2. Explanation.
To gain an idea of what the public wanted from a music magazine, I conducted a
questionnaire which consisted of 15 questions. These questions were related to
music and music magazines, specifically of the Rock genre because this was my
initial idea for the project. The purpose of the questions asked was to gain a
better idea of what people would like in a music magazines, peoples ideas or
thoughts of the market and how people would want a music magazine to look (in
terms of aesthetics). I also asked these questions to gain a better understanding
of what my target audience would want, and who that might actually be;
focusing on the gender and age of the audience. This has helped me decide a
final direction for my magazine because as I will mention later, from my results I
was given a different picture to what people want. Using my results I can now
decide what is going to be the most-liked magazine genre and style.
3. Q1: What is your gender?
This question was asked so I could find out specifically what
certain people wanted from a magazine. I asked a mixed
audience of males and females to get a better response for
my magazine because I am aiming to create a magazine that
will appeal both genders because music as a media is for
everyone so I feel that I can’t limit my target audience to
one gender. My results show a similar amount of people from
both genders answered my questionnaire therefore there
will be no gender bias in my results and I will be able to look
at peoples opinions on music and the magazine media.
Male, 14
Female, 16
4. Q2: How old are you?
This question was used to see what age group answered my
questionnaire and to see what appealed to each age group. This
will help me decide what my target audience wants from a
magazine and their opinions on my initial genre and magazines
in general. My results show that the majority age group was
infact my target audience with 23 people out of the 30 being
within the range of 16-20 years of age. This helps me because
that was my planned target audience’s age range so these
results will direct me to make a magazine that is aimed at that
age group. I will however still make the magazine look appealing
to my original age range of 16-25 years because I was able to
collect some results from that group of people to help me.
15 years or younger, 0
16-20 years, 23
21-25 years, 2
26-30 years, 1
31-35 years, 0
36-40 years, 1
41 years or
older, 3
5. Q3: What genre(s) of
music do you listen to?
I used this question to prompt the discussion of music. This
question helped me understand trends in music with the
people who answered the questionnaire, and more
specifically my target audience. From the results I can
gather that Hip-Hop and Dance/Electronic are the most
popular choices with 11 and 15 respectively which will have
an impact on my final idea in my publication plan because I
need to make a magazine that appeals to my target
audience. I can’t take these results as impacting factors
however because if I asked another 10 people their favourite
genre it could make Alternative a popular choice. My choice
of genre will clearly effect the popularity as seen by these
results.
10's Alternative, 9
00's Alternative, 6
90's Alternative, 1
80's Althernative,
7
UK Hip-Hop, 11
Old School Hip-
Hop, 8Rap & Hip-
Hop, 9
Metal, 7
Country/Folk,
9
Dance/Electronic, 15
10's Pop, 7
00's Pop, 6
90's Pop, 7
Classical, 3
Heavy Metal, 4
Grunge,
6
6. Never, 6
Weekly, 8
Monthly, 5
Every few months,
4
On and off over a
year, 6
Q4: How frequently do you
browse magazines on shelves?
This question allowed me to get knowledge on when people
like to consider buying magazines or even how often I should
publish my magazine. Although a lot of people said “never”,
a good amount of people browse magazine shelves atleast
monthly with 13 doing so (8 weekly, 5 monthly) therefore I
think I should make my magazine a monthly publication
because then I won’t miss out on that mass audience of
monthly readers for less people to get it per week. Monthly
would be the most popular option to choose from, keeping
in line with my initial plan.
7. Branding, 3
Cover image, 16
Coverline/Headline,
14
Stars/Bands, 17
Articles, 7
Q5: What attracts and entices you to
consider buying a magazine?
I included a multiple choice question to get a bigger
selection of answers allowing me to focus on key areas
instead of one area of the magazine. This allows me to make
my magazine look appealing to many people at once while
considering other aspects of the magazines design to make it
look better in the eyes of the genre.
8. Q6: What do you think of when you
hear the word “Rock”?
I included a multiple choice question to get a bigger
selection of answers allowing me to focus on key areas
instead of one area of the magazine. This allows me to make
my magazine look appealing to many people at once while
considering other aspects of the magazines design to make it
look better in the eyes of the genre.
Guitars, 18
Heavy Music, 13
Meaningful Lyrics, 10
Live Shows, 14
Old Music, 3
Dark Themes, 7
Bands, 9
Other, 3
9. Q7: What magazine do you think about
when you’re looking for a “Rock magazine”?
From the people I asked, I wanted to see what was the most
popular rock magazine to help me identify the magazines I
need to take inspiration from or research. From the results I
can see a good spread of Kerrang! with 12 people which is
the most frequent answer therefore I would like to look into
Kerrang! while making my magazine for ideas because it
links to my genre range of rock, punk and metal however I
would also like to look at magazines such as NME and Mojo
which scored 5 and 3 respectively.
kerrang Rolling stones
Kerrang Rock Weekly
Kerrang Kerrang
kerrang NME
I don't read magazines Mogo
I don't read magazines Kerrang
Kerrang, rock sound, classic
rock
Kerrang
mojo or rolling stone magazine Kerrang
Nme Mojo
NME Classic Rock
NME Kerrang!
N/A Kerrang!
mojo Classic Rock
Kerrang! NME
Dunno
10. Q8: Would you buy a rock magazine? (or
magazines of associate genres)
I asked this question to expand upon the previous questions
and see whether people would be interested in buying a
rock magazine as opposed to any magazine in general. My
results show that more would buy one with 17/30 saying
“yes” which really helps me however I still need to create a
magazine that appeals to everyone as I originally set out to
do so I will take the feedback for the latter questions and
try and implement those features of a magazine I for the
future. The reasons below however tell me I might need to
adjust my genre to suit more people or adjust my target
audience because then I could make the magazine appeal to
a mass audience.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Yes No
If "no", why?
I can read similar
quality publications
online
Can access the news
on the web.
I don't read
magazines
I don't read
magazines
Not the kind of music
I like.
Can read about
things on the internet
Don’t think I’d like it
Not my type of genre
to listen to
Doesn't really interest
me.
Not enough rocks
It's not my style
11. Q9: What would you like to see on the front
cover of a magazine?
I asked this question to get an idea of what appeals to my
target audience so I can adapt my magazine design choices
towards that set of people. From what I have seen, people
really love big artists appearing on the cover with 16 people
saying they wanted this. I made it a multiple choice
question because there are many aspects which make a
magazine cover. People also want to see upcoming artist wth
13 and posters which gives me an idea of what to expect of
my audience however some didn’t choose three answers
making me feel that these options were not enough,
therefore my results aren’t completely accurate.
Attractive Colours, 10
Big Artists, 16
Upcoming Artists, 13
Gossip, 9
Variety of Artists, 6
Clean Layout, 9
Posters, 10
Freebies, 8
12. Q10: What would you like to see in a
“rock” magazine?
From looking at what people want in terms of content, I can
clearly see that people really enjoy interviews with 17
people choosing this option however as it was a multiple
choice question once again, I got more data. People also
want to see a mix of upcoming artists and reviews with 13
and 11 respectively. People however would also like to see
gig dates so I will include that on the magazine, be it in the
contents page or even on the double-page spread. People
didn’t really want older artists telling me I shouldn’t make
these stories as big, rather regular stories compared to
newer artist which I should try and emphasise in featured
artists.
Reviews, 11
Interviews, 17
New Artists, 13
Past Artists, 4
Behind The Scenes,
7
Gig Dates, 13
Competitions, 6
Free EP's, 6
Posters, 5
13. Q11: What colours do you associate
with “rock” magazines?
From looking at colours, we can see a trend of red, white
and black with 16, 15 and 22 respectively which could tell
me to choose these, which actually connate to the rock
genre. I could’ve asked what my audiences favourite colours
were however because then it could’ve gave the magazine a
more personal appeal yet this wouldn’t appeal to the masses
so I decided to choose this question. I might decided to use
this data to decide my colour scheme however judging by
the fact that only half my audience wanted a rock
magazine, I might change my idea.
Black, 22
White, 15
Red, 16
Yellow, 5
Pink, 0
Green, 1
Orange, 1
Purple, 1
Blue, 3
Grey, 8Other, 1
“I think these colours show every aspect of the rock genre”
14. Q12: What would you like to see on a
contents page?
I decided to include this question to help in the production
of the Publication Plan because I needed to know how
people wanted my contents page to look. From the results, I
will use a lot of images connoting to the genre as rock such
as gig pictures and pictures (which received 15) of bands
however I will also try and include exciting articles (10) to
entice the audience even more. I’m still not sure however
how to lay out my content page however because I have
been given 13 for a clean layout and 9 for an abstract layout
which doesn’t narrow it down well to preference. I will
however keep colours down and not ruin the contents page
because only 6 people wanted to see lots of colours.
Clean Layout, 13
Abstract Layout
(different), 9
Loads of Colours, 6
Lots of Images,
15
Exciting Articles,
10
15. Posters, 6
Tickets to Live Shows,
16
Free EP's, 4
Competitions, 4
Q13: What offers (or free incentives)
would you like to see?
I decided to include this question because free incentives
are big pull factors for magazines and finding the best match
for my target audience. This would pull in a similar audience
and really help with sales. From looking at these results, the
most obvious pick would be tickets to live shows which had
16 answering this, however this would not really work
because tickets can be expensive and could decrease
revenue unless done in a competition format, however only
4 people wanted competitions. The best one to do would be
posters for bands and artists because this is a cheap way to
get across to a mass audience, and could be given to
everyone.
If "competitions", what would you like to win?
Chance to win tickets to a gig
CD's music equipment
16. Q14: How much would you pay for a
magazine?
This question helped me find an appropriate price for the
music magazine for my target audience, therefore I can
price it at a price that they will buy it for. My results
conclude that the best price for my audience would be
around £3 because 19 people chose “£3-£4” and 9 people
chose “£1-£2”. I would keep my price around £3 because it a
good median and no one wanted to pay more than this with
0 people choosing “£5-6” as an option. I thought I would
reach this conclusion because it was the initial price which I
wanted to choose and because I purchase magazines and this
area is a common price range, therefore I am happy that I
could clarify this with an audience I would like to appeal to.
Less Than £1, 2
£1-£2, 9
£3-£4, 19
£5-£6, 0
17. Q15: How often do you read music news
publications?
I decided to include this question to give me an idea of if my
audience reads news related to music, as this would help me
in recognising whether they have knowledge on the format
of magazines or news website, therefore helping me
understand why they chose their previous answers. From my
findings, only 3 of my questionnaire participants chose
“Never”, whereas 16 chose “sometimes” meaning the
participants had some knowledge of the format of music
magazines. This will give me a good idea of what to include
in terms of articles and the magazine in general.
Never, 3
Sometimes, 16
Frequently, 9
Everyday, 2
