Concept Refinement

 Concept Refinement 

Portfolio Project Concept Refinement 

Fall 2020 

CATEGORY	DETAILS
Film OR Magazine	Magazine
Genre	General lifestyle
Target Audience (Be specific)	Middle aged women from ages 40-60
What is your concept? (Be thorough & specific. Review the links on Blackboard)	A magazine with tips and tricks of how to achieve the dream lifestyle for a middle aged woman. We will provide articles about solving the problems these women may have and ads for beauty. Aside from just ads and articles, we could also include up to date fashion tips. We can use role models such as Oprah or Angelina Jolie because they are in the middle age, yet they are looking as young as 20. Our main point for this concept is to make these women feel young again as in this age they may feel “ too old for anything”.
How did you conceive the idea for this concept?	I was brainstorming unique magazine concepts that aren’t common and I realized I always see general magazines for young women but I never see general magazines for older, middle aged women.
What do you believe is unique about your concept?	Our concept is unique because, just like the general magazine for young women, we try to deal with the issues that middle aged women are facing and give tips to achieve their ideal life style.
Why do you believe this product will be of interest to your audience?	Most middle aged women are struggling with trying to feel young again. We would include in our magazine tips to reduce wrinkles or anti wrinkle cream adds. We would also include tips for fashion, children, and ways to give their husbands more attention. We researched that many divorces happen at this age as women are more focused on their jobs or children and the husband tends to feel bored or have thoughts of divorce, so we thought it was a good idea to include tips to prevent divorce.
FEEDBACK RECEIVED FROM PEERS	it’s a good concept but they are concerned for how we would gather our information since we don’t know the real issues of middle aged women.   Add more lifestyle  Focus on regular people and famous  Be careful about reputation  Build fan base up and make it more uplifting  More activities that they can enjoy  Subscription boxes  Maybe add magazines and sell them with subs boxes

 

After pitching my magazine concept, I was given some feedback by my classmates. One student said they he was concerned how we could gather our data since we are not middle-aged women and might not know any. We responded with saying we are surrounded by many middle-aged women such as teachers and our mothers. Some other feedback was mentioned such as adding more lifestyle. We will try to do that now instead of just including beauty tips since it is not the only problem the middle-aged women have. Another piece of feedback was to be careful about reputation and build up our fanbase. We will do so by relating our articles to these middle-aged women and provide satisfaction for them after viewing our magazine. A classmate also suggested to sell subscription boxes or sell the magazines along with the subscription boxes. We think that is a great idea and we may provide samples of products depending on the theme of the magazine of that month. 

Since in this generation, most people would go online to view these magazines, but we want to give the option of a digital and paper copy just in case someone prefers one over the other. After viewing the article from the website https://www.ovidbell.com/magazine-publishing-trends-for-2020-the-alliance-of-print-and-digital/ , I got inspired to do a custom bundling subscription “offering only those features the subscriber wants, such as video, special features, etc. “. I feel like that idea is a great idea to satisfy the subscribers as they are paying for everything they would want. When thinking about how I could fund for the magazine, I read the article from the website https://www.woodwing.com/en/blog/magazine-publishing-trends-for-2019, that shared a way many magazines would advertise their name. Their way is that they would “branch out into events to expose new people to their brand and to foster more loyalty among the existing audience” (Bezuidenhout). If that is a popular way to lure their audience, then I trust that it would be efficient. 

In the article “The Abundance, Joy, Beauty, Persistence, Power, and Potential of Independent Publishing”, I related to the editor “Camille T. Dungy” as her goal is to “stretch our ability to see beauty and potential in new places and ways”, because that is also the message I want to bring out. Although I am not a middle-aged woman, I wanted to try to make middle aged women feel like they the potential to do anything they want disregarding their age. I also related to Dawes, who is an editor of Prairie Schooner, as he said he has to “stay abreast of what is happening in the publishing sphere around the world”. I want to always be up to date on the current trend and include it in my magazine because I know many middle-aged women don’t know what the current trend is. I will apply this to the fashion portion of the magazine as well. I think keeping up with what is happening around the world is extremely important because it helps me figure out ways how to attract more readers. No one would want to read a magazine that isn't up to date with the trends.