Create a proposal and pitch for a media product (U21: P2, U3: P1, P2, M1)

Learning outcome 1 (Unit 3) - Be able to create a proposal with sample materials for an original media product to a client brief (P1 and P2 and M1)

Learning outcome 2 (Unit 21) - Be able to create a proposal and pitch for an original media product based on a given brief (P2)

Purpose:

The purpose of the magazine is to fit the clients brief. To do this I will make sure I cover all explicit and try to cover all implicit requirements I identified from the brief. My idea for the magazine is to focus on the artists who perform a rap style of music. This will include artists from sub-genres such as Grime, Drum and bass and Garage. The focus on of the magazine is to allow readers to further understand the artists past and how they got to the place they are today so therefore I will include lots of question and answers inside the magazine. This links to the brief because, an implicit requirement was to focus on the vibrant music scene developing in North London, Grime and other genres are popular in North London which makes me aware of potential target audiences. Another purpose of the magazine is to grow over the future and develop into the biggest rap style magazine in North London and England as a whole. This will be done through producing editions regularly to keep fans engaged, Working with famous artists to bring attention from new readers and constant advertisement in order to make sure our brand awareness is higher than other competitors. Ultimately my magazine will aim to entertain readers and promote artists from North London. It will also inform them about upcoming tours/gigs and any exclusives.

Form:

For the form of the magazine I chose to create an A4 sized magazine. This is so that editions can have captivating front pages that readers can be drawn to when for example walking past the newspaper/magazine stand. This will give the magazine the best chance of growing so that new readers can be drawn in and further increase our popularity. I believe having the magazine based on rap artists, instead of artists in one genre of music, will allow for each edition to be packed with interesting and engaging articles and pictures. This therefore means that the magazines number of pages can be high but in order to give the magazine the best chances of gaining a loyal readership and achieve our goal of growth as quickly as possible I will spread the content out across different editions which means the reader will have to buy more editions to see the content they want. Also due to the fact that the magazine will be weekly I will set my number of pages at around 45 pages per edition. The type of paper I will use will be silk coated paper. Silk coated paper has a smooth silky coating, leaving it smooth to the touch but without the shine of glass paper. This is beneficial because it will mean that the magazine has a smooth look which will make the front cover more captivating for the readers eyes and make the images stand out against other competitors in stores. Silk coated paper is considered to be high quality so therefore readers might associate my magazine with having a high quality which will be beneficial in order to increase brand awareness through recommendations from readers to friends and families. In regards to my online form I am going to set up a website for paying subscribers to use. An online subscription will cost £5 a month, However we will offer a years subscription to consumers to a cheaper price of £50. This is to entice readers to be loyal customers in order to achieve our goal of expansion and becoming a weekly magazine instead of a monthly. In order to advertise the website and the magazine one form of advertisement I will use is social media. I will create a facebook, twitter and instagram page to advertise to potential consumers.

Distribution:
In terms of distribution ideas, I have decided that the magazine will have monthly editions that will be produced as a paper copy to sell to stores and also an online subscription people can buy If it better suits them. This is because with the decline of print I believe having a strong online presence is essential in order to gain attention for my magazine. This is also supported by the choice of target audience because typically my target audience spend a lot of time online which would therefore make my online copies more accessible to them. The paper copies of the magazine will be mainly distributed in North London and surrounding areas in order to maintain the brief of focusing on the North London music scene.

Genre:

The genre of the magazine will be a rap artist based magazine. This means that each edition will be focused on different artists who are considered to be in the rap genre or sub-genres. I chose this idea because rap is a large genre with lots of different sub-genres including Grime, Drum and Bass and Drill - hopefully if the magazine is successful we can produce editions that focus on the many different sub genres. This means that because there are lots of different sub-genres there are lots of different artists my magazine can focus on. This gives the magazine a good fresh look with each edition and means that content will not need to be recycled in turn keeping readers interested and willing to be loyal customers and buy each edition. Additionally, Rap is hugely popular within North London and there is currently a gap in the market for this genre based magazine. This initially provides us with a USP.

Content:

One of the aims of my magazine and a theme I will use to attract artists into working with us is that it gives the artists a voice to express themselves and connect with their fans. This therefore will mean I will include content such as questions and answers from fans, Interviews with the artists and other industry professionals, advertisement for relevant businesses and products in order to gain a form of revenue, exclusive interviews with new up and coming rappers and many more. Due to my magazine being focused on rap artists as a whole it is important I include content from artists of all sizes for example by featuring smaller artists who are on their way up trying to gain a stake in the scene for example 5EB, 20SNOOP and SG.1 and also having big famous artists such as Drake, A$AP Rocky and AJ Tracey. I will also include a games section where I will feature games such as 50/50 questions and guess the tattoo challenges. This would help the magazine expand their target audience and appeal more to younger audiences due to the fun aspect of the magazine.

Target audience:

The primary target audience will be black males aged 18-35. This is because from my research the primary ethnicity of upcoming and popular rap artists are of this background. In terms of social class, we will aim to reach C1, C2, D & E which will be reflected in the price of £5 per month. There are a few reasons for this demographic. Firstly this type of target audience tend to have a lower disposable income and as a large amount of rap music originates from the streets, we want to match the target audience to the genre. If successful, we aim for this magazine to be circulated weekly at a lower price of £3. My magazine will appeal to my target audience because these demographics tend to be the most prominent fans of the rap genre so therefore would ensure the most success for my magazine by aiming it at these people.

In terms of a secondary audience, we want to ensure that the magazine is inclusive to all consumers. With this in mind it would target males and females of all ethnicities, races and classes. In terms of age we would want to encourage younger readers (15-17) however would have to be mindful of the content, language and imagery. Rap has a negative stereotype and the themes within lyrics tend to be quite mature, therefore our content would have to reflect this.

Resources and personnel:

Editor - Editor will be used for finalising the content, layout and other factors of the magazine.

Web coder - Used in order to set up and keep the online website up and running.

Designer - Used to design the pages of the magazine and co-ordinate style etc.

Location recce: - Used to find locations for the images that will be taken.

Photographer - Used to take the pictures that will feature in each edition.

Artists - The main focus of the magazine that are used to draw attention from consumers.

Computer - Used to design the magazine and touch up all the pictures taken. Also used to code and maintain the website

Camera - Used to take the photos that will draw the consumers attention.

Paper - Used to print the magazine on to send out to retailers.

Printers - Used to print the hard copies of the magazine to sell to consumers.

Tripod - To increase the quality of my pictures.

Marketing plan:

In order to promote the magazine I have chosen different marketing campaigns that will be ran before the launch of the magazine in order to increase awareness and captivate attention. The first marketing campaign we will run is by advertising the magazine on related websites. This would mean websites that are also rap based such as genius.com and hiphopdx.com will feature adverts of our magazine. This will be done as they are two websites that have a lot of consumers which means any advertisement will be seen a good amount and therefore spiking awareness up of the magazine in turn increasing the chances of a consumer buying the first edition. The second marketing plan we have is to get artists that feature in each edition to promote the magazine on their social media pages. Artists can generate a huge social media presence due to their high popularity which means that if a relatively famous artist is featured on the magazine and promotes their feature on their social media it will entice fans to purchase the edition and therefore increase our sales allowing us to reach our goals of becoming a weekly edition magazine.

Sample material:

Title of magazine and fonts:

When choosing the title of the magazine we had two objectives which were to pick something with a memorable and easy to pronounce name. This was important to us because we wanted to give the magazine the easiest chance to become a household name and a prominent part of the rap scene and even the wider music scene as a whole. With this in mind we decided to call our magazine “PACE”. Pace was chosen because it also has a lot of connotations in rap for example we liked that Pace also related to the “upcoming vibrant music scene” from the brief, due to its ‘fast pace growth’. This then also means something in itself to because of the quick pace we hope our magazine will grow. Along side this pace is also very important to artists and fans of the genre because a good pace to a song can determine how successful it is. When deciding the title other options we looking at were “recognise” due to it also having witty connotations to rap and also meeting our own requirements of it being memorable and easy to pronounce. However we decided “PACE” was the best option due to it having more connotations and also being a shorter name which left us more space to use on our front cover.

Font styles:

For my Title I wanted to chose a font that had a edgy and cool style to fit with the stereotype of people that listen to rap music, typically cool teenagers. I also wanted something that had a new style feel due to the upcoming and new music scene developing in North London especially. Therefore the style I chose was ‘Campus’. The name also adds that link between the title and relating to the target audience my magazine has of young adults who might be at a university or college.

For my body line I decided to use a font that was clear to read and also engaging to look at so that readers don’t turn to a heavily worded page and loose focus of where they are or feel as if the page is over complicated. Therefore the font I decided to use was “Lemon Milk”. The text also had a smooth feel to it which helped in its case as it made it clear to see and also match the young and easy feel the magazine would have.

Finally for my cover lines I decided to go for a font that wouldn’t take the attention away from the masthead or front cover pictures initially but would also stand out from the body line font I chose. Therefore I decided to use the font “Marvellous Sans”. This met the requirements because it is a thinner font than the mastheads but also because it will be bigger in size it will attract attention from readers which is essential in order to get them to read on.

Article Ideas:

In terms of the type of articles I would include in the magazine I want to give the readers a chance to better understand the artists they like and hear about topics such as reasonings for songs and lyrics, tips for song writing and producing and talking about relevant topics and issues in the rap scene for example. I will also include articles that give the artists the chance to talk directly to their fans about things they would want to express such as motivational speeches and stories about the artists come up to where they are today. Creating articles like this that create a pathway between the artist and reader to connect is important to the success of “PACE” because if I want to reach the goal of becoming weekly then developing loyal and returning customers will be important and because there is no other magazine that offers something like this it creates a USP which means consumers who want this kind of a thing will have to repeat purchase “PACE”.

Moodboard:

For my moodboard I decided to focus it on rap artists. Therefore I chose a variety of different artists both famous and successful and others who are still trying to make it in the industry. I also included a picture of London as that is the main area the magazine will be sold and also relates to the client brief of focusing on the vibrant North London music scene with artists such as SG.1.

Colour scheme:

For my colour scheme I have chosen to use a mix of Red and blue. This is because the two colours work well against each other and will allow the images and text on my front cover to stand out and be clearly seen against the background.

Competition:

In regards to the competitors my magazine will face there are no direct competition in the area that my magazine will face. This leaves a gap in the market for my magazine to fill which is beneficial when trying to gain a share in the market. However globally there are other large rap based magazines I might find competing with such as XXL and Hip-Hop. These magazines are already established and well known in the industry which therefore means taking away readers from them might be tricky. This therefore means that my USP will be very important to determine the overall success of my magazine.