1. Appealing to an Audience
Henry Buckham

2. Take a Break

Take a Break is a magazine aimed at
lower-middle class middle aged
women, in their 30s/40s but research
has shown that this magazine has a
reader base of 18 years old up to 80.
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Readers are more likely to own their
own home, be married and have
children.

Take a Break has a total of 12 million
copies published every year, with 1.2
copies sold each second. There is a
total of around 2.5 million readers,
with only 400,000 of these men.

Readers are shown to have read this
publication more thoroughly than
competitors and have strong reader
loyalty.

3. Target Audience


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Take a Break is more aimed at the female
demographic as evidenced by many of the
stories focusing on the subject of relationship
troubles and drama, with a lot of focus on
gossip. These stories follow a pattern of being
about children or men, something women can
relate to as mothers and married women are a
core demographic.
Often these stories rely on sensationalism
(exaggerating certain aspects of the story to
incite a feeling) in order to sell copies or
encourage people to read. This includes
emphasizing certain words or dominating more
of the page with the story.
There is also content that review the soap
operas on TV (shows that are mainly watched
by middle-old aged women) and a large
emphasis on the magazine’s own bingo game
(a game with no major demographic but has a
large housewife following)

4. Layout, Colours and Image

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Each Take a Break magazine is radically different in terms of
the styling/positioning of the front page’s content. While the
familiar red logo is retained each time in the top left, there are
multicoloured boxes of varying sizes and shapes that hold the
snippets from each story, The bright and vibrant colours help
to catch the reader’s eyes from a shelf.
Each copy features a large photograph of a middle aged
woman on the right hand side, representing the majority
reader base. This also be a ploy for women to feel more
comfortable buying the magazine, as opposed to something
with a photograph of a male.
Each issue also offers a lot of prizes and giveaway with
rewards that are tailored for middle aged people – cars,
shopping trips and holidays. These types of gifts would be
slightly out of place in a magazine tailored for younger people,
where the prizes offered are normally cosmetics, electronics or
video games.
The prizes offered are typically placed in the header bar,
where they can be easily seen thanks to their proximity of the
logo.

5. Page Layouts
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Each story of Take a Break is arranged in a typical tabloid format but
with coloured highlights that indicate where the text begins, as well
as ‘tilted’ photographs and stylized header that create a casual
atmosphere, as if the magazine was an informal notice board. This
contributes to the magazine’s overall casual ‘laid back’ approach for
its readers.
The captions included in stories are often extremely basic and
merely describe the image as seen below. This means that the
audience can understand the context of these images with ease
instead of trying to decipher culture references or complex
descriptions.