline regarding her is going to inevitably be eye-catching to the target audience and get them interested in reading and purchasing the magazine. This particular magazine features a lot of box-outs. Varying from black, orange and pink. It also contains a secondary lead, these include Tinie Tempah and KE$HA, in comparison it has a menu as well telling the reader on the contents of this magazine. From the use of various images and bright over used colours it appeals to its target audience as it is firstly noticeable if you were out shopping, also the big fonts and blown up images are rather engaging to persons supporting these celebrities and the show. The orange and pink are really positive colours implying to the reader that this product is going to be fun and happy; something they will want to read. There's no doubt that the feature of this magazine is to inform you about the the show itself, though the subheading does offer more insight than that, it offers you the chance to review what the celebrities of the show are getting up to and how the contestants are handling the competition which appeals to the audience as they're curious to know about these people as they're who they watch week after week, 11-17 year old's enjoy the insight to these, they love the bright colours which the magazine both contains, it makes the magazine as a whole appealing to them. It's these codes and conventions that the magazine has used that they hope will get the magazine purchased, specifically by 11-17 year old's as it should be more appealing to them, however, of course other age groups may buy it and do buy it, but the magazine is mostly aimed at this particular age group.

IPC case study

The International Publishing Corporation was formed in the year of 1963. This was following the joining up of the UK's three leading magazine publishers during that time, George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications.

IPC would be an appropriate and ideal publisher for a new music magazine as currently, the company is not publishing a large amount of music magazines, With a long time of experience there is no doubt that IPC would help market a new music magazine and be there for the magazine's every needs. 

IPC reach an amazing 26 million adults, so I'm sure they have a wide range of magazine types. They have 3 divisions of a target audience, all of which reach about 10 millions viewers, these divisions are: mass market women, upmarket women and men. It shows that there interests are spread equally and widely.