Appealing to an Audience

Henry Buckham

Take a Break Take a Break is a magazine aimed at

lower-middle class (C1C2) middle aged

women, in their 30s/40s but research

has shown that this magazine has a

reader base of 18 years old up to 80.

Readers are more likely to own their own

home, be married and have children.

Take a Break has a total of 12 million

copies published every year, with 1.2

copies sold each second. There is a total

of around 2.5 million readers, with only

400,000 of these men. This shows a

very female core demographic.

Readers are shown to have read this

publication more thoroughly than

competitors and have strong reader

loyalty.

This magazine uses a mainstream

tabloid format and doesn’t appeal to

anything niche. It is created with the idea

in mind that readers will flick through this

on their lunch break. As such it has a lot

of short but dramatic stories about

lifestyle and romance.

Target Audience

Take a Break is more aimed at the female demographic as evidenced by many of the stories focusing on the subject of relationship troubles and drama, with a lot of focus on gossip. These stories follow a pattern of being about children or men, something women can relate to as mothers and married women are a core demographic.

Often these stories rely on sensationalism (exaggerating certain aspects of the story to incite a feeling) in order to sell copies or encourage people to read. This includes emphasizing certain words or dominating more of the page with the story.

There is also content that review the soap operas on TV (shows that are mainly watched by middle-old aged women) and a large emphasis on the magazine’s own bingo game (a game with no major demographic but has a large housewife following)

Layout, Colours and Image Each Take a Break magazine is radically different in terms of

the styling/positioning of the front page’s content. While the familiar red logo is retained each time in the top left, there are multicoloured boxes of varying sizes and shapes that hold the snippets from each story, The bright and vibrant colours help to catch the reader’s eyes from a shelf.

Each copy features a large photograph of a middle aged woman on the right hand side, representing the majority reader base. This also be a ploy for women to feel more comfortable buying the magazine, as opposed to something with a photograph of a male.

Each issue also offers a lot of prizes and giveaway with rewards that are tailored for middle aged people, the target audience – cars, shopping trips and holidays. These types of gifts would be slightly out of place in a magazine tailored for younger people, where the prizes offered are normally cosmetics, electronics or video games.

The prizes offered are typically placed in the header bar, where they can be easily seen thanks to their proximity of the logo.

Page Layouts Each story of Take a Break is arranged in a typical

tabloid format but with coloured highlights that

indicate where the text begins, as well as tilted

photographs and stylized header that create a

casual atmosphere, as if the magazine was an

informal notice board. This contributes to the

magazine’s overall casual ‘laid back’ approach for

its readers.

Frequently in the middle of the columns, there are

small red boxes that contain a notable quote from

the story being told. This helps readers to get a

basic gist if they are just scanning over. This fits

with the target markets busy lifestyle, as they will

likely have a big family to care for and as such only

have a limited amount of time to settle down and

read.

Often these articles will contain a multitude of

different photos. They could consist of the event

itself, the person in particular, or photos that help to

set the story either by showing locations or people.

These photos are unique I that some don’t appear

to be professionally staged photos, but rather

photos that could be taken by anyone – humble

home or holiday photos. This allows readers to

easily integrate and relate with the people who are

sharing their stories.

The captions included in stories are often

extremely basic and merely describe the image as

seen below. This means that the audience can

understand the context of these images with ease

instead of trying to decipher culture references or

complex descriptions.

Language The front covers of Take a Break rely heavily on informal terms

and British slang to entice it’s audience of middle aged women.

Words that fall under these categories are typically associated

with gossip, which is primarily what the magazine aims for with

the type of stories it publishes. Words like ‘lad’ or ‘pals’ or

‘naughty’ create quite an informal atmosphere that could give the

impression that the magazine is an area for women to share

gossip and informal anecdotes, which could make buyers feel

more comfortable purchasing. A lot of exclamation marks are

used to highlight sensationalist aspects and to hype stories up.

Certain words are also capitalized or highlighted to show more

significance. This can entice people if they are browsing because

if certain ‘shocking’ words like wrecked or fury are highlighted, a

potential reader may be enticed into wanting to know more about

this story.

The highlighting of words also includes the aspect that certain

shock words are in a different colour to the red of the text – for

example, the word ‘SIX’ referring to a number of partners is in

red, while the main body of text is in blue.

Font Take a Break uses a variety of sans-serif fonts on

the front cover to depict its logo and the story

taglines. Serif fonts haven’t really been used as

this is a modern day magazine focusing on

present stories, and serif fonts would not really fit

this, as they are quite traditional looking. Sans

serif fonts are clear, bold and modern, meaning

they are well suited for the purpose applied here.

Different colours are used to separate stories from

one another and create a very colourful, eye

catching front cover.

The choice of sans serif fonts also gives off a

calm, friendly atmosphere about the magazine.

This entices more buyers, specifically the middle

aged female audience, as coupled with the bright

colours this can create a very warm, inviting and

eye catching combination.

Codes and Conventions Each issue of Take a Break includes the logo and headline in the top left. This helps

readers quickly identify the magazine by looking up here.

Each issue features its most prominent stories on the cover. These are arranged in an

untidy yet stylish format with bright colours used throughout. Occasionally, certain

words will be coloured differently to express their significance. Sometimes informal

language will be used to keep with the magazine’s casual styling.

Take a Break always includes an offer of prizes to be won at the top – usually cash

prizes, cars, or package bundles like trips or holidays. This is especially enticing for

young-middle aged adults who are looking to chill out and hopefully win something in

the process. The offer of a car as a prize shows the target audience – a car wouldn’t

be a very good prize in a magazine for young people.

Each issue features a large, doctored photograph of a smiling mid-aged woman on

the cover. This helps to promote the friendly, laid back image and to help female

purchasers feel more confident about buying the magazine.

Publisher Interaction Take a Break encourages readers

themselves to send in their stories for

print – many of the stories published are

from their readers. There is a tab on their

website that takes them directly to a

contact page for stories.

The magazine has both a Facebook and

Twitter account, in which fans and

readers can contact the publishers of the

magazine and voice their opinions, or

chat with fellow fans. They will also be

able to find updates and news on these

sites, updated directly by the publishers.

Out of the magazine’s 400,000 strong

readership, there are just 29,000 people

who like the mag’s Facebook page, and

even less on the Twitter account, with

just under 2,000 followers.

A section of their website is dedicated to

publisher communication, offering e-mail

addresses of many key members of

staff.

Motor Sport

Motor Sport is an automobile racing and event magazine

aimed at an older male audience in the upper middle to

upper class social group. 99.2% of readers are male,

making it a majority male dominated audience with only

0.8% of readers being female, or roughly 700 individuals. In

comparison, out of Take a Break’s 2.5 million readers,

400,000 are men.

The magazine has a circulation of 35,000 and a readership

of 89,000 compared to Take a Break’s 2.5 million readers,

highlighting how it is a much more niche but highly loyal

and specialized fanbase as 66% of readers spend two or

more hours reading each issue of the magazine.

A quarter of the magazine’s readership are high earners

with over 100k+ in income. 76% of readers own two or

more cars and 50% of readers regularly dine out and enjoy

fine wine.

The reader base is extremely invested in the hobby as over

90% of readers regularly attend historic meetings and

racing/GP events. 35% of the reader base own a classic

car. The magazine is not designed as a mainstream tabloid

publication and is designed for an up market audience who

have a firm interest in the hobby.

Target AudienceMotor Sport has a long and illustrious history as the

original magazine documenting racing events. First

published in 1924 the colours used and style of the

logo has remained the same, enforcing brand

loyalty and recognition. The magazine’s core

audience is middle-aged to elderly men with a firm

interest in classic automobiles and racing events.

Supporting the older audience is the fact that this

magazine has been in publication for almost 90

years, building up a strong fanbase over the years.

Those that read the magazine are wealthier than

those who read Take a Break, with a quarter of

readers having incomes of over 100k. This supports

the argument that many of its readers are those

who can afford to regularly attend motoring events

and own classic cars of their own as a hobby,

evidenced by the classifieds for restored classic

cars in the rear of the magazine.

The magazine is designed to be an outlet for news

regarding motoring and racing events, including

interview with drivers and crews, publication of

results from races, as well as reviews of vehicles

and news form the automobile industry. Unlike Take

a Break, which is designed to be picked up and

read for a couple of minutes, Motor Sport is a more

invested publication that assumes that readers will

be reading for much longer.

Layout, Colours and Image

Motor Sport follows a very uniform and standard style for its issues. Each

magazine cover features the familiar green banner at the top with the

publication’s logo, unchanged from 1924. Below, three quarters of the page is

dominated by a picture related to the issue’s big story. Usage of the green

banner and logo is used to help distinguish itself from other magazines to loyal

readers, who can instantly see the familiar green that has been used on all

previous issues.

Each issue features an image relating to motoring or racing which allows it to

be distinguished form other magazines that may appear visually similar.

Structuring of different elements follows a very geometric pattern and

everything is orientated on a straight line, compared to Take a Break’s brightly

coloured style of different sized boxes that are different for each issue. This is

because of Motor Sport’s more mature and invested audience compared to

Take a Break’s highly varied female audience. The cover of Motor Sport is not

plastered with offers and promotions and instead focuses entirely on the

subject it is covering on the basis that that is what the readers buy it for.

Page LayoutMotor Sport’s article layout differs from Take a Break by

being much more formal, with a lack of coloured elements

and irregularly shaped boxes and banners. Instead, this

page focuses on uniform columns of text broken by

geometric images and pull quotes.

The style of writing also differs. The article I looked at in

Take a Break appeared to have not been changed much

from the person in question’s original account, so it was

more of an informal story and not a detailed interview and

report as shown here. Motor Sport remains formal and uses

lots of terms that are specific to the hobby, including

references to old motoring days and events which assume

that readers know what they are talking about to make

sense. This article is longer in length and goes into great

detail on the basis that people will not be reading the

magazine for just a few minutes.

The caption included for the bigger image includes a bit of

background on the situation with ‘Nico is popular with the

fans – now he needs to win races’. This is in contrast with

captions in the Take a Break article, which are simple and

are there to provide detail on the image, such as ‘James

with me and my bridesmaids’. Unlike Take a Break’s photos

that were sent in with the person’s account, Motor Sport’s

images are professionally shot on site.

Language

Motor Sport’s language has a formal and informative

style that is tailored specifically older and more

mature readers. This is evidenced by constant usage

of bigger and synonymous words to tell the story, with

examples like ‘divulge’, ‘aspirations’ and

‘ambassadorial’ which is a lot different to the

conjunctions and informal slang used in Take a Break

like ‘lad’ and ‘hubby’, although ‘Merc’ is used to

describe a Mercedes, which is a common nickname.

Front pages of Motor Sport often use alliteration and

emotive words to describe certain events and stories.

The power of three is used to describe a Mercedes

car below, which helps to summarize the writer’s

opinion.

Font

For Motor Sport’s articles and columns, it uses a

basic serif font for copy, as opposed to sans-serif,

which has a more modern aesthetic and is used

as the font for copy in Take a Break as well as for

its logos. The choice of font is likely down to the

fact that Motor Sport’s readers are older and

prefer a more traditional aesthetic instead of an

ultra modern look.

However, Motor Sport uses a combination of both

sans-serif and serif fonts for captions on the front

cover to distinguish different taglines. Sans-serif

font is also used for red drop text to start off

certain articles, likely for visual ease for older

readers.

Motor Sport’s logo uses a very stylish ‘retro’ font

that has become their unofficial logo in the form

of the ‘M’. It has remained virtually unchanged

since the 30s and continues to be used as the

magazine’s title up to the present day. This

choice of font on the modern magazines harkens

back to the glory days of motor sport and can be

used to attract older people who will be familiar

with the logo.

Codes & Conventions Above and below the main title of the

magazine, the banner contains a row of different sections that it covers. The top row has their tagline, which reads ‘Passion, Independence, Perspective, Opinion, Authority.’ which references how the magazines operates by itself, is passionate about the interest, and has the leading voice on the market.

A leading story is covered mainly on the front page with a large picture that takes up ¾ of the space, with other stories in the issue confined to taglines nearer to the bottom.

The magazine’s address is located above the logo in the top right. This helps to provide more connection between the magazine and it’s areas and allow people to have an outlet to find out more about the magazine before a purchase.

Publisher Interaction Motor Sport has several pages on prominent

social media websites such as Facebook and

Twitter which are used to communicate to

readers and post updates or announcements.

Each profile also links to the other sites so that

their entire presence on the web is visible to

the audience. However, these sites do not

reach out to the entire audience of 89,000

people, with 12,000 likes on the Facebook

page and 35,000 followers on Twitter.

Both pages can be used by readers to

communicate directly with the writers and

editors, who have a strong presence and post

updates often.

Their official website features the contact

details of the editorial and writing staff for

direct communication, as well as a forums

where people can chat and discuss topics with

both other readers and the magazine staff.

Unlike Take a Break, Motor Sport is not

dependent on stories sent in by people as

they have a professional media team sent to

events relative to the subject.