Audience Research Writeup.

From my audience research, I handed out questionnaires to the girls who I thought would fit in to my target audience. As my target audience is girls who are aged between 14-18, I handed them out to people of this age group around the school. I also carried out a focus group, where I handed out magazines to my target audience and watched them flick through, noting down which pages they stopped at and why.

In the questionnaires, I found that the majority of girls are interested in fashion, hair and makeup, so I would definitely like to base my magazine on this. I also noticed that many girls were interested in technology, and that the new mp3 players and mobile phones were very popular amongst them, indicating that they like to be kept up to date with new technology. Because of this, I have decided that I am also going to base my magazine on technology, as well as the fashion aspect. I find this very interesting, as normal magazines for teenage girls are only based on fashion, hairstyles and makeup, and normal magazines for teenage boys are usually based on technology or sports. By mixing these, I feel that it will be very successful as there is nothing like my magazine out there at the moment.

As my audience are aged between the 14-18, many of them do not have jobs so can not afford to buy items in fancy designer shops. Girls this age usually buy their clothes in the usual high street stores such as Topshop and H+M. Because of this, I am going to base most of the clothes in the magazine on these sort of shops, as I am sure this will be more appealing.

In my questionnaire I also asked the brands of makeup that they like to wear, and I received a mixed bag of responses. Many of them buy high street brands such as Maxfactor and Rimmel, but many buy the designer brands such as Clarins and Benefit, therefore I am going to make sure the makeup I include in the magazine is from a wide variety of brands.

I finally asked how much they were willing to spend on a magazine, and the majority said £2-3. I have therefore decided to base my magazine at £2.49.

I also carried out a focus group where I got 5 people from my target audience and watched them flick through a technology magazine and fashion magazines. In the technology magazine I noticed them stop on a page featuring the new iPod range, and a new mobile phone from Sony Ericsson, so I have decided to include something similar in my magazine. In the fashion magazines, they were stopping at pages which included makeup tips and advice for hair care. This helped me as it showed what the audiences main interests are and what catches their attention.