Attitude magazine targets LGBT males aged between 25-55, who are likely not to have children yet are possibly married. They can be categorised under Young and Rubican's 4Cs as either aspirers or reformers, who fall under the income and status model's ABC1 category.
Evidence of the target audience and the way in which attitude appeals to them can be seen on their website through both articles and advertisements; the magazine includes a variety of topics such as pop culture, current LGBT affairs and fitness in order to entice its audience. An example of this is an article on a 'RuPaul's Drag Race' star who 'broke their hand punching a Neo-Nazi'. This itself is an appeal due to the fact that the TV show is a popular programme amongst the LGBT community and so is an example of 'pop culture', and integrates the audience's interest in current affairs by suggesting that the event happened due to homophobia. The mode of address in this article is rather articulate and empowering; it opens with the sentence 'they say never mess with a drag queen...' this slight sense of humour may be seen as empowering due to the fact that it is almost making light of the situation, showing how the audience may be 'aspirers' due to the fact that it shows the courage and strength the Queen had in order to stand up to this person, and isn't deeply affected by the incident. This would appeal to aspirers as it infers that both the encoders of the article and the Drag Queen herself do not want the LGBT communities to be seen as 'victims', and so by painting the Queen as a strong individual would be an appeal to this section of the target audience because they may feel they can take a leaf from the Queens book and not let homophobia or adversity get them down.
The article also appeals to reformers through it's ideologies, as reformers are said to seek the betterment of both themselves and others. This is reflected in the ideological content of the article as seen through the language used to describe the Neo-Nazi's. The encoder describes them as a 'low life', and then goes on to call Morgan a 'winner', showing how the reformer is likely to align with these views as they will most likely feel outraged by the actions of the Neo-Nazi's, agree with the Drag Queen's actions and want to seek a change in the current social climate in order to prevent these events from recurring.
Another way in which the magazine targets its audience is through the format and layout of the articles, with the article about Superdrug beginning to sell HIV test kits acting as a sound example. The piece features a very factual writing style which includes lots of statistics (e.g. '10,400 people in the UK don't know they're living with HIV'), this is reflective of the audience's ABC1 status as it shows how they are highly educated people interested in more than just celebrity culture/gossip (perhaps breaking stereotypes of Gay men as well!) It's use of high image to text ratio and short paragraphing is also an appeal because it shows how the audience lead a busy lifestyle and perhaps don't have time to read huge, broadsheet-style articles.
The social media presence of the magazine is also a key way in which the magazine targets its audience, due to the fact that it feeds into the younger side of the target audience's lifestyle; having a large social media presence helps the magazine to encourage people to read the magazine because it is a form of free advertisement and allows Attitude to briefly get across their key features and ideologies.
These appeals are not wholly unique, as many lifestyle magazines nowadays often use social media to advertise their product, yet can add an 'edge' to the magazine as it shows their own attitude and ethos, which will appeal to aspirers and reformers as it shows how the magazine is confident within itself, therefore showing how it can help the audience to be confident within themselves. For example, the Facebook description of the magazine can be seen as quite egotistical, and therefore an appeal of the magazine.
Different sections of the audience will use different social media platforms in order to consume the magazine and voice their opinions, for example the younger target audience is more likely to use Instagram to 'follow' the magazine as it has a much younger age demographic of users.
This therefore means that the magazine displays it's 'entertainment' side more so on Instagram, as the younger age target are stereotypically more interested in celebrity culture and entertainment than that of the older target audience. Thus, by displaying their 'entertainment' side of themselves, the target audience is more likely to read the magazine as it shows that Attitude has topics they are interested in, and fulfils their need for entertainment.
Social Media is rater important to the brand due to the fact that it is an easy and effective way to put across their ideologies and reach their target audience through the help of social media algorithms, hashtags, etc. Twitter is a good example of this, as the 'limitations' of the 280 characters that can be used in a tweet means that the encoder can only include key, important and 'eye catching' information, meaning that the audience will more than likely be intrigued by what the magazine has to offer because Attitude are portraying their 'best' version of themselves, and inferring that the magazine is exactly what the audience is looking for.
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