Upscale Magazine made its first debut 30 years ago started by a man named Bernard Bronner. Their goal then, which remains the same for their issues published today, was to dedicated their pieces to addressing the needs of the stylish, informed, and progressive African American demographic. Vogue, a mainstream public, conveys a message that “combines the power of our brands, the passion of our people, and our broad consumer reach to help support meaningful change in our community and the world” throughout their many brands of other magazines. Both brands sport similar motives for their popular lifestyle magazines yet, they attract two different audiences. According to Vogue, their main demographics include an 81% female following, $98, 269 household income at an average age of 28-35 years old all for print magazines. As for the online viewers of Vogue, the demographics include 80% females, $86, 807 for average household income at an average age of 39. Upscale magazine has a 70% female following with an average income of $68,500 at a median age of 31. The magazines are made to entertain mainly women with beauty, fashion, trends, and other news so what makes these two magazines different in how they choose to produce their stories?
After reading through both magazines, the stories that both covers are slightly different. Vogue focus’s a lot on popular culture updates and keeping up with the latest news with the latest celebrities. Upscale, in the most recent issue, doesn’t go into great detail about current famous people and their relationships with others. Upscale magazine continues to create context full of beauty tips, healthy lifestyle advice, glam, and travel. Although Vogue includes those genres as well, they are less based off of it. One headline within the Upscale magazine includes “The Full Wedding Guide For A Black Bride” which is directly addressing the African American women audience they are trying to appeal to. Upscale knows that their audience is predominately African American women in the prime marriage age range and they use that to their advantage. Vogue doesn’t specify their target audience directly in the titles, but through photos in advertisements and articles, the models are typically white females. In the article “43 Looks To Dress Up Your Life” the models presented were majority white with little diversity. Vogue’s audience is majority white females so, in order to appeal to the majority of their audience, they use white models in their editorials, news updates, and advertisements.
The advertisement differences within the advertisements within the magazines are noticeable to the readers. Within Upscale, one of the first advertisements is for Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show in Atlanta, Georgia. Bronner Bros. I.B.S. is one of the nations largest and best beauty shows. The company that runs the show is one of America’s largest African American hair and skincare producers. The model posing in the advertisement is a woman of color showing off the product. Another advertisement that stood out to me was for The Black Writers Weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. The Black Writers Weekend is an annual event created to celebrate and appreciate black literacy creatives. This advertisement also appeals more towards the African American community. Because Upscale’s audience is majority the African American community, the advertisements are going to be directed towards them. Unlike Upscale, Vogue’s advertisements are targeted more towards white people as well as the people within their range of income. The first five advertisements are taken up by designer brands such as Gucci, Valentino, Cartier, Prada, and Chanel. The majority of those advertisements contained a white model whereas the other one’s contained minimal diversity. Another advertisement for Louis Vuitton which is placed on the back cover is another model. A Geico advertisement in Vogue magazine also showcases a white male kissing a car. Vogue chose to do this in their advertisements, as well as the brands because the majority of the readers are white and they can relate more and picture themselves better using the products being advertised.
The cultural slant is present in not only the way advertisements are presented but what kind of advertisements the magazine contains. Advertisements are most effective depending on what medium is being used and what the target audience is for that magazine. For Upscale magazine, their advertisements appeal more to the African American community due to the better response they will get from that audience. Vogue magazine and Upscale alike have a obvious racial difference in their choice in models for specific advertisements and for the products/ shows they chose to advertise. By doing this, the magazines are trying to appeal to the audience in order to better sell their product. Vogue had a clear difference within their Look Book being that the models tended to be white. Each magazine has a racial and ethnic slant which is the reason they target different audiences and carry different kinds of readers.
The physical magazines are very different as well. Upscale magazine is 80 pages long and contains about 25 different advertisements through the June 2019 publication. In Vogue, there are 120 pages and about 21 advertisements, with about 20% of them being high-end brands. The price difference between the two is $3.00, Vogue being slightly more expensive. With Upscale containing more advertisements and significantly fewer pages, they leave less room for content whereas Vogue contains nearly twice the number of pages and the same amount of advertisements. Although Vogue is a more mainstream magazine, the manner in which the magazine presents itself influences the audience absorbs each advertisement. Many of the advertisements in Vogue took up two pages with lots of colorful photos sprinkled throughout the magazine and Upscale used more of the spread out, one page per advertisement approach with clean and simple words. By using different techniques, the audiences read over the advertisements differently.
By going through and analyzing both of these magazines, it is very apparent to the readers that there is a divide between the structures of a mainstream magazine and an ethnic/ racial magazine. Each magazine does an excellent job of reaching the audience they intend to influence to buy their products and learn from their articles. The magazines are unique in their own ways and know what works for their readers. Vogue wouldn’t be able to pull off the specific articles that Upscale writes about because of the background that Upscale has as vice versa. The reason for the divide is the different articles and subjects each. The different magazines use different languages to speak to their audience. Vogue magazine lacked diversity in their advertisements and in their articles which was depressing to say the least. Although both are beauty centered magazines, the specific beauty articles each cover are completely different.
