Magazine Cover Review

 

            As I viewed the printed magazines, I was astonished at the level of manipulation that companies can come up with. An article by Michael Scherer doubts that people are unable to read through a whole magazine with only words on it, and while this may be true, it seems that most magazine companies disagree.

            In the Oprah magazine, the cover was dominated by an image of Oprah holding up a dog while smiling. The background contained a large O on it as well. Celebrities were barely mentioned on the cover, with all the attention being focused on Oprah herself. It is clear that this magazine is specifically designed to bring all the attention onto Oprah herself, with everything else meant to be for the background. The readers of this magazine are clearly meant to treat her word as law, with her providing several ways to find happiness in life, as evident by a featured article called “Joy In Mourning.” Anyone who knows Oprah is most certainly being targeted for this magazine, and considering her large audience, this definitely helps make a large sum of money. The focus on Oprah herself also helps to secure a brand, as anyone who likes her should be bound to like her magazine. By keeping it so close to her, people would have a more difficult time separating her from her magazine.

Another magazine is Better Homes & Gardens. This magazine continually demonstrates how people can use everyday day items to be creative. All throughout the article we see uniquely designed pumpkins, decorations, and suburban houses, which leads me to believe the magazine’s target audience is mothers, as they are typically the people who would stay at home and have the time to do such creative endeavors. The articles contained within, while they do contain a fair bit of text, are heavily filled with images, to constantly fill your senses with something new. In addition to this, the magazine is likely very popular during times like Halloween, allowing for new people to find the magazines, and potentially become loyal followers of Better Homes & Gardens. The impact of this is to keep the attention of the readers, and to then focus that on what they could have, if only they made what the magazine suggests to them. This helps to secure customer loyalty, as they will continue to buy to ensure they are up to date with their designs.

While magazine covers and articles do tend to have large quantities of images in order to keep the reader's attention, certain magazines are more concerned with the information within the article, and so the images they have are reduced. In the magazine Motortrend, while there is various images of cars thrown throughout the cover and the featured articles, the vast majority of the articles contain primarily text. This is rare, as it is unlikely to build up a new audience when dealing with general topics, as nothing is there to actively engage someone new. This magazine, however, is a special interest magazine, so as a result of them aiming for a niche market, the magazine is able to focus more on the information than appealing to the general populace. This focus on a singular market helps to secure brand loyalty, as the people who are willing to buy this magazine are interested in the information, so they would not be concerned as much with the aesthetic of the magazine, therefore, the people who are subscribed are likely to remain that way to get the most information regarding cars as they can.

Motortrend may be concerned with actual information, but some magazines are nearly entirely filled with pictures, and pictures only. It’s like Michael Scherer’s article states, companies are concerned with grabbing your attention, with reaching out and hooking the reader. In the Southern Living magazine, the food issue to be specific, we can see that while there is text, the pages are nearly entirely filled with pictures of southern food. This magazine is clearly not interested in providing any facts, merely with grabbing your attention and getting you interest in southern food. Another example of this comes from the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated. This issue is not at all concerned with providing information on swimming, it is specifically designed to attract male readers by showing images of revealing women. All throughout the magazine, there are white backgrounds with young female swimsuit models. Magazines like these are clearly demonstrating that they believe readers are incapable of actually reading, and so they do their best to grab your attention with pictures. This, while arguably despicable, is clearly making these companies money, and it likely does help to attract new audiences, as they will not have to put a lot of brain power into these magazine articles.

Overall, my initial impression of the printed magazines was fascination, given that there were multiple methods that were used to secure brand loyalty, some that even appeared contradictory to one another. It was clear to me that each magazine, while containing similarities, had its own unique way to grab people’s attention. I would have to say that my likelihood of choosing this for my portfolio project is quite high, as I believe that the way magazines convince people to keep reading, to keep buying from them, would better suit my skill set than movie openings would, even if I personally enjoy those more.