AICE Media Studies Blog

As distribution has moved into the digital world it much easier for companies such as ESPN to provide a variety of content to their readers. For example they can now supply videos and scores with few simple clicks. The score portion of this means that the website needs to constantly updated. This is something that could not be possible using the traditional distribution system. In addition to updating scores the digital distribution system allows articles to updated and corrected at any point in time. This means that a magazine can post a story as soon as it hits. Through the website articles can be accessed on the home page. If you would like browse article by sports then you have that option as well. You can also login to the website which is a feature that would not be possible in print.

Sports illustrated distributes its content much differently digitally. In the physical form sports illustrated divides their magazines by sport but on the website everything is all together. They also provide additional content. For example they have a section covering the Olympics which is not content they have a designated magazine for. Another example is the scores and links to buy tickets located at the top of the page. This means that the website is updated very often. It also means that sports illustrated is receiving additional revenue for advertising those games. With the use of the website they are able to keep very updated scores and ranks on all sorts of teams and effectively convey them to the public. 

Due to feedback that I received at the midterm submission I shifted some things around in my flat plan. For example I had to make Senior Spotlight a feature article and I changed the topic of my feature article form the Basics of Winter Training to Getting Back on the Water.  

Distribution is the way a product travels from the producer to the consumer. A magazine can be distributed in several different ways. Through subscriptions, in stores or online. There are two ways to distribute said magazine, either through the traditional model, which involves three levels or direct distribution where the middle man is eliminated. The magazine is created by a company or a producer it is than transferred to a wholesaler and finally to the retailer.  For example South Florida Premium Distribution, is a Florida based company who works as the wholesaler . They work to increase your circulation number and thus increase your revenue  because the greater the circulation number the more you can charge for adds. There are two ways you can make a profit off of a magazine, to either charge for adds or you can charge consumers to buy the product. In our case we have decided to do both but make the magazine very cheap. In this way there will not be as much stress to keep ...

The article revisions included adding a page branding (SOFLOSPORTS) to the top left or right of each page. It is underlined in the same green  found on  the cover page and table contents   In addition I needed to justify my columns and add one more because the standard number of columns is 4.  I also took more photos at the Sarasota Invitational Regatta to add to the variety in my article.  In terms of the content of my article, I pretty much started from scratch and changed my topic slightly. This is because I could take more relevant pictures to the new article topic. 

There are many branches but any of the ones that involve sports correspond with our target audience.  To start off marketing, sports illustrated is a brand name. This allows the team at sports illustrated to expand on this and use it to your advantage. In addition they use celebrity players to attract subscriptions. These celebrity players can then shout out their presence on the cover through social media in order to attract attention to the magazine. Finally Sports illustrated also partners with other name brands for marketing purposes. For instance, recently they have partnered with Gatorade to create a mini stand alone magazine called Fuel Illustrated. This moves gains attention from the public and sells subscriptions. Finally Sports illustrated has a large Social Media presence. We would use their idea of partnering with with a sports related product and use this to market our magazine even furthest.

ESPN also has a similar target audience. The magazine reaches out to sports fanatics and anyone of  any age that is interested in the latest sports news.  Due to the fact that ESPN is a large well known name brand, marketing is somewhat easier for them. The name ESPN pops up in conversation and there is no question to what is being talked about. Their marketing strategy starts there with the name. In the case of the magazine they use celebrity players on the cover to draw the audience in and purchase the magazine. People are more likely to buy a copy of the magazine if they already have a connection to the content that will be on the inside.  In the social media area of marketing ESPN is very present, they have Facebook, Instagram and twitter accounts where they have started the #gameface campaign. In addition when a celebrity player is featured on the cover more likely than not they will shout this fact out to attract their fan base to the magazine. On twitter they also ...

Men's Health begins marketing as soon as you go to their website, you are hit with a pop up that says "act now prices slashed" This immediately draws the audience in because they believe that they are receiving a deal and saving money and will thus be more likely to buy a subscription. Our Target audience is similar because both magazines involve fitness and target athletes. They are slightly different because men's health appeals to a slightly older,  geographically broader audience. They utilize social media to to market their product. Specifically Instagram and Facebook. This is definitely an aspect we can use for our magazine.   

Our Target Audience are athletes in the South Florida area. Specifically Athletes in high school. The target audience is expanded to former high school athletes (alumni of high schools in the South Florida area). In addition parents of student athletes can be targeted. The product appeals to any gender because each edition is based on a single sport that is gender neutral. The target audience should have at least a high school education but the product should appeal to all income levels as it is not an expensive product.

We completely redid the table of contents for our revision. The 1st reason for this being that the background picture is distracting from the text and in a real world scenario would be very expensive to print. When the picture was removed than there was much unwanted white space. Therefore instead of one picture we decided to have three, one for each article. After some trial and error designing a template we came up with the format below.  This way we could make the feature articles really stand out by separating them  and creating a synopsis rather than just bold their titles.  I also slimmed down the amount of articles i put in the table of contents. I went through and decided what would be most important in a real world  magazine.  Final Table of Contents  Table of Contents Template Original Table of Contents 

The 1st commercial that we analyzed was one for the NFL. It utilized well known football players and a well known scene from dirty dancing. These two concepts narrowed down the target audience to a somewhat older audience of 16-55 years of age. The use of well known football players targets a male audience but the dirty dancing reference pulls in a female one. This is due to the fact that dirty dancing is somewhat of a chick flick. The age of this movie also sets a targeted age.  The add used techniques such as humor and an allusion to a popular movie to pull the targeted audience in. This is something the group would utilize in our advertisements. The 2nd Commercial was one for the Winter Olympics focusing on Lindsey Vonn. This add specifically targeted females based the female star of the add. The background music, Alicia Key's "Girl on Fire" only adds to this. The add is a success story and shows footage of Lindsey getting injured and fighting to come back from this ...