Oh Comely - Audience

Oh Comely magazine is a niche women’s lifestyle publication with a strong feminist perspective. It launched in 2010 and publishes six issues a year. It describes itself:

“Oh Comely is a curious, honest and playful independent magazine. It’s a place to meet strangers, hear their stories and look at life a little differently – where our readers are our writers and our models, too.

“Each issue we pick a theme and see where it takes us. We try something old, something new and something that scares us a bit. Then we present our findings in a beautiful, artbook style, putting new writing, photography and illustration talent at the heart of it.”

[Source: Oh Comely magazine website]

Oh Comely audience

Social Media Reach: 100,000 
Readers Per Issue: 25,000 
Average Age of reader: 27 
Sold through independents, WHSmith and international outlets


Oh Comely offers: “Access to a difficult to reach and highly-targeted niche demographic of creative women who spend money on the things they love.”

“Oh Comely is a powerful mix of words and pictures, stylishly presented and much loved by its readers. It provides an alternative to the ‘pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap’ aesthetic of mainstream magazines for young women, and this is why it has carved a loyal niche of fans. It is a breath of fresh air for a creative audience desperate to find something that speaks to them directly in an accessible, intelligent and interesting voice.”

[Source: ohcomely.co.uk/advertise]

Psychographics

Oh Comely magazine's description of itself would suggest targeting the Reformer and Explorer psychographic groups with an emphasis on creativity, self-discovery and a rejection of consumerism and commercialism.

Audience pleasures

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

Personal identity: Readers enjoy having their quirky, creative lifestyle and feminist viewpoint endorsed and reflected by the magazine.

Personal relationships: Oh Comely is presented in a particularly personal way. It is the creation of three university friends, the magazine offers background on the contributors and readers are encouraged to ‘get to know’ the editorial team.

Surveillance: Oh Comely deliberately looks to inform its readers about niche stories, events and people.

Oh Comely - Audience blog tasks

Read the Oh Comely website page on advertising and audience to get a good idea of the demographics and psychographics for the Oh Comely target audience then answer the following questions:

1) How does Oh Comely introduce itself?Oh Comely introduces itself as an eccentric and innovative women lifestyle magazine, which spotlights on women's activist articles and can be portrayed as excessively upper middle class. 

2) How do the print circulation/readership statistics for Oh Comely compare to Men's Health?
The print and distrbution insights are a great deal lower than the measurements for Men's Health. This could possibly feature the way that Oh Comely focus on a smaller group of audience which make the magazine more specialty. 

3) How is Oh Comely distributed to the audience? 
Oh Comely is distributed through independents, WHSmith and international outlets.

4) What do you think the target audience demographics for Oh Comely might be? Some details are provided by the magazine (e.g. average age 27) but make an educated guess on further demographic details.
The target audience demographic for Oh Comely might be ages 27-36, mainly upper class( ABC1 demographic). 

5) What psychographic groups might be attracted to Oh Comely?
I think the psychographics that Oh Comley attracts reformers and explorers as they would find the magazine interesting as they explore new things.

6) What social class classification would you expect most Oh Comely readers to be? Why?
I think the social class would be AB.

7) What level of education would you expect for most Oh Comely readers? Why?
I think that the level of education that Oh Comley's audience would have is very high university degree/level.

8) What audience pleasures are offered by Oh Comely?
The audience pleasures that are offered by Oh Comley is personal identity, diversion, personal relationship.

9) It has been suggested Oh Comely is a “magazine about people, their quirks and creativity rather than money and what it can buy”. How does the design and advertising content of Oh Comely support this view?
The design and cover lines on the front cover are very interesting and unique it is not a traditional way of seeing a magazine's front cover.

10) Why do you think Oh Comely has been able to build a loyal audience of subscribers in the eight years since it launched? Think about audience demand, rival magazines and the overall media landscape in the digital age.
Oh Comley has empowered women which has not been done in the previous generations as much as now and not many magazines have still come with that idea.