Appealing to an Audience

Henry Buckham

Take a Break Take a Break is a magazine aimed

at lower-middle class (C1C2) middle aged women, in their 30s/40s but research has shown that this magazine has a reader base of 18 years old up to 80.

Readers are more likely to own their own home, be married and have children.

Take a Break has a total of 12 million copies published every year, with 1.2 copies sold each second. There is a total of around 2.5 million readers, with only 400,000 of these men. This shows a very female core demographic.

Readers are shown to have read this publication more thoroughly than competitors and have strong reader loyalty.

This magazine uses a mainstream tabloid format and doesn’t appeal to anything niche. It is created with the idea in mind that readers will flick through this on their lunch break. As such it has a lot of short but dramatic stories about lifestyle and romance.

Target Audience

Take a Break is more aimed at the female demographic as evidenced by many of the stories focusing on the subject of relationship troubles and drama, with a lot of focus on gossip. These stories follow a pattern of being about children or men, something women can relate to as mothers and married women are a core demographic.

Often these stories rely on sensationalism (exaggerating certain aspects of the story to incite a feeling) in order to sell copies or encourage people to read. This includes emphasizing certain words or dominating more of the page with the story.

There is also content that review the soap operas on TV (shows that are mainly watched by middle-old aged women) and a large emphasis on the magazine’s own bingo game (a game with no major demographic but has a large housewife following)

Layout, Colours and Image Each Take a Break magazine is radically different in terms of the

styling/positioning of the front page’s content. While the familiar red logo is retained each time in the top left, there are multicoloured boxes of varying sizes and shapes that hold the snippets from each story, The bright and vibrant colours help to catch the reader’s eyes from a shelf.

Each copy features a large photograph of a middle aged woman on the right hand side, representing the majority reader base. This also be a ploy for women to feel more comfortable buying the magazine, as opposed to something with a photograph of a male.

Each issue also offers a lot of prizes and giveaway with rewards that are tailored for middle aged people, the target audience – cars, shopping trips and holidays. These types of gifts would be slightly out of place in a magazine tailored for younger people, where the prizes offered are normally cosmetics, electronics or video games.

The prizes offered are typically placed in the header bar, where they can be easily seen thanks to their proximity of the logo.

Page Layouts Each story of Take a Break is arranged in a

typical tabloid format but with coloured highlights that indicate where the text begins, as well as tilted photographs and stylized header that create a casual atmosphere, as if the magazine was an informal notice board. This contributes to the magazine’s overall casual ‘laid back’ approach for its readers.

Frequently in the middle of the columns, there are small red boxes that contain a notable quote from the story being told. This helps readers to get a basic gist if they are just scanning over. This fits with the target markets busy lifestyle, as they will likely have a big family to care for and as such only have a limited amount of time to settle down and read.

Often these articles will contain a multitude of different photos. They could consist of the event itself, the person in particular, or photos that help to set the story either by showing locations or people. These photos are unique I that some don’t appear to be professionally staged photos, but rather photos that could be taken by anyone – humble home or holiday photos. This allows readers to easily integrate and relate with the people who are sharing their stories.

The captions included in stories are often extremely basic and merely describe the image as seen below. This means that the audience can understand the context of these images with ease instead of trying to decipher culture references or complex descriptions.

Language The front covers of Take a Break rely heavily on informal

terms and British slang to entice it’s audience of middle aged women. Words that fall under these categories are typically associated with gossip, which is primarily what the magazine aims for with the type of stories it publishes. Words like ‘lad’ or ‘pals’ or ‘naughty’ create quite an informal atmosphere that could give the impression that the magazine is an area for women to share gossip and informal anecdotes, which could make buyers feel more comfortable purchasing. A lot of exclamation marks are used to highlight sensationalist aspects and to hype stories up.

Certain words are also capitalized or highlighted to show more significance. This can entice people if they are browsing because if certain ‘shocking’ words like wrecked or fury are highlighted, a potential reader may be enticed into wanting to know more about this story.

The highlighting of words also includes the aspect that certain shock words are in a different colour to the red of the text – for example, the word ‘SIX’ referring to a number of partners is in red, while the main body of text is in blue.

Font Take a Break uses a variety of sans-serif

fonts on the front cover to depict its logo and the story taglines. Serif fonts haven’t really been used as this is a modern day magazine focusing on present stories, and serif fonts would not really fit this, as they are quite traditional looking. Sans serif fonts are clear, bold and modern, meaning they are well suited for the purpose applied here.

Different colours are used to separate stories from one another and create a very colourful, eye catching front cover.

The choice of sans serif fonts also gives off a calm, friendly atmosphere about the magazine. This entices more buyers, specifically the middle aged female audience, as coupled with the bright colours this can create a very warm, inviting and eye catching combination.

Codes and Conventions Each issue of Take a Break includes the logo and headline in the top left.

This helps readers quickly identify the magazine by looking up here. Each issue features its most prominent stories on the cover. These are

arranged in an untidy yet stylish format with bright colours used throughout. Occasionally, certain words will be coloured differently to express their significance. Sometimes informal language will be used to keep with the magazine’s casual styling.

Take a Break always includes an offer of prizes to be won at the top – usually cash prizes, cars, or package bundles like trips or holidays. This is especially enticing for young-middle aged adults who are looking to chill out and hopefully win something in the process. The offer of a car as a prize shows the target audience – a car wouldn’t be a very good prize in a magazine for young people.

Each issue features a large, doctored photograph of a smiling mid-aged woman on the cover. This helps to promote the friendly, laid back image and to help female purchasers feel more confident about buying the magazine.

Publisher Interaction Take a Break encourages readers

themselves to send in their stories for print – many of the stories published are from their readers. There is a tab on their website that takes them directly to a contact page for stories.

The magazine has both a Facebook and Twitter account, in which fans and readers can contact the publishers of the magazine and voice their opinions, or chat with fellow fans. They will also be able to find updates and news on these sites, updated directly by the publishers. Out of the magazine’s 400,000 strong readership, there are just 29,000 people who like the mag’s Facebook page, and even less on the Twitter account, with just under 2,000 followers.

A section of their website is dedicated to publisher communication, offering e-mail addresses of many key members of staff.