IPC Case Study

IPC Media- Case Study

Information from www.ipcmedia.com-

IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisherWith more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events. We engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Our award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month.

Structure

IPC Media is committed to working in partnership with its consumers, advertisers, business partners and employees to deliver exceptional value, service, innovation and creativity.  

They have three publishing divisions; IPC Connect, IPC Inspire and IPC Southbank. IPC Connect, our mass market women's division comprises famous women's weeklies including Now, Chat and Woman; TV entertainment brands including What's on TV, TVTimes and TV & Satellite Week and the goodtoknow network. Our men's portfolio, IPC Inspire, has a wealth of leisure brands including Country Life, Horse & Hound, Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME. IPC Southbank is our upmarket women's division and comprises luxury fashion brands including Marie Claire and InStyle, lifestyle brands including woman&home and Essentials and home interest brands including Ideal Home, Livingetc and housetohome.

Sitting alongside the publishing divisions is IPC Advertising, which allows clients and agencies to purchase bespoke advertising solutions across all of our brands and across a variety of platforms, and Marketforce, the UK's leading newstrade sales and distribution company. 
IPC Media is a Time Warner Company. 
History of IPC
The history of IPC is a complicated situation. In 1963 the International Publishing Corporation Ltd was form following the merger of the UK's three leading magazine publishers- George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications- Who came together with the Mirror Group to form the International Publishing Corporations (IPC).IPC magazines was then formed 5 years later in 1968. 
Portfolio or titles
IPC Media have a range of magazine they produce all come under the headings of-

• Country Pursuits and Equestrians
• Fashion and Beauty 
• Home Interest
• Lifestyle
• Sports and Leisure
• Teen
• TV Entertainment
• Womans Weeklies
• Young Men and Music 

Current News 
IPC Media have recently secured a significant deal to promote new magazine brands, and have been promoting new media journalists. Nothing out of the ordinary for IPC.



I have found that over the years IPC have been associated with many types of magazines with different target audiences. They have been associated with every age range from young teens to middle age woman and men with different interests. They have always had certain magazines for both women and men, and over the years they have developed new magazines to widen the interests of those men and women. For example they have a teen magazine for young girls, and then they have a lifestyle magazine for middle age women. 

I believe that IPC would be an appropriate publisher for a new music magazine because they have a lot of experience when it comes to magazines. Furthermore, IPC have already created a music magazine which sells increasingly everyday. Also they have highly trained journalists to research and develope the magazine to suit the target audience they choose. 

I think that IPC would be able to publish any type of music magazine well, but i personally believe they will publish a music magazine with a genre of rock/metal or possible pop and R&B. I think they would choose these genres of music because it would mean their target audience would have a wider age range and they would have more research to create the magazine with. Furthermore, these genres are the most popular magazines brought, so even those they may have heavy competition, because of their ego, they would have a better chance of selling the magazine. 

On the other hand, even though IPC have a good ego, Bauer Media may be a better option to publish a new music magazine because their main focus on magazine is music, so they have a lot experience and they would know what is right for it. 

Task 3- Magazine analysis

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramification of the representations they offer?

Many magazines use certain techniques and conventions to appeal to there target market. For magazines aimed at teenage girls they use many techniques too, but are they using the wrong techniques to attract teen girls from the age of 11. 

On these 5 examples of magazines famous teen/ young girls have been used to attract teen girls to the magazine. This is important because teenage girls tend to look up to celebrities and they tend to follow them to find their own personalities. By using younger girls the audience is more likely to relate to them making them more interested in the magazine. By younger girls, this means, teenage girls that age from 16-20. Where the cover girls are wearing certain clothes and their image is portrayed in a certain way the audience are going to think it is right to dress that way and look that way, even at a young age. 

Furthermore the majority or the magazines have used the same colour themes or coloured fonts to attract there audience. Teen vogue has used more down toned colours that mix well and still manage to catch the readers eye. This also make the cover girl stand out more because it contrasts well altogether. As for the other magazines, they have all used the same colours to highlight the fonts in.

They have all used the colour pink to appeal to their target audience. Whether it is on the title or just general text on the cover to make the text stand out more they have used the colour pink as a stereotypical colour for teenage girls. By using this stereotypical colour it makes the magazine look innocent and young, also girly. This then creates a wider range for teenage girls, so instead of their target audience being 13-19, they end up attracting 11-12 years old at the same time. This is where the negativity comes into the magazines because it means younger girls are introduced into boys, dating and possibly sexual meaning before there time. 

On the other hand, even though this may have a negative effect on the audience it does mean that they do become more educated quickly, meaning that they are more likely to feel more aware of things as they get older, this would make them more mature as well, meaning they would be able to watch out for signs when getting older. 

The magazines advertise clothing on the cover to interest and intrigue their audience on what is 'hot and new' to wear. I believe that this is a negative thing to do because even though it may look harmless, the young girls are going to want to buy the clothes. Moreover, the clothes that are being advertised are starting to get more and more revealing as the weeks go on. Now, this happens because of the new fashion that is introduced but I don't think it is appropriate for the younger end of their target market because at that age they shouldn't be thinking about revealing certain parts of there body, they should be concentrating on more important things. I believe that it is wrong that young teenage girls walk around in some of the clothing that is advertised in magazine, I think it is setting a bad example and it is making the younger generation of girls more vulnerable to boys, especially if   they are mistaken for an older age. 

 The only positive thought I can take from this advertising 

is that they would be able to show their parents and their parents can decide if they are allowed it as a present possibly. 

In all 5 examples, they all use include information about boys and how to attract them. I feel this is unacceptable for a magazine that has a target market of 11-14 year old girls. I believe that young girls shouldn't have to feel the pressure of impressing boys until they are at least 15 possible even 16 because they are more mature then and it means that they can take control of the situation if they don't like that is going on. Also it means where they are more mature they know what they are getting themselves into, where as younger girls won't understand what is going on. 

I think these kind of articles should only be available to girl no younger than 15 because otherwise things get complicated and girls start to feel the pressure of impressions at a younger age and also it could portray  the wrong message that it is right at a young age. 

  

  When magazine publishers are producing magazine articles and designs they need to think about what they are putting in the magazine and whether it is acceptable for their target market age range. I think that publishers should take responsibility for what the effects that teenage girls experience from these magazines because at the end of the day they should be more careful with appropriation. On the other hand, even though the magazine publishers are responsible for what is included in the magazine and what is shown on the front cover designs, I also believe that it is the parents responsibility at the same time to make sure that their children are reading appropriate materials and that they are not being exposed to the wrong things. If the parents agree for the children to read the magazines then they are giving permission for them to go through the effects the publishers may have intended. So I believe it is 50/50 between the magazine publishers responsibility and the parents responsibility to make sure that teenage girls aren't effected too much. 

If I was given the chance to change parts of the magazine covers I would change the colours maybe, to look more mature, almost like the Teen Vogue magazine at the top because it doesn't give of a complete young teen girl feel where as the others do. By changing the colour scheme it would mean the younger end of the age range would possibly stray away from buying it which would mean the articles involved would be more sufficient to the age range as it may increase to 15-20 years old.

Magazine and Audience (Part 2)

 

Analysis 

This magazine is named Rock Sound, and it is a music magazine. I believe their target audience is teenagers and possibly young adults. I think this because of the san serif fonts that have been used which makes it bold and informal. Also where it is a music magazine it has used the famous rock band Paramore as the main image on the front cover. This will attract their audience because they are so popular. Furthermore to narrow down the target audience I believe this magazine has been aimed at teenage/young adult females. This shows because of the saturated colours of pink that have been used to border the magazine and to highlight certain words. Pink is known to be a stereotypical colour for girls which would prove that this magazine is trying to attract female readers more. Moreover, the main cover line "Access All Areas Paramore" this pulls the reader in and interests them more in the content as they could want to know all the gossip about the popular band. This has also used a san serif font meaning it is bold and bright enough for potential readers to see from a distance. This is helped by the contrasting colours from the main image making the text stand out more. 

The magazine cover has used advertisements to boost its status and to interest the reader in buying the magazine. Also the advertisement has been highlighted in a pink background and the font is in yellow, this enhances the advertisements because the colours clash making it more brighter for the reader. These adverts have been highlighted like this as they are competitions so by buying the magazine the reader will hopefully apply for the competition and then the magazine may receive more money.

The magazine has used plugs to show what else is available in the magazine. This attracts the readers eye and interests them in buying it more, especially if they understand what they are buying. 

The colour scheme works well with the piece as it is bold and bright, it easily interests the audience, as they will want to know why it is so bright. Although the colour is shocking pink, it doesn't necessarly mean that the magazine is aimed just at girls. I think it is aimed at both genders because even though it is pink, the brightness and the flouresence of it makes it more attractive to the target market because they like shocking flouresent colours. I believe that by using the shock colours plus all the images and compact text, it has appealed well to its audience and can easily attract them without fail.

Magazine and Audiences

Glossary Of Terminology

Barcode- 
Used to scan when someone is buying the magazine.

Burst Advertising- 
This is were an advertisement is aimed for a certain type of the year and is only used at that certain time of the year.

Cover lines- 
Information about major articles given on the front page of a magazine.

Content- 
This means what the magazine has and what can be found inside it. 

Date line- 
This is the date of when the magazine was published. 

Drip Advertising- 
This comes after 'Burst advertising' this means keeping up the awareness of a certain product

Left Third- 
This is the most important information side. The left side is used to attract potential readers                    
as we read left to right. 

Master head- 
This is the title of the magazine, it shows the purpose and shows what kind of audience it is for.  

Main Image- 
This is a large image usually placed in the middle of the page to attract the readers eye. 

Pull Quote-
A certain word or phrase from an article in the magazine that has been placed on the front page to interest potential readers.

Puff- 
This is a word or a phrase which is used on the front of a magazine to boost the status. 

Plug- 
Information about the content of the magazine given on the front cover.

Price-
This is the amount of money that the magazine costs, it is normally placed under the master head or the date line.

San Serif Font- 
This is where a font doesn't have any ascending or descending tails to make it look more bold.

Serif Font- 
This is where a font has ascending or descending tails to make it look more elegant. 

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