AS level Creative Critical Reflections 2.
- alexandru-danielch
- Oct 9, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 7, 2024
Question 2: "How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?"
I would like to reflect on this question by writing down my thoughts in an essay format, then presenting my ideas in a PPT and a Html as a creative outlet, which you can see at the end of the post.
· Engaging with an audience is one of the key subjects when you wish to grow your product and have a significant base of buyers. As a first step in achieving my goal with the project I had to have a clear view of my targeted audience: I decided that “Go Green” magazine should be in the attention of both young and elderly people based on its widespread message and content. Based on my magazine’s content I consider it a realistic target to reach a variety of people with my topics presented. In my opinion everybody should be interested in sustainability, conservation, and ecology nowadays if we have only the Earth to live on – at least for the moment. About 80% of the population seems to be concerned with environmental and sustainability matters.
I decided at the beginning of my project that my magazine called “Go Green” to be a locally focused because I wanted to highlight to my hometown inhabitants that they have the possibility to be part of some great initiatives provided by the local ecological NGOs. So primarily my targeted audience was Targu-Mures and the local citizens without any restraints regarding age, gender, or employment. This fact made engaging with the audience easy and difficult at the same time. I had to come up with not one but at least two strategies of approach from the start if I wanted to interact with such a large range of people. Târgu-Mures has about 120,000 inhabitants with another 20-30,000 living in the suburbs.
For reaching the young audience I consider important to have an online version of the magazine. To enhance my project’s presence on the web I created an Instagram account, with a large range of pictures I took during the creation process, and sneak peaks into the upcoming issues. Creating a YouTube account for the magazine would be a great way of advertising and it would be easy to access for young people used with the YouTube channel as potential subscribers or buyers. This way I could keep up the interest for upcoming issues of the magazine with Q&A sessions or story polls, voting sessions for favorite topics.
Furthermore, I could create an email subscription-based newsletter with some weekly content about upcoming issues, contents or share stories of the ecological NGOs activities.
For the elderly audience I am considering creating a Facebook account, because in my opinion this segment of the targeted audience is much more present on this platform. Here I could present stories about the “making of” the upcoming issues of the magazine or disseminate reference of the NGOs activities and their presence in the mass-media. Also, it would be useful to engage with this segment for the citizens with a printed version of the magazine (In my opinion they would like to read a printed magazine) but in this case I will have to have a smart and creative approach towards the advertisement and distribution of Go Green magazine, as the print industry is more costly than the online one. That’s why after being acquainted with the publication through a couple of printed issues, a part of this audience could be encouraged to migrate towards the online versions of the magazine also. (It would be a much more cost-effective and ecological approach also by not consuming a large quantity of paper.)
· Advertisement, promotion, and distribution are all related to engaging and interacting with the targeted audience for the goal of increasing the number of people who can be reached with the magazine. A lot of advertising can be done through the above-mentioned channels, because many of them have features that allow you to sponsor the posts to reach a higher number of readers. However, there are additional ways to get publicity. I think the fact, that I developed a good working relationship with both interviewed NGOs allowed me to ask for their help in advertising Go Green magazine. They agreed to link my online issues to their website’s press and media topic and this way I can reach their regular readers with my magazine.
Although this is a stable and interested public, it is not enough for the success of the magazine nor for my purpose of writing it: I’d like to be read by all those citizens who are interested in the subject but not acquainted with sustainable lifestyle or wildlife protection. To reach them I needed a backup plan – I aspire to reach out to the young audience via school newspapers or newsletters, sending the online link of my project to the editors, asking them to endorse it for their readers. I would also like to ask the two ladies whom I interviewed in the magazine to act as ambassadors for my work in Targu - Mures. The language of the magazine now is English, but I also plan to make translations to Romanian and Hungarian languages for those who aren’t fluent in English but are interested in ecology. (The fact that I speak both languages is an advantage).
My main idea regarding the distribution of the printed version of the magazine would be through a specific Targu-Mures initiative called “Local Farmer’s Market” which is a monthly fair for those who are interested in buying local, ecologically grown healthy food. I would like to distribute the printed Go Green issues there.
Regarding the price of the printed version, I’m thinking that 15 lei would be appropriate (about 3 euros). I researched other magazines and got an idea of the average prices and I consider this price to be fair and justifiable for my magazine. There will also be the subscription model which would be priced at 100 lei per year. These prices are affordable for most people included within the target audience and would generously cover the production costs. For the online version a subscription model will be implemented with a cost of 75 lei per year.
As for the future I’m already searching to collaborate with other ecology oriented local businesses so I can get them a better exposure on my hometown media platforms.
You can view the answers to the question also in a presentation linked below:
I also made a video about this topic:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZJQ5WFcpuSr0ub4QaG9Jeykh_ao-G_hs/view?usp=sharing









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