The vocabulary used on the front cover and contents pages of sugar is also has a great effect on the audience who purchase this magazine. Words such as “sexy” “Glam” and “love” show that this magazine is targeted at females, as these are not the type of phrases you would expect to find on, for example, a racing magazine aimed at young men and teenage boys. The type of words and phrases used on T3 that help to define genre and audience are: “Game on” “Gadgets” and “Buyers Guide.” All of these relate to the genre a of the magazine and are written in grey and blue text to attract male readers. Then the target audience is really defined with uses of words like “fart” “cringiest” and “ bargains” show that this is not necessarily a very sophisticated magazine and although it does tackle some grown up issues it also has a very immature and lively side, which corresponds with the fact that teenage girls want to have a lot of fun and that this is one of their main priorities, so when they are choosing a magazine they will want something that will suit their lifestyles. The bright colours would show them straight away that this is a teen magazine and therefore will help them to clearly distinguish the genre and target audience.
The strap line of sugar makes it very clear what audience it is targeting, as it reads “Britain’s no1 teen mag.” Having a strap line like this obviously distinguishes straight away who the magazine is aimed at. The strapline on the front of T3 is similar as they are both under the masthead and they are both straight to the point, T3’s reading “Tomorrow’s technology today.”
The model used on this edition of Sugar magazine is Rachel Stevens. Using an image of a pop star on the front cover of a teen magazine attracts the audience in many way. One way is that Rachel Stevens produces the type of music that the audience of Sugar magazine would listen to and therefore fits in with the mode of address. As she probably has a lot of teenage fans who are female they would be the target audience of Sugar and the fact that there was an interview with Rachel Stevens would encourage them to buy the magazine if they were fans of her music. Though teenage girls don’t necessarily have to be fans of Rachel Stevens’ music to be influenced by this image of her on the magazine, as they may want to get her look and could presume that in buying sugar magazine they too could achieve her style. Rachel Stevens is also looking very confident and happy on the magazine cover and girls could find this an aspirational image and buy the magazine so they don’t only look as good as her but so that they feel as happy and confident in themselves as she does, this is a very important issue with teenagers who often link confidence with popularity, so there are a lot of messages in the choice of model for the front cover in the way that it defines genre and targets audience. The model on the cover of T3 is a very attractive women posing with a mobile phone in her hand, in T3 there are no write ups about this women and she is there only as a way to attract men into buying this magazine, but the fact that this is a technology mag is still clearly stated as she is holding the gadget. Although the models are not on the magazine for the same reason in the fact that the women on T3 is there to be attractive and Rachel Stevens is on Sugar to be more of an aspirational image, they both play a very important part of tying down the audience of each magazine.
The way that many of the articles featured inside sugar are mentioned on the front cover, in bright and bold fonts, helps to target the audience “Look Glam Feel Fabulous” is an article that sounds typical of a girl’s teenage magazine and would attract the audience as they would be lead into believing that if they read this article they would look good and feel fabulous, this works well with teenagers who are often more gullible when it comes to believing what they read. The way words such as “Exposed” and “Free” and names of celebrities such as “Jamelia” and “Mcfly” attract the reader by making a point out of crucial articles or features of the magazine that the target audience would probably find especially interesting. This is not a way of attracting the audience that is used in T3 and all the writing is written in the same font.
The contents pages of sugar are set out in an easy-to-read format, which would probably appeal to teenage girls who want a contents page where it is not hard to find out where in the magazine they should look for a particular article which interests them. There are lot of pictures used, such as one of Rachel Stevens, and page numbers in the corner. These are the main articles that the sugar editor probably suspects will be the most popular with the target audience and having the page numbers next to the large images makes these articles stand out and they are especially easy to find. Another way the contents has been made to help readers find certain articles a lot simpler is the way that the list of articles has been split up into 7 sections, which are entitled: Looks, You, Style, Comps, Celebs, Totty and Regulars. This would mean that if somebody who had never read sugar before was to pick it up in a newsagents and flick through, it would seem to be a magazine which covered all areas that a typical teenage girl would want to find in a magazine and so would be found very appealing to the target audience. Also similar slang and abbreviations are used throughout the contents page and the front cover, this is a typical technique used by many teenage magazines to help to distinguish the genre and top appeal to the audience who would probably use this kind of language. On the contents page there is also a minimised version of the front cover with arrows coming off the stories and page numbers so you can find the articles which got you to purchase the magazine straight away. The contents page in T3 also uses the technique of putting the page number in the corner of pictures associated with articles in the magazine, showing that this works for many genres and audiences. The contents are also split into sections but they are not as clear as the contents in sugar and are much more cramped, this may be because the readers of T3 magazine are more mature and there interests are more technical so it isn’t as important for the contents in their magazine to be very clearly set out.
There is a long editors letter in sugar which has it’s own page before the contents. This is written in a very informal and friendly manner. This style of writing would appeal to teenage girls, as it would be like receiving a letter from a friend rather than an editor of a magazine. The letter begins with “hey there” which gives a good example of the extremely informal style. It mentions the cover girl, Rachel Stevens and other articles included in this month’s edition. It also has a theme of sugar like the front cover and contents page, all three use pastel colours so that they maintain the theme and have a more consistent house style. There is no editorial letter included in T3, this could be because the concept of this magazine is not as friendly and as personal as the concept that Sugar readers would expect.
In sugar there is a two page article for a Ralph Lauren perfume. In the article there is a girl with a bright bikini on with the faint image of a teenage boy behind her, he is holding a surfboard and is stood in turquoise sea. The name of the product is printed in bold green letters above the image of the perfume bottle, all of the background is the turquoise sea.
In T3 there is an article for another magazine called “Bang” all the article shows is the image of a man with a guitar and the phrase “its only rock and roll” in the corner of the page there is a minimised image of the front cover of the magazine, the title is easily read so that the person viewing the advertisement can go out and actually buy the product.
Both articles would be probably attractive to the readers of each particular magazine, but probably more so for the article in sugar as most teenage girls would be influenced by the aspirational image of a girl who attracts male attention. Also T3 is only a gadget magazine so the readers do not necessarily have to be into rock and roll music so this advertisement may not be that successful.
The advertisements in both magazines reflect the genre of the two; this also affects the target audience, who would probably all be attracted to similar advertisements within magazines.
All in all I would say that Sugar magazine clearly defines its genre and targets its audience. It fits in well with other teenage magazines on the shelf and this is why it is such a popular choice. With the use of many combined techniques, including- choice of colour, choice of font, choice of model, layout, content and overall style, it is a magazine that appeals directly to teenage girls. I think that T3 also targets its audience well and although they use their techniques in very different ways they use similar ideas to help attract the specific audience to their magazine.
