Reasoning for the magazine

I got asked two questions recently that took me a while to actually answer. It really annoyed me a lot that it happened too because It was really out of the blue. I just expected to show my tutor my work, and get some good feedback on my work, but I guess this is a great way to check if the work itself is as solid as the aim.

1) Who is the audience?

I originally decided that I wanted to make a magazine about travel, for students. Then I was asked what kind of travel magazine it would be exactly, and to that I couldn't give a reply at the time. I obviously hadn't thought this through enough, and the fact I was tripping up at the first hurdle was obviously a sign that I need to consider this closer. Thinking about it then, I decided I wanted a magazine about "influencing the target audience to see particular sights". Is it necessarily for students still? To be honest, I was thinking that the audience doesn't have to be for just students, but a particular kind of person.

http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/Experiencers.shtml

These are the kind of people I believe my audience is. I see travel as more than just an experience though. It's about saturating yourself in the whole culture of the country, and nothing says that more than going to see a landmark, or a piece of art, or arcitecture.

The actual difference from my magazine, and other travel magazines, is that it talks to the audience at a personal, more emotional level. It's written by people who aren't actually going out and seeing these things for a living. I wanted to make it as believeable as possible and make it interesting for people to read.

On top of that, I wanted the magazine to really saturate the reader in the style of what is being talked about. For a Japanese related discussion, it'd have a very japanese style and taste. An piece of artwork would have some relation to the art style being talked about, and a magazine for a particular place would obviously focus strongly on the styles of the area.

So yeah, the audience is mainly Student Experiencers.

2) Who would publish this?

This question in particular had me stumped. The only thing I could come up with that kind of answers the question is an inflight magazine... That's a bit hard for students to obtain then. thinking about it, I think the only people who would consider publishing my magazine is a company that sees my point of view. The market for travel magazines needs new ideas for it to be encouraging and interesting. Due to the flexiblity of content also, it doesn't necessarily need to be marketed at the same level as a travel magazine. It means that it's placing itself on the shelf for students to buy and hopefully encourage them to actually get some idea on where they'd like to travel...and perhaps even have a relevant experience themselves. User Generated content is becoming a more profitable thing. Everyone wants their 5 minutes of fame, and I'm sure it'd have people actually wanting to submit their experiences.

Perhaps a newspaper like The Gaurdian would be the best place for it to appear? It's considered the most student orientated newspaper on the market, and I'm sure that a weekend release for it would be most appropriate. It would expand it's topics and perhaps even promote the newspaper with a new and fresh idea.