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Samantha Dilday

Feb. 12, 2013

[email protected]

Style Analysis

Word Count: 3732

I. Who am I as a writer?

I grew up loving books. My grandma introduced me to Little House on the Prairie and it was all

over from there. I was one of those kids who would stay up past bedtime just to shine a flashlight on a

book under my covers. I loved the creativity and life that books contained, and that led me to start

writing short stories. Looking back on them now they were pretty miserable excuses for writing, but

those stories were the foundation for a lifetime of writing. Once I was in high school, surrounded by

college-talk, I transitioned from short stories into something I thought would be more practical

magazine journalism. I enjoyed reading Teen Vogue and Seventeen magazine, and I had big dreams to

become a writer for one of them. But after a few years of college, I ran into a whole new kind of

writing--advertising and public relations. With the murky future of the magazine industry and the

unique creative possibilities advertising could offer, I made a switch.

My goal after I graduate this semester is to become an advertising copywriter, writing

advertisements for billboards, online ads, radio and tv spots, and you name it. I have, however, taken a

special interest in an emerging segment of advertising. Search engine optimization, social media, and

online advertising are all new players in the advertising world, but their applications and capabilities

are growing at exponential rates. Content creation is the thing that makes all of these new online

players work, and with content you need writers. It's my goal to learn as much as I can about this


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section of the advertising industry so that my writing will be more powerful. Also, since this is such a

new area, many print and online publications that focus on this segment of the advertising industry are

emerging and need content. Even many established business magazines are starting to write about the

subject. I hope that, with my knowledge of the field, I will be able to fill the needs of these

publications.

Outside of these more career-focused writing goals, I have a wide variety of interests. Some are

new and some that date back to my childhood. These interests include fiction writing, fashion, self-

improvement and interior design. I haven't done creative writing in years, so I'm very interested in

pursuing it again. I think that if I work on that skill, I could produce great fiction and create memorable

experiences for readers. I like to fill my spare time with fashion and interior design, which I could also

see myself writing about. I think writer's should have a love of learning and a broad set of interests, so I

would be prepared to learn more about and write about any and all of these subjects. The magazines I

outline below represent each of these interests and would be suitable publications for submitting my

writing.


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II. Market Analysis

Publication #1: Writer's Digest

Editor's Name: Acquisitions Editor, [email protected]

Submission Guidelines: Writers can send completed work or queries to [email protected].

Queries must be accompanied by an outline that introduces the proposal and highlights each point the

writer intends to make. The query should tell Writer's Digest how the article will be beneficial and

important to its readers. All submissions must be sent by email and should include a list of publishing

credentials. However, they don't want to be sent attachments, only links.

Publication #2: Redbook

Editor's Name: Jill Herzig, Editor-in-Chief

Submission Guidelines: Send a detailed query listing ideas for sources and experts whom you'll

interview, along with two or more writing samples. Mail to: Articles Department REDBOOK, 300 West

57th Street, 22nd Floor New York, NY 10019.

Publication #3: The New Yorker

Editor's Name: Deborah Treisman, Fiction Editor

Submission Guidelines: Submit one story at a time by attaching a pdf to the email.

[email protected]

Publication #4: House Beautiful

Editor's Name: Aaron Krach, Features Editor

Submission Guidelines: Submit articles to the Features Department, 1700 Broadway, 29th

Floor, New

York, NY 10019

Publication #5: Better Homes and Gardens

Editor's Name: Oma Blaise Ford, Senior Deputy Editor of Home Design

Submission Guidelines: Send a query letter to the department it's best for, addressed to Better Homes


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and Gardens, 1716 Locust St., Des Moines, IA 50309

Publication #6: Advertising Age

Editor's Name: Ken Wheaton, Managing Editor

Submission Guidelines: To be considered, send an exclusive pitch detailing why your article should be

chosen, what it's about, how long it will be and what section your'e pitching it for. Submissions can be

emailed or snail-mailed to Advertising Age 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 or

[email protected]

Publication #7: American Bungalow Magazine

Editor's Name: Kathleen Donohue, Editor-in-Chief

Submission Guidelines: Send a proposal summary with samples of previously published work to

[email protected].

Publication #8: Mashable.com

Editor's Name: Amy-Mae Elliot, Senior Features Editor

Submission Guidelines: Pitch a two or three sentence overview with a suggested title to

[email protected]

Publication #9: Fast Company

Editor's Name: Robert Safian, Editor

Submission Guidelines: They offer no formal submission guidelines, but simply say you should look

over the magazine thoroughly then email your pitch [email protected]

Publication #10: Cosmopolitan

Editor's Name: Joanna Coles, Editor-in-Chief

Submission Guidelines: Though they have no formal guidelines, they say that stories that will fit with

the magazine can be pitched to [email protected], with Story Pitch in the subject line.


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III. Introduction

As advertising is my chosen career path and an interest of mine, I decided on two publications

that frequently discuss branding, social media, search engine optimization, and other similar new and

innovative methods in the advertising field. For my print publication, I wanted to look for a magazine

I'd never read before so that I could expand my options should I ever want to submit articles for

publication on this topic. After researching my options at Books a Million, I likedFast Company the

most. It was the second magazine I came to and it caught my eye right away. The cover was clean,

modern and bold. It was mostly black and white but pops of red made it stand out. The photography on

the front was also bold but had a goofy welcoming quality. It showed a man and a woman using a tin

can telephone and had titles like Speak Up! How creative dialogue can reinvent your company, brand

and career, which made it seem fun, informative and also reflected some aspects of advertising. One

of the reasons I picked it up was because it related creativity and business to each other, which I felt

could be applied to the advertising industry and was also a concept that interested me. The magazine's

purpose is to highlight new businesses practices with a focus on innovation, technology, leadership and

design.

I've also chosenMashable.com as my online publication for similar reasons. They too focus on

business, innovation and technologywith a special focus on social media. Since this is an online

publication, the new practices and innovations in business, technology and social media which they

discuss are even newer because they're able to publish the information instantly. This makes it one of

the online publications that I frequently turn to for updates in the advertising and social media world,

and one that I know my coworkers turn to as well. Since it's a publication I already read, love and

respect, I'd like to be an active contributor to that conversation as well.


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IV. Subjects Covered in Publications

While multiple publications that focus on new practices in advertising,Fast Company pays

special attention to business practices that are innovative, or deal with new technology, leadership or

design. Because of this special focus, they put their own unique spin on the business world and that

spin is reflected in the articles they choose to write about and how they write them. They break the

magazine up into two sections, Now and Next so that they highlight what's being done well

currently, and what innovative business practices the future will bring. For me, the business world can

get boring, but this magazine injects life into it.

One of the articles in their February issue that really interested me was CAN YOU HEAR ME

NOW? This article discusses how to brand a product or company through social media, which is a

topic of advertising I really want to learn more about as a possible career path. They also have an

article titled The Art of Dialogue. Rather than print your typical interview-style article, the magazine

printed four conversations between visionary entrepreneurs who refuse to do business in the standard

way. In one conversation, the CEO of Twitter talks about how startups succeed and fail. It also features

an article called From Idea to Innovation which rounds up ways to find and use the best thoughts and

ideas that you and your team come up with. I found this article relatable to this new trend in advertising

because, with everything being so new, there is still so much space for more innovations. Being able to

leverage the creativity that surrounds you is how innovations are made. Also, a big part of advertising

is working on creative teams and spitting out a creative and cohesive plan of attack. So while this

article targets the broader business area, it can be applied to many subsets.

Mashable covers a variety of topics, but their main focus is on social media, technology and

business. These topic areas all center around advertising, making them perfect topics for my personal

reading and topics I would enjoy writing for. For example, one oftheir articles is called Twitter Being

Used to Cast a Movie. The story goes on to talk about how this tactic is providing advertising for the


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movie, and is also an example of using social media to draw attention to a product. This article is the

perfect example of something I'd like to write. It applies advertising tactics to social media, which is an

important subject to this emerging area of the advertising field. Articles like these are what make me

return to the site as a major source of advertising industry news. They also include a variety of articles

focused on keeping people in the advertising industry informed on new events and updates, like 50+

Events in Social Media, Big Data, PR and More, and Google Upgrades Adwords for Better Mobile

Targeting. Whenever important events or updates happen in this industry, advertisers need to know so

that they can adjust any campaigns they're currently running and improve them. Having this type of

information can also inspire innovating approaches in the emerging field of online advertising.

V. Audience of Publications- Fast Company

After analyzingFast Company's visual layout, Table of Contents, advertisements and articles, I

determined that their target audience is successful business professionals, both men and women, with a

college degree or higher. As for a target age range, I would say the audience is between 18 and 32. I

think the fact that this magazine is so focused on innovation supports the idea that they're probably

appealing to a younger demographic that is more moldable and less attached to dated business

practices. I got this sense from them after reading CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? which starts by

saying People love bacon. Sooo much. Every time I post something about bacon it usually gets really

good engagement, (38). While tactics like this certainly grab attention, they're not effective for many

audiences. You can tell the article doesn't take itself too seriously, so that shows the magazine is trying

to come off as lighthearted, comical and intriguingqualities that will be admired by this target

audience but maybe not as appreciated by hardened business professionals. Also, the subject of the

article itself is on a new area of the advertising industrycreating human-like brands for a company or

product on social media that will interact with customers and build relationships and social power with

them. These ideas, much like this segment of advertising, are new so they are more suited to younger


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advertising and business professionals. For example, suggestions like the payoff [] comes if a brand

transcends its role of mortal seller to become a God of unconditional relationships, might not fly with

advertisers, sellers, and business people who take the sell, sell, sell approach that many older-

generation professionals do.

The layout is also appealing to a busy, working audience. Many of their articles are broken up

into sections using bolded headings, infographics and lots of visually interesting photography and art.

This leads me to believe that their audience is probably busy and they're breaking things up so people

can find what they're looking for quickly (like on a lunch break). However, they mix this style with a

few lengthy features, which leads me to believe that they expect their audience to want to learn a lot

from the magazine, so when they audience has time, they will take time out of their busy schedules to

read these informative pieces. The design of their cover was also very unique. The cover has few

words, naming only the lengthier feature articles. It's also dual-sided with different images on each

side. This tells me that this is a magazine designed to be kept, displayed and picked up for reference

over time. It's also an example of how the magazine continually tries to be innovative and creative.

The Table of Contents and letter from the editor further reinforced my analysis of the magazine's target

audience. The editor explains his decision to have a two-sided cover because this month's issue is for

people who like seeing things from fresh eyes. He also gives quick summaries of each feature article

and ties them all together with a main purpose, which adds credibility to the articles and to the

magazine. On the go business people who read this letter can get a quick overview ofthe take-aways

for the issue and can take a mental note of which article sounds the most interesting. The Table of

Contents provides a short, one sentence summary of each featured article as well, along with being

clean and to the point. I also noticed the Table of Contents isn't buried under billions of ads, like some

magazine's do. Instead, it's on page 5. The location and design of the Table of Contents make it easy to

find and easy to navigatetwo features that busy professionals appreciate. They also feature a CEO on


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the Table of Contents page as their only image, further supporting my conclusion that this magazine is

suited for successful professionals.

Their advertisements are a mix of luxury items. Lexus takes up two full pages, Lincoln takes up

four, and they have multiple innovative business products, including the new Surface by Microsoft.

Clearly, all of these items are expensive, which leads me to believe that readers probably have a high

earning power and is probably concentrated in urban areas, like New York City. The advertisements

also feature a mix of both men and women. Though it's not typical to have a target audience that

includes both sexes, I think that the magazine's other determining factors of a target audience narrow

things down enough for them to appeal to both. For example, young business professionals who are

successful are hard to come by, since years of experience usually determines earning power and

position in a company.

VI. Audience of Publications- Mashable

After analyzing Mashable's home page, visual layout/design, about page, and an article, I

determined that their target audience is made up of men and women between the ages of 18 and 30,

who are working toward or already have a college degree. This target audience probably doesn't have

anything higher than a Bachelor's degree.

Their home page is a collage of images with titles. For more newsworthy articles, a summary is

sometimes given. The home page is also split into three columns, The New Stuff, The Next Big

Thing, and What's Hot. These columns include a mix of entertainment, business, advertising and

social media. Since the home page is so heavily influenced by images, with light copy, I expect it's

designed for mostly browsing and hoping around from one news story to the next (sometimes the

headlines give you the gist of the story). This browse-encouraging layout leads me to believe that the

audience has a lot of time on their hands and is just looking for fun and interesting information to take

away. While readers probably spend a lot of time browsing through different news topics on the site,


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they don't spend quite as much time reading the actual articles themselves. This site is more of a grab-

and-go for industry news. If readers only use the homepage, it can seem slightly overwhelming. There

are a lot of images to take in all at once and it's easy to lose your place since it's one of those internet

pages that scrolls forever. This also tells me that it's a site readers will spend a lot of time on. At the

same time, they do separate site topics into tabs, so if a user wants to find topics more related to their

interests in an easier way, they're able to. This aspect of the site's organization would be more appealing

to the older end of their target audience who doesn't have hours to scroll at leisure.

From browsing through some of their articles, I noticed that many of them are very on the

surface, focusing more on digital culture rather than educational information. This brought me to the

conclusion that the demographic is on the young side and and probably doesn't have higher than a four-

year degree. However, in Twitter Being Used to Cast a Movie, the focus is on this innovate topic,

while maintaining the entertaining integrity the site tries to maintain. This article is also one of the few

that have some educational take-aways for new business professionals, like Using Bluefin data,

Twitter will also be able to offer real-time performance data on new ads. It's statements like these that

allow the audience to get interesting and helpful information for their shaping careers.

Their about page positions them as a leading source for news, information, and resources for

the Connected Generation. This gave me more clues as to who their target demographic consists of,

since the younger generation, who grew up with the internet as it exists today, is the Connected

Generation. They also label themselves as being innovative and brag about how many visitors and

followers they have on their about page. Since innovation is a popular term with this generation and

and the number of followers is often linked to credibility, these references giveMashable authority

with college students and new business professionals.

VII. Purpose of Publications

As a reader, I foundFast Company to be entertaining while offering useful information and


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advice. I believe the purpose of the magazine is to let people in the advertising and business industries

in on the next big thing before anyone else knows so they'll be ahead of the game. I believe readers

would want to pick up this magazine so they can become industry leaders. One article in the magazine

called Can You Hear Me Now? The article discusses a shift in how brands interact with consumers.

The article says they should start acting more like humans and engaging in conversations with their

followers. The topic is interesting as is, but the story has interviews of people in the advertising

business who are actually a part of this new conversation role. When a magazine offers real life

examples of the topics they're discussing, readers want to pay attention.

The purpose ofMashable is to share innovative information, digital culture, news and resources

with the Connected Generation.Mashable is more of a news source compared toFast Company.

Readers would be interested in reading this online publication because it gets this information out

quickly and in a way that's entertaining while still offering useful and helpful industry news to those

who seek it. It's a lighter way to read about these topics, rather than a publication likeFast Company

that readers have to spend more time reading and digesting. Readers will admire this site for its ease of

use and conversational tone.

VIII. Writing Style of Publications:

OverallFast Company has a feel that is very young, quirky and hip, but also intelligent. The

voice is casual, cool, smart and daring, which I believe plays off its demographic as well. As a writer, I

noticed many of the articles inFast Company used industry jargon such as Twitterverse and also

interviews and writes articles on industry leaders, this speaks to the magazine's intelligence. They also

begin many of their stories with goofy attention getters, like People love bacon, which add some

comic relief to what can sometimes become a dry subject. If I were to write an article to submit to this

magazine, I would make it sassy, in-depth, comical and informative. It goes without saying that any

idea for submission would need to be innovative or creative. For a magazine like this one, I might try


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pitching an article that addressed the growing trend of search engine optimization and it's implications

on brand awareness. Another topic I could pitch could focus on the growing need for creative content

for a product or business's website. I would have a quirky, fun attention grabber, and fill out the article

with information about which company's are utilizing these tactics and how they're performing, as well

as what the outlook for these trends includes.

Mashable has a similar voice, but it is less detailed. It's much more to the point since it's an

online publication. The voice is newsy, conversational, professional and brief, with lines like There

are two secretes to Tumblr's runaway success: design and community engagement. It also has

moments of comic relief and is casual with lines like Prepare your eyes for global sexiness. If I were

to write an article forMashable, I would write about some sort of advertising news, like an interview

with an industry insider about the usefulness of the new Google Adwords upgrades for mobile

targeting. I would make the article brief and conversational, touching on the important topics first so

readers would be able to grab information and go.

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