Who would be the audience for your media product?


Ultimately, SKA and Two Tone music had a certain audience of whom dressed in a very authentic way, known as 'mods'. A stereotypical image of a mod is shown below.


  His hair is slicked back, and he has a number of tattoos. His is wearing Fred Perry with the buttons done to the top. 'Mods' would also wear braces, shades, trilby hats, and brogue shoes. A very vintage style.


In terms of demographics, the age rage is from 16-50, reaching that age simply due to the fact that SKA music was present within the 80's, and many older people still listen to it. The audience is predominantly christian, due to being patriots. 


The spoken language of the audience will be English, with many different british accents present throughout. Considering the fact that the earlier audiences in the 80's were very rebellious and obscene, not a large amount will be any higher than middle class- earning a low wage.


In terms of psychographics, the audience will have very negative opinions about the government, and unfortunately, other nationalities. Many people are still heavily influenced by what happened in the 80's, and will consider immigrants as stealing from them etc. Rudeboy promotes this is no way, shape, or form. The audience will be interested in going out on the weekends, taking drugs, and having sex- all typical 'lad' interests.


I believe that this audience would buy Rudeboy magazine due to how it addresses them, and covers everything to do with the music- such as clothes and events. Plus of course, Rudeboy is the only magazine of its kind, mainstream anyway. There wasn't a SKA magazine since the mid-80's, so there is no competition.


Ten different brands of which i would have in the magazine are as followed:

• Fred Perry clothing- it is an iconic british brand worn by all the mods in the 80's.
• Ben Sherman clothing- another iconic british brand, originating from the mod scene with harrington jackets and shirts.
• Gillette- every man needs to shave! the magazine is predominantly male therefore male brands such as this will be accepted into the magazine.
• Ebay/Amazon- due to many clothing stores not stocking certain garments from the 80's, these sites can make the audiences dream of a new trilby hat a reality.
• Fast food- If the audience want to go out every weekend and get drunk, i doubt they would mind eating fast food.
• Beer/other alcohol products- every working class man will want a drink.
• Red bull- a male product in itself, well known by men to drink it if they are working hard.
• Xbox- for the guys that are lazing around the house, living on the dole.
• Durex condoms- for the younger audience that will be getting into trouble on a friday night.

Institutions Evaluation

From the minute that i decided to create a SKA and Two Tone magazine, i was fully aware that when published, approaching IPC or BAUR would definitely not be the route to go down.

I made this decision after researching which size labels particular magazines are signed by. A popular magazine with a large fanbase such as NME is published by BAUER, who have strong contacts with WHSmith etc, whilst niche magazines such as my own would often decide to 'self publish'. A good example of a self published magazine is 'Clash', which is signed up to its own independant media firm, 'Clash Magazine Ltd'.Self publishing allows the magazine to have more editorial independance, instead of paying more attention to advertisers rather than the audience.

 I am aware that advertisements are fundamental for the growth and finance of my magazine, therefore i would definitely need to contact brands which i know my audience would be interested in; for example, Carslberg beer. As i don't want to waste page space, products from relatively distant companies will generally be cast aside. I need to create partnerships with strong, loyal businesses, of which my audience will benefit from- such as 'Fred Perry'. When relating back to my SKA and Two Tone audience mood board, i can finalize which products would be most suitable to accept into the magazine to increase overall profit.

Another reason why i decided that Rudeboy should be self published, is due to the fact that the corporate media companies may already produce a similar magazine. As far as i am aware, the SKA and Two Tone magazine is the only one in the market since the late 80's, yet magazines for 'mods' etc may be being produced.

On the other hand, a positive aspect of being signed with a large company such as BAUER, is the fact i need to consider Rudeboy's need for synergy. Being signed to a corporate media company will give Rudeboy the oppurtunity to become established, faster- and host sister products such as a radio station and website. Yet, when you consider the fact that a large company can 'pull the plug' on your magazine at an instant, it is debatable as to whether or not self publishing; along with worrying about the finances and oppurtunities at hand will be the correct choice. If Rudeboy is successful, and is signed up to IPC, IPC will take a large chunk of the profit. Whilst, if it is to be self published, all of the profits will return to myself, to put back into the magazine and establish the magazine that little bit further. Both options have a strong arguement, it is a very hard decision considering i cannot anticipate the success of the magazine.

Representation Evaluation

To the right, is Terry Hall. Terry Hall was the iconic lead singer of the SKA heavyweights, 'The Specials'. His posture, attitude, and dress sense was the perfect style model for me. I chose to wear black shades, a white shirt and black bow tie to connect with the SKA audience. The image I chose was the stereotypical view of a caucasian SKA sub-culture follower. I knew that if i looked similar to Terry Hall, i would definitely be promoting myself in the correct way.

To clarify, my chosen sub-culture to be focused on are the mod, SKA fans. I am aware of the fact that the magazine is for a very niche market, with not many people still being in the sub-culture after the 80's. Yet, with the first issue of the magazine, i wanted to not only launch a new ska product, but hopefully a new ska era, to compliment the lovely new government we are under now.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions are a custom, or tradition. They are a standard of presentation of which have been followed particularly in the magazine industry since it first began. Some magazines are more conventional than others, depending on the subject matter and audience.

The genre of my music magazine is 'Two tone' and 'SKA' music, a genre of which i thoroughly enjoy listening to, and the culture and style surrounding inspires me. I believe there is still a reasonably large fanbase for it. Also, I had the knowledge that no magazine focusing on this somewhat niche genre was presently in the market, therefore, no competition.

I was heavily influenced by NME magazine during the designing process, noticing that over the years, every single issue follows set conventions, and never make drastic changes. The commercial, bold approach to the design is very appealing to me, and combines perfectly with my chosen music genre. The predominant main colours for NME are red and black- with small amounts of yellow to grab the readers attention. I took this into account, therefore used one small dose of yellow on my magazine front cover, to promote a Fred Perry competition.

I decided not to add a large amount of colour on my magazine, as the whole contextual message sent with two tone music is that 'all you need is black and white', communicated through greyscale photos, and choice of clothing. Therefore, taking into account my target audiences interests- such as patriotism for Britain, I chose to use just blue and red throughout the whole magazine, with one exception. I used the same shades of each, so there wasn't a large variety of different shades scattered around the page. As yellow and red are the two most used colours in the magazine industry, I followed the conventions, and also used these two to highlight key features on the page.

As hundreds of other magazines, NME follow the basic convention of placing the magazine title in the top left of the page; as did Rudeboy. Also, my research exposed the fact that many magazines, for some reason, rotate the barcode 90 degrees in the bottom right of the page, to add more content space. Rudeboy followed this convention.

Many magazines create competitions, print free posters, and allow oppurtunities to win gifts, NME is a perfect example. I decided to increase customer loyalty, and offer a wide variety of these, to make readers continue buying Rudeboy after the first issue. Rudeboy offers free posters, a competition to win a fred perry limited edition t-shirt, and vouchers to collect a harmonica. I particularly think that the harmonica promotion will work the best, as 5 tokens need to be collected- printed in the forthcoming 4 issues. This increases customer loyalty.

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