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vibe magazine analysis

Vibe magazine

Introduction
Vibe is an American based magazine targeted young male and female readers who have an interest in urban and hip hop cultures with artists such as Snoop Gog, Eminem, Michael Jackson and Lil Wayne and Mariah Carey. The magazine is published once every 2-3 months and can only be bought as a subscription (minimum of 1 year) which would cost the customer only $9.95 customers can also sign up to a 2 year subscription with 12 issues included.
            Institution
            The magazine is made by a famous American music conductor, record producer, film composer and television producer called Quincy Jones. It shut down in Summer 2009 but then was invested by Intermedia partners, a firm based in New York City which focuses on helping the company and then to grow the business. Intermedia Partners also owns Cine Latino a Spanish leading cable movie channel, Control room which is a leading digital producer and distributor of five live music performance acts. As well as them they own lots of other media and TV channel including Intermedia outdoors Inc., The sportsman Channel, Universal Sports, Uptown Media Group and Wapa- Intermedia Espanol Holdings. Vibe is a commercial magazine that just sells that media product for profit and to make money, Intermedia Producer have a big portfolio with lots of other media companies they have bought and improved, so they have used synergy, using other companies that Intermedia partners own they can advertise Vibe magazine form these TV and music channels. Due to Intermedia partners having an investment in the magazine they have advertised in world-wide in places like Spain where they have also got investments in Cine Latino so they can advertise it free as well. I havent found any evidence on them advertising on control room but again they have the investment to be able to advertise it freely and with the amount it distributes it could be quite successful. Advertising Vibe on companies they have invested in would be very beneficial because it gives them really good publicity but also they save huge amounts of money because they dont have to pay for advertising which is really expensive.  As you can see the print screen is of some of the companies advertised on vibe some of which are owned by Intermedia partners.
            Target audience
            The target audience for this magazine is for more a younger audience but it also appeals to people who are interested in the hip hop, urban music. The intended age group for this magazine is eighteen to thirty-four as stated on the website.  Vibe is also aimed at both genders so it's target audience is quite big which would potentially be much better for the magazine and company as they are attracting people on a much wider scale. I feel that the magazine could be aimed at more people from a poorer background in America that seem to be much more involved with hip hop and the different artists they have in the magazine, however there are still a lot of other people from different backgrounds that could find this magazine appealing. The socio economic category would be c1, c2, D and E.  Profile information on the website which said:
-Over 19million users per month and for psychographics it aimed at were for aspirers (people who wanted to succeed)

Textural Analysis

                The masthead is at the top of the magazine and is in bright red with different tints on a white/grey background which makes the name of the magazine easily identified, also the color for the masthead is quite a mixed sex color so appeals to both genders.   The primary image is of Eminem a very famous rapper from America, the photo is taken with him crossing his arms to make him look stronger and is pushing out his muscles with his hands to make me look tougher. The anchorage reads "Eminem comes clean" in big bold red letter allowing the reader to know what the primary lead is.  The unique selling point is the story about Eminem and how he claims he almost died due to drugs, they make the USP really stand out by first putting Eminem on the front and then bits of the writing which is associated with him including some of the drugs his been doing which could appeal to the reader so they would want to continue reading to find out more. They also make the font much bolder which stands out more to grab the reader to the most important story.  The camera shot is a medium shot Eminem this way the reader can easily see his face and realize it's someone that might appeal to them, they also use mode of address to make him look like his staring at the reader which could be used to persuade the customer to buy the magazine. The house style Vibe uses is very simple but also very effective the three main colors are red, grey and black. I feel that the black and grey are very neutral and quite plain boring colors and then they have used the red to emphasize the more important bits and to make it stand out from the other text, again the house styles they have used are mixed sex and neutral colors attracting both genders and getting more readers or a bigger range because it appeals to more people. They didn
t use any secondary images but they do use secondary leads around the main photo to try and tell the reader what other things there are in the magazine. The font is very simple and really easy to see. The language used on the front cover and throughout the whole magazine is very informal; they have used the word swagga which is quite a street slang word which could show us that the magazine is more appealing to that target audience.  In the magazine they have a couple of interviews with Usher and also Eminem, they also have a table of the best rappers, and some news on various other artists like T.I, Lil Wayne, and Jay Z etc. There is a huge section on new songs artists have released and some information about the song. There are several different sections in the magazine which are split up into News, Culture, Photos, Movies, music and blogs.  This helps the purpose as it is made to inform and entertain so the more sections with information will achieve this purpose.

Digital technology
                The magazine makes very good use of digital technology; it has a fully functional and interactive website with lots of information about upcoming magazines, subscriptions and all up to date news on songs and artists etc. On the website the user can click on different sections: news, music, movies/TV, photos, Vixen, Videos of Blogs, culture. When the website is accessed a video of the latest interview, latest news or an advert starts playing, also a slide show of pictures about some of the stories they are writing about.  There are also lots of different links on the side advertising other things on the website or other companies, some of which are other companies that Intermedia partners invested in so they advertise vibe on other companies and then advertise them on vibe so they each all have an equal share. There are still other companies which have advertised on the magazine
                The print screen below the home page is an example of one of the top stories they offer, as you can see they show lots information about the topic, but as well show lots of different photos about the person in the example Lil Wayne and about getting out in prison. There are much more top rated topic that readers can comment and view and also other stories that may not be as important but can still be accessed and read.
                The magazine advertises other website in which you can download latest songs, albums or other things from before a video is watched there is a short clip of an advert from another company that wants to advertise itself E.g. HTC.com to buy the newest HTC.

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