TASK 5: Newsstand Task & Market Research

 

MARKET RESEARCH:

From the pictures I have taken at WH Smith, I have a clear idea of how WH Smith lay out their magazines on the newsstand. I saw that they lay out the magazines in different categories such as Entertainment, Lifestyle, Fashion etc. From looking at these different magazines, I can tell that they have laid out their magazine very similarly to mine.

They all have mastheads that are written in large font that are the biggest writing of any other word from the front page which help to make them stand out and make it so their brands are easily identifiable amongst the other magazines. All of the mastheads are made to stand out from the background colour of the front cover to help buyers to immediately tell what brand the magazine is hence again, making it more identifiable. Most of the magazine have their mastheads written on the top left of the page, from this WH Smith have used this to make sure they can fit more magazines on their stands by organising it so all of the mastheads from every magazine are seen. Also from the mastheads I can see that the magazines have different fonts, there is a comparison from women magazines from men magazines. From the women's magazines I can see that they have used fonts that look like they have been hand written which would appeal more to women whilst for men they have used more formal writing letters to present a sense of professionalism and make it so men would find it more suitable. I also noticed the colour scheme for magazines that are more suited to women use more feminine colour schemes and bright colours such as pink and red to attract women whilst the more male magazines such as top gear use a colour scheme of blue and black to attract males. This shows that they have clearly thought about their target audience and designed it so that it would suit the target audience.

From the magazines I have, I have noticed that the cover lines are interesting cover lines that would engage most readers. Most of them relate to the cover star of the page for example on one of the covers there's a person with a body most women would want - the cover line of this magazine says "BOOST YOUR FAT BURN" this supports the fact that it engages the reader because if it was the women on the cover that was the reason they were attracted to this magazine, it basically says they could get a body like her by boosting their fat burn. Other cover lines also concern very popular celebrities and their lives in which attract many people, they have controversial cover lines such as Kim Kardashian saying to Kanye West "DON'T TRY TO CONTROL MY LIFE" and Katie Price & Peter Andre who were once a couple have a cover line that says "THE FEUD EXPLODES". I have also noticed that most of the big cover lines are written in capital letters to stand out and catch the eye of the reader.

The images on the front cover of the magazines all look like they have been professionally taken. They all vary from close up shots, medium close up shots to full body shots. I have noticed that most of the womens magazines have pictures that take out most of the page and layer above the masthead, however never cover more than half of the masthead to still help the masthead to be recognisable. In the cars and transport section there are covers of cars, planes etc that relate to the magazines name.