Regional Magazines

Use of cohesive marketing

Convergence

Regional magazines are paper magazines, however, as shown in my research and textual analysis, they often use convergence in order to promote and allow their product to be viewed in other forms. A general convention of regional magazines is that they usually have a virtual version of the magazine so that it can reach a wider audience. They may also use social media sites and applications to achieve a larger audience without the use of advertising, which would cost too much money. The reason that the majority of magazines like these do not have enough money is because they are free to pick up, meaning that the only money they receive is from companies that pay to advertise within the magazine.

Synergy

For a regional magazine, the use of synergy is rare, the main form of synergy that we see most often with these is subsidisation. This is because companies pay to advertise within the magazine, however, this does not work the other way round as the magazine is not promoted through the advertising of that company. This is due to the fact that regional magazines do not use media synergy as they simple can not afford it. The use of this kind of synergy is usually seen amongst larger corporations such as the example given before about McDonald’s and Disney Pixar.

Branding & Brand image

They create branding and brand association in one example through the use of their masthead. Their masthead and company name, is their equivalent of a company logo, so the colour, font and typeface always remains the same. This means that when this name is seen, it is associated with the magazine and works as its title. Also, the use of language and typeface that is seen throughout the, is also brand image because it is something that is associated with that particular brand and its style.

360° Branding

The regional magazines use 360° branding in a similar way that they use brand identity. This is by ensuring that their company name or masthead works as their company logo. This means that all of their media platforms, you can see this particular image which we then associate with the brand. On their website, Facebook, social media and their magazines, this logo can be seen which creates 306° branding because it is being presented at all points of consumer contact.

Going forward…

From this research I have decided to take forward the idea of 360° branding to ensure that all of my products, including ancillary's are all following a particular style and even hold the same logo or masthead tat can easily be associated and identified with that magazine. This also means that I will have to look into how I use branding and brand identity to create an image that can easily be associated with the brand. I will then look at convergence and the use of synergy when promoting the products. This will mean having to look at how I could use cross media convergence if it was to be a real product.