Ownership P1(a)

Media ownership is a term that is used to describe the practice whereby increasingly fewer persons manage increasing share of the mass media. Media elements include: TV, radio, movies, books, newspapers and the Internet. The media is credited with shaping a society's way of thinking.

Ownership of Lagardere
Meaning 

Lagardère is a French multinational mass media company headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Headed by Arnaud Lagardère, the firm does business in around 30 countries.
It's multinational company because it produces magazines worldwide and provide range of services as well. It appeals to the mass-market and to different ranges of people all around the world.
Purpose
Lagardere has different lines of products with different names. I'm interested in Lagardere Active . Elle magazine which I'm going to analyse is made by these company. Lagardere Active owns Hachette Filipacchi which is one of the largest publishing company in the world. This company is worked as independent organisation. They have many objectives which they want to achieve in the couple of years without any help form Lagardere group. They are making a commitment to the sustainable growth and they want to achieve new markets worldwide. But they cannot make all decisions without the permission of the Lagardere Group. But they operate many years and became the third largest publish company in the world. That's why I want to analyse their product Elle Magazine.

Key people

Xavier de Sarrau
Chairman and Independent Member of the Supervisory Board
Arnaud Lagardere
General and Managing Partner - Representative of Arjil Commanditee-Arco, Chief Executive Officer, Member of the Executive Committee
Gerard Adsuar
Deputy Chief Financial Officer
Dominique D'Hinnin
Financial Director, Co-Managing Partner - Representative of Arjil Commanditee-ARCO, Member of the Executive Committee
Arnaud Nourry
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Hachette Livre
Denis Ollvennes
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Lagardere Active
Dag Rasinussen
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Lagardere Services
Norbert Glaoul
General Counsel
Thierry Funck-Brentano
Director of Human Relations, Communication and Sustainable Development, Member of the Executive Committee, Co-Managing Partner - Representative of Arjil Commanditee-Arco
Anthony Mellor

Chief of Investor Relations

Lagardère Active plays a central role in the French media, with power built on iconic brands such as Elle, Paris Match, Europe 1, Gulli and Doctissimo . It is a major player in television and radio, with 22 radio stations worldwide, 12 TV channels and France's number one production company (studio shows and drama). Lagadere Active is France's premier magazine publishing group, with 37 press titles in France and 87 under license worldwide, Lagardère Active is also the largest media group in terms of audience on the internet and mobile devices in France. Lagardère Publicité, its advertising sales brokerage department, is France's third-largest.

Information is taken from http://www.lagardere.com

Operating model P1(b)

Operating model 
Lagardère, a world-class diversified media group operates in around 30 countries and is structured around four distinct, complementary divisions:

Lagardère Publishing
The world's third-largest trade-book publisher for the general public and educational markets (first in France and second in Spain and in the United Kingdom and fourth in the United States), Lagardère Publishing is a federation of publishing houses united by common management rules and a concerted effort to expand digital activities.
Lagardère Services
Lagardère Services is involved in Press Distribution and Travel Retail, with operations in more than 20 countries across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. It has 4,000 sales outlets in 140 airports and more than 700 train stations selling cultural and leisure products, local services, luxury and duty-free goods, specialized concepts and fast food.
Aelia is a subsidiary of Lagardère that manages 270 duty-free shops in France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Ireland, and Spain. In 2013, Aelia had sales of over €1,100 million.
Lagardère Active
Lagardère Active is a French media company structured around 6 business segments: magazine publishing (Elle, Paris Match, Le Journal du Dimanche, etc.), radio (Europe 1, Virgin Radio, Radio ZET, Jacaranda 94.2 etc.), TV channels (Gulli, MCM, Mezzo, etc.), audiovisual production, digital activities (Doctissimo, Elle.fr, etc.) and advertising sales.
Lagardère Unlimited
A Sports and Entertainment company, Lagardère Unlimited is active in six complementary business activities: content production and broadcast rights management, marketing rights and associated products, event production and management, talent representation, venue consulting, and management of sports academies and front-ranking sports clubs.

Different institutions in one company help to produce more services and products and achieve more objectives. Each part of the Lagardere has management teams which help to operate each company and make its products as popular as it possible. Further, separation between different institutions in one company helps to earn more profit and make the production process more organised.

The information is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagardère_Group

Meaning

Lagardere Group segment their potential markets into different groups and attract more people to use its services and sell product to them. 

Purpose

This segmentation helps Lagardere to attract more people and increase the number of sales. Also its market position is really high because they offer much more services and products than their competitors all around the world. 

Products P1(c)

Products

The group once covered a broad range of industries but is now largely focused on the media sector, in which it is one of the world’s leading companies.
It is structured around four main business lines: its book and electronic publishing division (Lagardère Publishing) includes the major imprint Hachette Livre; while the Lagardère Active unit encompasses newspaper, digital media and magazine publishing (including Hachette Filipacchi Médias), radio and television broadcasting and production and advertising sales. Lagardère also holds a 7.5% stake in EADS. Lagardère owns publisher Hachette Filipacchi (magazines Elle, Premier, Car & Driver, etc.), radio Europe 1, Europe 2 in France, 18 radio stations in various cities in Europe,  etc.

As much products and services Lagardere Group presents to the world as much profit they may get and as more popular they became worldwide. This helps them to attract more customers with different needs and satisfy them. 

Lagardere publishing produces books and magazines which are popular worldwide. They have the third largest company Hachette Livre. 

Lagardere active has around 6 business segments. One of them is magazine publishing which makes Elle magazine which I want to investigate. Furthermore lagardere active operates radio, TV channels, audiovisual production, digital activities and advertising sales.

Lagardere services is involved in Press Distribution and Travel Retail. They get profit from magazines and huge numbers of duty-free shops. 

And the last institution that lagardere has is Lagardère Unlimited It is a sports and entertainment company active in six business activities: content production and broadcast rights management, marketing rights and associated products, event production and management, talent representation, venue consulting, and management of sports academies and front-ranking sports clubs.

Meaning

Lagardere offers great number of products and services all around the world. That means that they are successful organisation who may be aimed to the different markets and they are able to compete with other big organisations.

Purpose

Big number of products and services help to increase the revenue of the company and differentiate themselves on the competitive market.

Market Position P1(d)

Market position
Lagardère Publishing company division (The world’s second-largest publishing conglomerate with a revenue of 2, 273 billion EURO as of 2009) are France’s largest publishers (including publishing houses such as Grasset, Fayard, Stock, Calmann-Lévy, Lattès) and those of Great Britain (including Octopus, Orion, Hodder, Headline, Little Brown), while being at position number 2 in Spain (Amaya) and number 5 in the USA (including Grand Central Publishing, Little Brown).
Revenue €7.370 billion (2012)
Operating income €339 million (2012)
Profit €207 million (2012)
Total assets €9.360 billion (end 2012)
Total equity €2.991 billion (end 2012)
Employees 24,068 (FTE, average 2012)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org


Market position of Elle Magazine
Elle magazine is one the product which the Lagardere Group produces worldwide.
In 2012, ELLE was read throughout the world, every month, by 21 million readers. This magazine sells 6.6 million copies a month, which comes to 85,000 article pages, 51,700 advertising pages and on the internet it has 28 sites with almost 22 million unique visitors and 178 million page hits.

Information is taken from:
http://www.lagardere.com
http://www.inaglobal.fr
http://www.mediadb.eu


Hachette Filipacchi Medias has lots of competitors which market positions are lower or higher. 
One of the competitors is Bauer. Bauer Media Group print shops produce magazines, catalogues, brochures, booklet. As well as Lagardere they divides their businesses into few institutions to operate their services more properly. Below we can see their sells and market position.

Information is taken from http://www.bauermedia.com

It's obvious that Lagardere group is more profitable and more popular in the market than Bauer. 

IPC Media Ltd is the next competitor. International Publishing Corporation a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom. They sell a huge range of different magazines worldwide as well as Lagardere group and they are one of the main Lagardere's competitor. The article which  found on the official IPC's website says that "IPC Media consolidated its position as the leading consumer magazine publisher by both volume and value and outperformed the market" that means that their magazines became more popular than others. On the newsstand, IPC Connect’s share of the women’s weekly market rose 1.0% to 23.9%. In the women’s weekly lifestyle sector, IPC’s volume share of the market rose to 50.7%, up 0.5%.
Information is taken from http://www.ipcmedia.com

Conde Nast Publications. Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a mass media company headquartered in the Condé Nast Building in New York City. The company attracts more than 164 million consumers across its 20 print and digital media brands. Furthermore, they produce Vogue magazine which is the main competitor of Elle Magazine. As its official website tells us Condé Nast retains its leadership position on the market by creating over 100 000 printed pages annually. Its global circulation exceeds 34 m copies. Also Condé Nast Publishers represents a pool of 130 magazines, over 153 ml. readers in 23 countries plus 90 website with 47 millions of visits per month. As we can see Conde Nast's magazines as popular as Lagardere's and take one of the leading position in the market.
Information is taken from https://www.condenast.ru

Immediate Media Company Limited is the next competitor. It is a combined publishing house containing the former assets of Origin Publishing, Magicalia and BBC Magazines. They operate their business since 2011 therefore their market position is unstable and incomparable with Lagardere Group.
Information is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_Media_Company

Dennis Publishing is also competitive company. It is an independent publisher founded in 1974. The company's top line, excluding joint ventures, grew 7.1% from 2010, to £69m in 2011. As we can see it's also lower than Lagardere.
Information is taken http://www.mediaweek.co.uk
Meaning
Market position helps to analyse the position of the magazine among the competitors and to compare brands between each other. The market position influences the popularity of the brand between customers and make them trust information which is published in the magazine.
Purpose
Market position of the magazine is used to find out about competitors and to supervise the progress and popularity os the magazine. 

Competitors P1(e)

The main advantage of a competition is that every competitive company tries to work better than others therefore the production increases and services and products improve. Also the teamwork in the company become better because of competition. Workers work as a one team to compete other company and to get more profit from sells. However, competition can create stress for the employees and the production may be decreased because of it. Furthermore, the price which the company charge is limited by the extent of the competition and also the range of services and the nature of the product they sell is influenced by the level of competition.


Elle competes with Vogue and In Style magazine. Vogue circulates 1.25 million issues where Elle circulate with 1.1 million at the same time In Style has 1.8 million in circulation in the US. In the UK Glamour magazine is the largest Elle’s competitor with 500000 in circulation. Elle has just 200000 in circulation. Glamour focuses on fashion as well as high street fashion which Elle may focus on but not excess unlike Glamour. The prices are also different. Glamour costs £2 and Elle costs £3.80. It’s a large difference. These two magazines offers different themes and they are sold in different place but anyway they still competitors.

Meaning
Competition is important for every big companies. It means that one company is trying to work better than the similar one on the one potential market with one audience. For Elle magazine competition means that they need to attract as much customers and markets as it possible and aware more people to buy the magazine. They use different methods such as opening new lines such as "Elle Girl" for teenagers or "Elle decor" for other market.  Also they try to attract more people to purchase the magazine with the bright advertisements for instance, on the billboards or on TV. 
Purpose
The purpose of competition is better quality of the product all the time. The editors of the competitive magazines try to bring some innovations in the magazine and make it more desirable for the potential customers. 

Analysis of a Media Product P2(a-g)

a) Purpose 

Elle Magazine is made to entertain people first of all. The target audience is potentially women that's why in Elle magazine we can find issues about health, fashion and psychology. Also in Elle magazine there are advertisements and promotions of different brands as lots of people worldwide read it and listen for its advices about fashion and brands.
b)Genre

Elle Magazine is gender specific. Its target audience is women 16-30 years old.  Articles in the magazine is focused mostly on appearance and fashion trends. Advertisements in the magazine usually promote beauty brands and latest products of fashion lines.
c)Form

Elle is a magazine with millions of sales worldwide. But in the recent years while smartphones became more popular Elle magazine started to promote themselves as e-magazine. People can read it on some electronic devices or just in the Internet.
d)Style 

The style of Elle magazine is made with main image in the front of the magazine and around the image there are main inscriptions with the main ideas in the issues and with the name of the magazine. Models are usually looking directly at the readers and make the contact with the audience to attract to buy the magazine. Main image is also bright and eye-catching. The colour of the name of the magazine always contracts with main colours on the front image to attract the attention of the potential customers. The girls who appear on the front cover of Elle magazine are always popular actresses, singers or models. Usually the give interviews or tells some stories to the Elle magazine and show women that they have similar problems and how to deal with them. 
e)Content 

The content in Elle magazine are based on fashion and beauty mainly. They contain style guides, advices about styles and make-ups. On the front cover Elle magazine usually has well-known actress, singer or model who can be fashion example to all women all around the world. Models usually do eye contact with the audience and attract them to buy the issue of the magazine. The quality of the main image is good with bright colours and beautiful focuses. Main themes of the issues usually contrast with the name of the magazine and it makes the front cover more attractive and brighter. Elle magazine has advertisements inside each issue. Mainly they promote new brands in fashion industry, perfumes, clothes, makeups and so on. Audience likes to purchase products which they have seen in the magazine because it’s something that interests them.  The articles in the magazine usually are quite similar. Articles are written in one page with different images inside. The biggest articles are usually about lifestyle or psychological stories. This gives readers something to read and think about. Sometimes audience can relate their life with stories in the magazine and this helps them to solve some problems.
f)Meaning

When potential audience looks to the front cover of Elle magazine they see the model who is as normal person as other girls that makes women feel that they are beautiful as well and that ‘perfect’ people who are on the cover are similar to them. Also the models who are on the cover make eye contact with the audience therefore they could be seen as showing people what they could be like. Clothes which are on the models and inside the magazine usually are achievable to normal middle class of women who buy this magazine therefore audience feels better. We can find the examples of symbolic in Elle magazine. For example, models on the cover front and inside Elle magazine wear designer clothes and make up. This is symbolic because they show people that they can afford the clothes they wear compared to people who don’t wear this. It encourages people to buy this clothes they are wearing as someone they look up to are wearing designer clothes which encourage them to buy them. People try to look like models on the front covers.
Elle magazine use models to symbolise different cultures and this makes easier for their country to engage with the magazine. Also they translate their magazine into different languages and the potential audience can understand the meaning of the magazine and be interested in it.
g)Production process

All magazines usually are made similar. All of the issues pass one process. First of all they decide the date of publication and make a plan of the production process and the schedule of each day. That schedule has to be managed properly and always meet the deadline. The next step is decision making about the number of topics and main themes of the issues. When all topics are considered the journalists and photographers research the materials and make a new one. The research can be done with use of the Internet and news databases. Later, all facts in the articles have to be checked by sub-editors and they are making sure that all worlds are spelled in the right way. The next step is checking the page layout. Group of people check it and make it right. On this stage the advertisement in the magazine appears. Later they print one copy of the magazine and check if everything is all right and correct the spelling. The team who edit the issue keeps proofreading until every member is happy and all mistakes have been corrected. Later they print the magazine in special printing company. Each copy the printer prints is the final finished product. And the last stage is distribution. The printing company package all the issues and send them to a warehouse. From the warehouse, the magazines are then distributes and then sold to the public. 

Demographics of the Target Audience P3(a-d)

All information I found in the media pack on the official Elle magazine's website.

a)Gender

Total audience of Elle magazine in2013 was 5644000 readers and 5088000 were women. That's obvious because 55% of information which we can read about in magazine is about fashion and fashion industries. This topic is interesting for females because clothes and fashion help them to express themselves in society and compete with other women. Some males are also interested in fashion industry but the number of them is much less than females. 

Because the potential audience is female the adverts in the magazine usually are about make-ups, beauty and health products, new fashion designs and so on.  Advertising companies also use statistics and media packs to identifying potential audience and link it with age and spending power and later they find the most suitable products and promote it in the magazines therefore they get more sales and more profit. 

b)Age

There is a comparison between different ages in percentage who read Elle magazine. Age 18-34 is 47.4%, 18-49 is 75.3%, 25-49 is 52.0%, 25-54 is 60.1%. As we can see from the statistic the greater number of readers are from 18 to 49 years old. This is the age of people who are responsible for themselves and who can earn money and buy Elle magazine. People who are 18-49 years old are interested in innovations and follow the advices and articles which are in fashion magazines. 

c)Lifestyle 

43.2% of readers of Elle magazine is single and 42% is married. This statistic helps editors of Elle magazine to write articles and to choose the main themes of the issues. 44.1% has children and 62.3% owns home. This information helps advertisements companies as well to promote their products in the right way. 

d)Spending power

The price of one issue of Elle Magazine is quite high £3-£4 per one copy. It's made to middle class of society who can spend money for luxury goods and buy expensive products which are promoted in elle magazine. 

Meaning

The specification of target auditory and its habits is vitally important for mass media product. That mean that they may be aimed for a special type of people and write articles and topics special for them and get more sales from that. 

Purpose

The mass media product has to be aimed to the potential market and segment it. If Elle magazine's editors know what their costumers want they may increase their profit and differentiate themselves in this competitive market. For instance, Elle magazine is aimed to the middle class people who can buy the magazine. This helps them to make a right price for the one issue and help to advertise right products and services in the magazine. 

Distribution Channels P4(a), Advertising P4(b)

Elle is an international network which has 45 editions all around the world. Distribution channels is important for all international organisations to promote and distribute their product to the customers and get more profit from the sales. Well developed distribution channel helps to transfer product to the customer as soon as possible without delays.
Adverting of elle magazine helps to promote magazine and attract more people to purchase it. Elle magazine's advertisements are always bright and eye-catching.

Advertising 

Meaning 

Advertising is the way of promotion Elle magazine in some other media institutions such as billboard, Internet, TV or radio. Elle's advertisements is always bright and eye-catching therefore more people may see it and pay attention to the magazine. 

Purpose

Advertising helps to promote themselves between great number of people at the small amount of time. It persuades people to buy magazine and get their attention to the topics which they offer. Also advertising helps to differentiate Elle magazine from its big number of competitors. 

Distribution channels

Meaning

Distribution channel is the way of how the product transfer to the potential customers. Well developed channels help to transfer Elle magazine all around the world as quickly as it possible therefore their customers will be satisfied.

Purpose

Elle magazine is really competitive product that why they have to bring their product to the customers even quicker than other magazine or at the same time. As many countries order elle magazine as more popular they became. Customers usually don't want to wait therefore good ways of distribution guaranty the quicker publishing and delivery.

The product’s impact and effect on the audience P5(a)

The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience. It’s normally considered that this effect is negative. Audience are passive and powerless to prevent the influence. The power lies with the message of the text. 
Elle magazine is very popular among women of all ages. Main categories featured in Elle are runway, fashion, hair and beauty, pop culture, life and love. Elle is now the world’s largest fashion magazine, it has over 4.8 million readers per month. It also operates 42 international editions in over 60 countries. Elle’s content consists of fashion it's ins and outs, who’s wearing what, where can you buy the latest trends. It includes a lot of advertisement. Posters advertising related products such as makeup, shops, beauty etc. As all magazine Elle sticks to the same style production for each issue. A title filling the top of the page, a celebrity poses across the whole page, with the colour scheme staying the same though the cover with a main ‘headline’ to make the reader want to buy it.

Elle magazine publishes stories about many famous people who makes something significant or just simple steps to move on in their difficult life. Readers of Elle magazine usually take an example from them and try to copy their behaviour. For example, the issue of Elle where they published a story about Katy Perry who broke up with her boyfriend was really successful. People called Katy a role model for them and they copied her how to move on. This is what one popular resource told us about article about Katy Perry in Elle magazine: As for being a role model, the 27-year-old says, “I have no regrets… I’m not going to be everything to everyone. I can’t tell a person when it’s time for them to have sex. Or if they should have a cigarette… But I try to live my life with a lot of integrity, and, hopefully, that sends a message.”
Information is taken from http://www.idolator.com/6776651/katy-perry-elle-cover

Meaning
The media always has am impact on the potential audience. People find themselves a role models and try to copy their actions and do everything like them. They think that if popular people are doing something that means that it's normal and people start doing the same.

Purpose

 For the company that means that they have to be careful with information which they are publishing to pretend the misunderstanding among potential audience.

Issues of Representation P5(b)

Females are represented more dominantly in Elle magazine than males because this is a women's magazine. They represent women as independent and strong figures for a readers. For example, on the cover below there is a picture of Cheryl Cole who says that she will never dress for men. That means that she is independent and won't do anything for men. However, men feature rarely in the magazine. Males features as a models or as a sort of sex symbol to sell some products such as perfume. There are pictures of men in the Elle magazine to attract women to read them. The fact that men are portrayed as a sex symbols and in contrast females are portrayed as independent and fashionable is very conflicting. The reason of this is because women are seem in society as lesser of their male counterpart.
Another issue is that in magazines such as Elle there are photos of models who are very slim. This affect the behaviour of young women who want to be like them. They begin to use diets and sometimes they may get health problems which affect whole body. This is a potential problem for our society therefore there have to be beauty idols with achievable beauty so the audience won't be jealous. 

Legal and/or ethical issues P5(c)

Elle is a popular worldwide magazine. It has been involved in illegal activities few times but they were settled. Once, Coco Rocha threaten Elle Brazil in April 2012 after the magazine photoshopped an image of her that was to appear on the cover, so that it appeared as though the model was showing far more skin than she agreed to. The model submitted the following statement on her tumblr. "As a high fashion model I have long had a policy of no nudity or partial nudity in my photo shoots. For my recent Elle Brazil cover shoot I wore a body suit under a sheer dress which I now find was photoshopped out to give the impression of me showing much more skin than I...am comfortable with. This was specifically against my expressed verbal and written direction to the entire team that they not do so. I’m extremely disappointed that my wishes and contract were ignored. I strongly believe every model has a right to set rules for how she is portrayed and for me these rules were clearly circumvented."
French Elle also underwent further racism allegations following a feature that suggested that black celebrities were adopting a 'white style' with an ethnic twist. The editor had to issue a formal apology on a live French television show called Canal+.

Meaning

There is a significant importance of following legal and ethnical issues in the mass media (Elle magazine in particular). As Elle magazine is a multinational product it's always in media and people know everything about it. Every problems which Elle faces with during its operation exposes on display and their sells may be decreased. Also they may be faced with the problem of mixed messages in the magazine. For instance, in Elle magazine skinny is represented. All "idols" such as actresses and models are skinny and beautiful so all readers want to be like them. But at the same time in Elle magazine we can find articles where it says that "people should like you in the way you are and you don't have to change yourself". This means that they contradict each other and people may query the reliability their articles and sales again may be decreased. 

Purpose

The purpose of being clear in the articles and follow all issues is to differentiate themselves among competitors and increase the number of sales worldwide. Also lots of people follow the advices which are in Elle magazine it's a role model for them. They may control mass of people as mass media usually do therefore it's important to them to follow rules and prevent some kinds of revolutions and staff like that. 

Role of Relevant Regulatory Bodies P5(d)

The Press Complaints Commission is a regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines. It has no legal powers – all newspapers and magazines voluntarily contribute to the costs of, and adhere to the rulings of, the Commission, making the industry self-regulating. That means that if there will be any claims on Elle Magazine the person who complained can write fill the electronic form and write everything that don't satisfy him. This makes the process of making up claims easier and therefore Elle magazine tries to avoid illegal problems. Also complains damage the brand popularity.


The PCC deals with all editorially-controlled material in UK newspapers and magazines (and their websites). This can include:
Articles and pictures
Words and pictures (including video) on newspaper and magazine websites
Audio material on newspaper and magazine websites
Readers' letters
Edited or moderated reader comments on newspaper and magazine websites

*Information is taken from: http://www.pcc.org.uk/complaints/makingacomplaint.html

This is the example of filled complained form:

Meaning

Regulatory bodies help to protect personal information and to check information which magazines publish. People who are not satisfy with the articles or themes which are in the magazine can complain on it with help of special companies such as PCC.

Purpose

This companies such as PCC are made to make the process of complaining easier for the potential audience. So Elle magazine is aware that customers may complain on their magazine very easy and that's why they are trying to avoid this problem and write articles more careful.