Empire and Total Film

Upon discussing what film magazine company we would like to use in order to create our third media product, we narrowed it down to two of the biggest selling names: Empire  and Total Film. Before we made the decision however, we had to resolve the issue of whether we should make up our own magazine brand or adopt the name of an existing company.
The advantages of going with a well known label were that we had loads of templates to study in order to make our magazine look professional, furthermore, going with either Empire  or Total Film would allow us to place the character over the top of the title which would reinforce the professional look which we wanted to go for. On the other hand, the disadvantage which had occurred to us is that, if we did not stick to the conventional look of the professional magazine or wanted to challenge the cover conventions, then it would be clearly recognisable and errors would  be highlighted.
The advantage of creating a brand from scratch, would be that it gives us a lot more creative freedom and if for instance, we did not include a strap line then this would not be challenging the rest of the brand's repertoire of covers. Despite this, we wanted to stay along stereotypical guidelines and felt that Empire and Total Film would not allow us to deviate completely which is what we wanted.

The comparing points of these two mass market film magazines is that they are appealing to a variety of people, not just film lovers. The justification for this is that they are strong in colour and overall expression of the cover - they immerse you into the film and the thrill of the film.

We elected a mass market magazine as magazines are usually, the first impression the audience gets of a film, and with statistics saying that "52% of the readers will go to see a new film as soon as it is released", we needed to make our film stand out and put it on the front of Empire or Total Film.

This is some feedback we found on the totalfilm.com forum. The research we found was helpful, and allowed us to clarify that audiences find the two magazines on par with each other. Even in pricing, there is not a huge difference. Empire - £3.70  Total Film - £3.50.