Magazines: Men's Health - Audience

Our first Magazine Close-Study Product is Men's Health.

We need to study both the target audience for Men's Health and the audience pleasures that readers get from the magazine.

Notes from the lesson

Men’s Health (UK edition) has a circulation of around 120,000 (down 16% year-on-year and including 40k free copies) and a readership of closer to 1 million. It began as a health magazine in the USA in 1986 and has gradually evolved into a men’s lifestyle magazine. The UK edition launched in 1995.

Definitions
Circulation is the actual number of copies printed and distributed. Readership is an estimate of how many people read the magazine in total (also known as readers-per-copy). For Men’s Health, copies in a gym or waiting room will be read by many different  people.

Circulation figures are provided by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and readership estimates by the National Readership Survey (NRS).

Demographics: Social class

Men’s Health has a largely middle class readership but also attracts readers in the C2DE bracket:

ABC1 men: 64%
AB men: 32% 
C2DE: 36%

It is significantly higher than rivals GQ and Esquire in terms of circulation and readership but GQ and Esquire have a more upmarket demographics (higher % of ABC1 and AB readers).

Psychographics

Men’s Health Media Pack focuses on products that reflect a certain lifestyle such as fashion, watches, grooming, fitness and cars. This would suggest targeting the Aspirer and Succeeder psychographic groups with perhaps elements of Mainstreamers and Explorers.

Audience pleasures

There are many potential audience pleasures for Men’s Health readers. Applying Blumler & Katz’s Uses & Gratifications theory, two in particular would be:

Personal identity: Readers enjoy having their lifestyle reflected and endorsed through reading the magazine

Surveillance: Men’s Health is heavily focused on self-improvement and learning how to live a healthier, more successful life: “When it comes to life goals, claim the hat trick”.

Men's Health - Audience blog tasks

Read the Men's Health Media Pack in full to get a good idea of the demographics and psychographics for the Men's Health target audience then answer the following questions:

1) How does the magazine introduce itself?

2) What does the introduction suggest about the representation of masculinity in Men's Health's?

3) How do the print statistics for Men's Health compare to GQ and Esquire?

4) What is the difference between circulation and readership?

5) What was the circulation of Men's Health in thousands at the time this Media Pack was published? What about the readership for ABC1 men? AB men? [Note: this Media Pack was published in 2016 and some of the figures have fallen since then. Up to date circulation figures can be found at the top of this blog post].

6) How do readers generally interact with the digital version of the magazine?

7) How many people do Men's Health reach across social media platforms?

8) What is the audience profile for Men's Health readers? 

9) What is the Men's Health fashion philosophy? How much do Men's Health readers collectively spend on fashion?

10) What is the average watch collection value for the Men's Health audience? What do the statistics about watches suggest about the Men's Health audience demographics and psychographics?  

11) What percentage of Men's Health readers use moisturiser daily? What does this suggest about Men's Health readers' view of masculinity?

12) What does the media pack suggest regarding the Men's Health audience for fitness and technology?

13) Men's Health luxe is a series of magazines distributed with Men's Health targeting a specific aspect of the Men's Health audience. What are these three brand extension magazines called and what do they cover?

14) What do the Men's Health luxe magazines suggest about the demographics and psychographics of the Men's Health audience?

15) What additional brand extensions do Men's Health offer?

16) What are the global statistics for Men's Health?

17) What does the 2017 calendar editorial specials suggest about the Men's Health audience?

18) What audience pleasures are offered by the magazine?

19) What lifestyle and job would you expect the average Men's Health reader to have?

20) Why do you think Men's Health has managed to (just) remain profitable when many other magazines have struggled due to the rise of digital media?

Due: next Monday