The focus group provided useful insights into the target audience's magazine reading habits and preferences. Key findings include: young women don't frequently buy magazines, so the magazine needs exciting content to encourage purchases; bright colors attract initial attention but preferences varied from online surveys; most were interested in a regional fashion/beauty magazine but including other topics could broaden appeal; interactive Q&As are appealing alongside long-form articles; and featuring global trends adapted for the local area could build trust while supporting small local brands through discounts. The group also felt a male model on the cover could draw attention by challenging conventions.

1. FOCUS GROUP
ANALYSIS

2. AN
OVERVIEW:

5. The first thing that we did was give a little introduction to our group
of volunteers about what the focus group was for and why we were
doing it, it was important that they all had a full understanding of
why we were doing what we were and what our aims and objectives
were.
We chose to discuss with a group of 7 but kept this with only girls,
we did this because our target audience is specifically females so we
felt it unnecessary to ask any questions to any males as they aren’t
who we are appealing our magazine for and therefore could
potentially have pointed us in the wrong direction for our final copy.
All of the people involved in the focus group are 17/18 which doesn’t
cover our entire demographic but they are the type of people we are
aiming our magazine at and we were limited in choice with who we
could ask to volunteer to help us.

6. My first question allowed me to understand the frequency of how often
these people were reading magazines, and if never, why not! This enabled
us to have an overview into how often our target market might want our
magazine to be published, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc. This question also
helped us understand if our target market would only be interested in
reading our magazine if it was free whilst they were in a waiting room or
somewhere similar or if they would specifically go out to purchase out
magazine. These results made us realise that young women don’t buy as
many magazines as we had previously believed and therefore it is essential
to make our magazine exciting in order for them to want to go out and
purchase it. We believe that the fact our magazine will be relevant to the
area that our audience live in will encourage them to go out and buy it
because they cam specifically relate to it and it is relevant to them and their
everyday lives. One of the reason they don’t currently go out and purchase
magazines as often could possibly be because there is nothing currently on
the market exactly like what we are going to offer and what they will be
looking for.

7. The next question made us realise that what attracted people most to a
magazine initially is its appearance! Which makes sense since this is the
first thing our audience would see when stood in a shop looking at all
the different magazine there already are, they can’t stand and read the
headlines and featured of articles of every single one to decide which
one they might want to purchase! One of our volunteers said that she
loves to see bright and bold colours in a magazine as this draws her
attention to it, this is controversial to the results of our online
questionnaire which makes us have to question what kind of colour
palette we will decide to go for. A few also agreed that incentives are a
big pull factor in purchasing magazines which tells us that we definitely
need to try and include some form of student discounts as our online
questionnaire gave us the exact same result about this. Advertising this
on the cover too would entice people into wanting to buy our magazine
because they are getting something out of it, not just a read.

8. The next question was extremely important because it
was about the physical topic of our magazine and
therefore it was important that they would be interested
in reading this. All of the girls except one said they
would definitely be interested in a regional fashion and
beauty magazine, it was interesting to have the result
that one wouldn’t be interested because that’s not the
type of thing she’s into and therefore would not benefit
from the magazine. This makes us question whether we
should include another feature in our magazine to
broaden our target audience and make the magazine
appeal to more than just the ‘girly girl’ type. It would be
extremely controversial and interesting to include a
sports feature into our magazine as this combination
doesn’t already exist on the market so this could be
something we may consider.

9. The next results were very much met in the middle as
there was an equal number of both of these results. A
Q&A can be more interesting as it is more interactive
and you can easily look and find the questions you
want to read the answer to rather than have to read a
whole article to find the one part you were interested
in. However, it can become repetitive and boring just
reading over questions and answers, we could
possibly consider including an article that features a
Q&A to appeal to all of our audience and also keep
our magazine fun, interesting and slightly different.

10. Our volunteers agreed that it could be interesting to go
against conventions and feature a male model on the front
of our cover. This would support the very current topic of
gender being neutral and trends not being explicit to either
men or women, both men and women being able to express
themselves freely. Doing this would make our magazine
interesting and draw attention to it for keeping up with and
supporting current topics in the news and media. So a man
on the front cover of a fashion and beauty magazine in full
glam could be very interesting and appealing to our
audience as they are a younger demographic and very much
support these controversial current topics.

11. This response was welcomed as it will mean we will be able to use
fashion and beauty tips on a global scale and therefore appeal to a
larger audience yet apply it to Leicester so that they can feel as
though they are able to dress the same as big celebrities featured in
the media and follow along with high fashion trends. Doing this
would also makes our audience feel as though they can trust our
magazine as they can see these types of trends in the current media
and see how they can get the exact same looks from our very own
high street stores. We could suggest where they buys these looks
from in and around Leicester by supporting smaller local brands and
boutiques rather than your typical big name brands like Topshop
and Urban Outfitters. As we will be promoting smaller local brands
this will keep our magazine to be locally focused but may also
allows us to team up with these companies to offer our readers
special discounts, this would appeal to them as they are a slightly
younger demographic and both our focus group and final
questionnaire told us that our audience would be more inclined to
read our magazine if there were certain incentives.