Analysing the target audience of a magazine: Marie Claire.

Marie Claire Magazine cover.

My analysis

 

To get a feel of different magazines and their individual content we were set a task to analyse the aspects that would present the target audience of a magazine cover and an inside article. I chose to analyse the front cover of Marie Claire.Marie Claire has a target audience of women who have a large interest in fashion, beauty and real life modern issues. The magazine attracts women aged 35-45.

The cover doesn’t give a large insight of the magazines inside content, which shows that the target audience may be weekly subscribers who frequently buy Marie Claire and therefore know and have a brief idea about what it usually contains.

The magazine’s cover doesn’t need to use large, bright fonts and shocking images of celebrities to draw in an audience. I think this shows the magazine may have a more professional approach and buyers may be ladies working in the fashion industry or even women who enjoy older fashion and are not interested in the gossip of celebrity life.

The cover uses subtle, relaxing colours such as a blue and white cloudy background and basic text in white which isn’t so ‘in your face’ in comparison to other fashion and gossip magazines. Again the font is more readable and polished instead of a bubbly, florescent coloured bubble writing which a large proportion of other fashion magazines use.  The main image on Marie Claire’s cover is of Nicole Riche, a well know celebrity dressed fashionably. The image is in no way shocking or revealing and although it may attract an audience to buy the magazine, it is for the right reasons, not because the image is revealing a celebrity gossip story but a more interesting read of her life and interest in fashion which is what the magazine focuses on.  Expanding on the fact that the image isn’t a typical ‘shocker’ celebrity picture makes me think the magazine is targeted at more of a middle age audience. This is because the magazine doesn’t feature main celebrity gossip which a younger teenager or women would be more interested in.

The language used on the magazine’s cover is also appropriate and suited well to the target audience of women ages 35-45. The use of ‘the reinvention of Nicole Riche’ shows that the magazine doesn’t use slang language or phrases that would be for a younger audience. I think this shows that the magazine has a modern but intelligible approach which is well suited to its audience.

In conclusion Marie Claire uses a variety of features that would attract its target audience. These include appropriate language, subtle colours and suitable but engaging images.