Who are Hearst?

Hearst is a multinational mass media company who have entertained, informed and empowered audiences across the UK since 1922. Hearst owns 21 of the largest magazines sold in the UK, with titles such as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar and Good Housekeeping. They circulate 4 million magazines a month and engage 26 million unique digital users which means they reach a quarter of the entire UK population. As stated on their website, their goal is to 'create premium, purposeful content that helps our audiences and partners strive, thrive, and get more out of life'. I aim to create my project with the same values that Hearst embodies within their company and magazines by using informative and interesting content that offers an experience to the audience. I will also ensure my magazine uses accessible and positive language within the front cover, contents page and website to keep inline with their company values.

The range of lifestyle magazines they offer are called 'Good Housekeeping', 'Esquire', 'Prima' and 'Red' and they range from offering lifestyles to older women, 25-35 year old men and 25-35 year old women. As there is a gap in their market for lifestyle magazines that are aimed towards young people aged 16-25, therefore with my project, I will produce a magazine covers that are aimed at the target audience of 16-25 year old people. I plan to create a lifestyle magazine that focuses on women's fashion within young adults.

As seen on the website Press Gazette, Hearst have been featured in many articles recently, many of these focusing on the decline of the company. As pictured above, there is one article about Hearst closing down one of their magazines after many years, one talking about their plunging revenue and another about how Hearst are making up to a fifth of its UK staff redundant implying that they cannot afford to employ so many people anymore. The overall success of the company seems to be declining which implies that if they are going to release a new magazine for 16-25 year olds, it should not be something targeted at a very small group of people, and should instead be appealing to a large range of people. This is the reason why I have decided to focus my lifestyle magazine on women's fashion with subtopics being hobbies and interests, mental health and others that I have discovered my target audience find interesting through research I have conducted.