LOOK - Success

When Look magazine was first established and published it was something new, different and exciting. It was a magazine that provided the mainstream and aspirer with the latest fashion and celebrity gossip on a weekly basis. Look magazine was first published in 2007 and by 2010 it already had a readership of 585,000 (calculated by the NRS – national readership survey) and circulation of 313,358 (calculated by the ABC – audit bruean circulation). This was a huge success for the magazine as it showed during this time the target audience was being reached by the magazine and fan were buying into the product.  

Look magazine is a huge success because the ideologies that the magazine stand for are expressed throughout the magazine and translated to the audience. This magazine shows that appearance is important, you should be confident within yourself, celebrity status is important etc. These messages are constantly reinforced to the reader through copy and images, an example of this would be from the 2017 9th Jan issue where there is a quote from Beyoncé saying "celebrate your curves" this shows that the magazine want use to realise that the words of a celebrity are important be we should also want to be ourselves and be proud of who we are. Look magazine succeeds in promoting its ideologies and the preferred reading is met as the audience buy the magazine to gain these qualities that the magazine says are important and valued.  

Another signifier that Look magazine is a success is the fact that it won the award for National Magazine showing that it is globally known and admired. This also shows that there are many of the target audience that read the magazine around the world in countries such as: USA, Poland, Turkey etc.  

However, Look could also be considered a fail as recently the numbers have drastically been dropping. In 2014 it was seen that Look magazine reached over 3 million people, and a social media following of 2 million, however the circulation for 2014 was 153,007 print magazine and 2,701 digital magazines showing a drastic drop for 2010 to 2014. The idea that Look numbers have fallen was also showing in 2016 stats where the circulation was 91,902 and readership of 210,000 showing that this magazine is falling and not doing well against its competitors. It was also seen that n 2016 the stats for women's weekly magazines Look totalled in at 20/23 showing it is not much of a competitor anymore and it being over shadowed by other magazines. This drop could be due to the fact that the magazine is not developing or growing with the times and the new society we line in today or possibly be due to the fact that now the have the internet we don’t need magazines, for example the social media network off snapchat allows you to look through celebrity news such as MTV, Cosmopolitan, People etc. All for free so we no loner need these magazine.   

Initially Look could be seen a s a success and it came out in a time where people needed something to have while they had a short break, however now due to the internet and people lack of interest it is no longer a hot topic, it tells us things that we can find on the internet for free and seems as if the future of look is bound to die out sooner rather than later.