Consumers Buying Behaviour Of Fashion Magazines

Vogue and GQ are the two fashion and lifestyle magazines which are published monthly. Vogue is published in 18 national and one regional edition by Conde Nast Publications. Vogue is most famous as a presenter of images of high fashion and high society. Vogue is giving the millions of women each month of the inspiration and challenge to see things in a different way both for themselves and the world. GQ which is mainly focusing on the men’s sector is focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on movies, health, food, sports, music, travel and books. It is published internationally in 17 countries and 12 different languages. It is the one which covers almost all the aspects of the males’ life.

In our research the comparison of two fashion magazines, we covered the some characteristics of Consumer Buying Behaviours i.e societal changes overtime, demographics, personality, social group influence and consumer relationship. We also carried out the Primary research in order to attain our research findings.

History (Societal Changes)

Vogue which is “the world’s most influential fashion magazine” was founded in the year 1892, by Arthur Baldwin Turnure. After his death the magazine was picked by Conde Nast who changed the magazine from a weekly to a biweekly. Vogue’s target audience appears to be mainly women and those who prefer to embrace fashion and culture as a lifestyle.

Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ) has been a leading voice in men’s magazines, covering men’s style and culture from fashion and politics to travel, entertainment, sports, technology and relationships. It all began in 1931, when Apparel Arts was founded as a men’s fashion magazine. In 1958, Apparel Arts was reborn as fashion supplement issued quarterly for Esquire subscribers and renamed Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Through the 1970s, Gentlemen’s Quarterly retained its concentration on men’s fashion and style. In 1983 Conde Nast purchased Gentlemen’s Quarterly and simplified the name to GQ.

The up and downs in the growth of both magazines from the time of their first published till date,

Vogue has several up and downs in every year but from 1990 it start growing rapidly.

In the beginning GQ was also facing difficulties in capturing the market but when it introduced for general public it start growing rapidly.

Magazine Covers, Cover Lines & Content

Over time, magazines covers have changed radically, and that change can be observed by following how magazines used cover lines. This article traces the history of magazine cover lines from early, bookish designs, through the emergence of the poster cover and its dominance, through the integration of type with art, to the proliferation of cover lines at the beginning of the 21st century.

In the beginning both magazines shows a characteristic poster cover. The stunning design dwarfs the rest of the cover, even the magazine’s name. The amazing illustration, the designer has utilized many of the methods that will be re-invented throughout the 20th century for integrating cover lines with cover art:

A large title with the model’s face overlapping it

A model in a (nearly) full body pose

A model in an unusual and expressive posture (rotated somewhat, spiralling down to the bottom cover line)

Cover lines on all sides of her, carefully positioned in relation to the model and the background (“The Amazing Fraud” is written across the beam of the sailboat, other lines appear against the sail)

THEN NOW

The images are no longer in the foreground. Cover lines appear in front of the cover models, covering significant parts of their images. We see these beautiful people through the cover lines that surround them, as if they were in the bushes and the bushes were made of words.

Vogue combines a modern mix of glamour, style and wit with a passionate flow of intelligent writing and cutting-edge photography. Whereas GQ is the pinnacle of the premium men’s lifestyle and covers style, culture, entertainment, health, sports, luxury and life.

As far as magazines are concern they also changes time to time the major changes come in their quality of the paper, printing, content etc.

Research methodology

The research methodology was divided into two stages which involve two sources for collecting the data in order to achieve the objective of our project.

1. Collecting data regarding the potential customers from the existing Magazines.

2. Collecting the primary data directly with the customer with the help of the interviews and questionnaire’s (Refer Annexure-1).

Research design

In this project multi stage sampling is used because the total population was too large and due to time constraint it was not practically possible to make a list of entire population. At first stage we have divided it into income wise and then further divided it into three factors which we target i.e. Fashion, Style and Cosmetics so that we can get correct and related information.

Sample design

Sampling Unit: Fashion Magazine Customers

Sampling Size: 15 potential customers

Sampling technique: multistage sampling

Sampling area: London

Contact Method: Personal Contacts.

Demographics & Segmentation:

It is a check to characteristic of Human population and also used in identification of gender, race, age, income, disability, mobility, educational attainment, home ownership, employment statue and location.

CLASSES IN DEMOGRAPHICS

SHOPPING ORIENTATION

VALUE, LIFESTYLE

CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND

SHOPPING ATTITUDE

LIFE STYLE:

This has been described as gaining the understanding of your customers.

STRENGTH:

Here are the strategies which the gq magazines uses to get the audience of their customers. The magazines consider age in publication of their magazines because their target audience are male with age 25-39 and gq magazine have desire for style. The success with style has always been the ethos around which gq was created, a provocative mix of the very best writing, strong visuals and an unrivalled sense of achievement, intelligence and irreverence, the ultimate urban men’s tips sheet. It’s the pinnacle of the premium men’s life style magazine market and covers style, culture, entertainment, tech, health, sport, luxury and life.

In vogue magazine it is a famous as a presenter of images of high fashion and high society. This publisher of the magazine also includes art, culture, politics and ideas to enhance the readers more on information.

At the front pages of the both magazines theirs are some icons of information displayed on it with the details of the stories in side, which means that the magazines are educating to the customers.

VOGUE MAGAZINE

AGE:-The age of the target audience is 25-54 and the 82% of the readers are female. Again the 65% of the reader are full time or part time workers and the 26% of the readers are in AB socioeconomic quintile. Final the average household income is AUB 84, 850.( Roy Morgan Research March 2009.)

READERSHIP:-348,000.

CIRCULATION:-50,752. (ABC statement June 2009)

GQ MAGAZINE

AGE:-The age of the target audience is 25-30 and the 73% of the readers are men, 63% are single.

INCOME:-The 65% of the readers had annual income of $50000 or greater and 25% had an annual income greater than $75000.

SEGMENTATION:

The vogue magazine implemented strategies which helps them to gain the customers by dividing their formats which are:-

Information seekers

Sensation seekers

Utilitarian consumers

Conspicuous consumer

It was also revealed that fashion lifestyle segment have a very stronger effect in the vogue magazine readers because in the world today an average person want to be informed and perceives products or services he is purchasing.

Personality

The specific qualities, attributes, traits, factors, and mannerism that distinguishes one individual from other individuals.

Vogue

Femininity

Sincerity

Sophistication

Need for cognition

Super ego

High dogmatism

Compliant individuals

Colour (Pink)

Vogue is targeting the female sector and in its most of its issues femininity is very clear. On the cover page of magazine they are using the female models with sublime makeover to attract its target market. The magazine is making every effort in order to create the sincerity among its customers. They make them feel as a part of the magazine group by introducing the brands and celebrities of the liking of its customers. As they are targeting the female sector so the sophistication is an important element in it. They are introducing more and more glamorous, charming and appealing objects in the magazine. Cognition is the development of information to knowledge. The act of cognition consists of representing and transforming information. This can be done by sensing something directly, or indirectly by reasoning. The magazine is realizing this need and they are including the advertisements that are more perceived by the target market. Still there is much more to do in it to further reach to the wants of the people they are targeting. The magazine readers are super ego people who do have their self beliefs and attitudes. They have the personality composed of their internalized ideals that they have acquired from their parents and from society they belong to. People they are targeting are high in dogmatism and prefer established products rather than new innovative ones. They feel they are comfortable with what they are used to. The people magazine is targeting are high compliant individuals who have lofty goals in their lives and wants to be prominent from all others they are part of. The magazine is using light colours like pink and sky blue etc. which give the feelings to be cool and are highly attractive for women and more demanding in their lifestyles.

GQ

Masculinity

Sincerity

Ruggedness

Product Personality

Ego

Low dogmatism

Aggressive individuals

Colour (Black & white)

GQ is focusing on the lifestyles of men so they are using more masculine attracted styles and products. There target market men are also very sincere towards the brand selection and products that are advertised in the magazine. They feel comfortable with what they get in the magazine. The target market is more rugged towards their approach for the products. They like aggressive styles and get more involved in these kinds of advertisements. The product personality mainly matches with the demands and likings of the men. The target market of GQ is egoistic and they feel themselves a part of the community if they are getting that what they want. They are in usual having low dogmatism so the people the magazine is targeting are closed minded persons generally prefer innovative products to traditional alternatives. They are normally the trend setters in their society. They want to try different and new things in order to get more attraction in a group they belong to. They are usually aggressive in nature and like to be prominent among others. They love to be more experimental in their ideas and approach towards the lifestyles. The GQ normally uses the colour combinations of black and white in order to show the aggressiveness in their styles and products.

Social groups

There is a difference when consumers make decisions of their perception as an individual and perception of themselves as a member of a group. Their purchase is affected by taking these factors into consideration. (Gary Charness Luca Rigotti Aldo Rustichini, 2005)

The motivation to be a part of the particular group depends upon how attractive the Reference group is. These Reference groups sometimes influence that what product is purchased regardless of its brand but on some occasions brand matters but not the decision that what product to buy. (John O’Shaughnessy, 1995)

Social groups are the communication network within the society. Sometimes the general communication within a society is so influential that it effects more than the proper and highly budgeted advertisements. (John O’Shaughnessy, 1995)

There are three reference group influences: informational, utilitarian and value expressive. Informational influence is when individual seeks information about various brands from association of professionals. Utilitarian is when he or she satisfies the expectations of fellow work associates and Value expressive influence is when individual feels that the purchase or use of a particular brand will enhance the image others have of him or her. GQ users are those who mostly have utilitarian influence and try to purchase those products which are preferred by the people they have the social interaction with. On the other hand Vogue target market has mostly Value expressive influence as they want to purchase the brand which they feel that will enhance the image the others have about them. So they feel that by using particular brand they will look as nice as the person advertising the brand is.

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According to some psychologists there is the existence of trio of needs. These needs can be summed within Maslow’s theory but considered as individually. These needs have the unique relevance to consumer motivation in a group. These are power, affiliation and achievement. These are ego, social and self actualization needs respectively. As both Vogue and GQ are targeting the upper middle class so these needs plays an important role in the behaviour of the individual to get influenced by the group they belong to. The target market of GQ is more of the field of professionals and they want to be different in their groups. So they carry expensive products and whenever they see some new innovative product they try to be the first to introduce in their group. Vogue users are mostly females and females are usually more sensitive in their approach towards fashion and style in the group they belong to. They are very much conscious about trying new things so they go for the products that are more attracting to them in a group they belong to.

Consumer relationship

Consumer Relations is all about satisfying, safeguarding, enhancing, monitoring, and being responsive towards consumers needs remain profitable.

Vogue and GQ are the living example of consumer relationship, since the day of their First Edition till date they never compromised on the factors of consumer relationship and due to which they retain their old consumers as well as attracting new customers, this has become possible because they are continuously taking feedback from their consumers and enhancing the quality in term of their contents and keeping it up to date according to their consumers needs.

This responsiveness towards consumers made these magazines successful in their own categories. The strong relationship of Vogue and GQ magazines with their consumers increases their growth in the market.

Data Analysis

The above chart shows that the income of 20% of the Vogue users is less than £50,000 while 45% of the magazine users fall under the income range of £100,000 and we found no user of vogue in our sample size whose income level is above £100,000. In case of GQ users most of the users have the income level around £100,000 or more.

The above graph inferences that mostly women’s (around 60 %) goes for Vogue magazines is because of the Fashion Trends, around 40 % prefer style and the rest 10 % purchase it to get latest update about the cosmetics and accessories.

This graph inference that mostly men’s (around 60 %) goes for GQ magazines is because of the Style, around 40 % prefer Fashion Trends and as this magazine is mostly targeting the male gender of the society, so people do not prefer it for cosmetics.

When we asked about the contents of the magazine such as brands, advertisements, articles etc. the majority of respondents replied in favour of it these magazines as shown in the above charts.

CONCLUSIONS AND FINDINGS

Since Fashion is continuously changing and market is increasing, people are purchasing Fashion magazines to get up to date with the current and upcoming Fashion and Style.

Questionnaire

Name: _________________________________________

Gender:

Male

Female

Occupation:

Business

Service

Student

Unemployed

What is your annual income? “£”

Less than 50,000

50,001 – 75,000

75,001 – 100,000

More than 100,001

Which Fashion Magazine do you prefer?

Vogue

GQ “Gentlemen Quarterly”

Which factor you prefer most while buying a magazine?

Fashion

Style

Cosmetics

What do you think about the content of this magazine?

Good

Average

Poor

If the particular magazine was not available in the market will you go for any other magazine?

Definitely

No, I will wait for it

If you see your favourite celebrity endorsing in some other magazine would you switch from your existing magazine?

Yes, for sure

No,

Do you discuss about the brands advertised in the magazine with your friends?

Yes, I always do

No

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