SurveyMonkey thoughts

I've been reading through my 44 SurveyMonkey responses. Some of the answers have been really thought-provoking. About 80% of people who answered my survey described themselves in general as "informed consumers", which is great - that's pretty much the target market I was looking for. In retrospect I would have not titled the survey as "fashion", because I think a few people answered "no" as they are not informed consumers of fashion.

Consumers feel strongly about topics across a wide spectrum of issues - political, environmental, religious, culture, technological and social. Some specific issues brought up were: gender equality, gay rights, fair trade, design authenticity, poverty, health, secularism of ethics, "slow" design, renewable resources, sustainable town planning & city building, the banning of smoking in public, support of local & organic produce, anti-animal testing, anti- mass productions, and waste/ landfill ethics. The most prominent issue for my survey responders was environmental sustainability and fair trade. 7% of my responders did not answer the question.

70% of my responders avoid shopping at specific stores or buying specific products because of moral/ ethical issues. Stores include: Max Brenner, Fast Fashion Chains, McDonalds, BP, Woolworths/ Coles, Nike, Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, Cotton On, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Zara, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Shell, City Beach, Mossimo, YD, Amazon and Portmans. Products include: Non-organic skin/ beauty products, products made in China, non-organic foods, non-Australian made products, products which use palm oil, cheap fashion, fur products, products tested on animals, caged eggs, large coffee chains, "adult" products.

Responders said they shop at a huge variety of stores. There were responses rangeing from discount stores like hot dollar, zara, topshop, kmart & supre, chain stores like sportsgirl, portmans, jay jays, witchery and general pants, designerwear like gorman, sass& bide, allanah hill, miu miu, mimco, and some higher fashion stores like chanel, prada and bally. There was also a number of people who said they shopped at local boutiques, and well as online stores like etsy.

Magazines of responders included Frankie, Cleo, Russh, W, Numero, Oyster, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Lula, Dazed & Confused, OK, Grazia, Shop Til You Drop, Wallpaper, ID and Madison. Other publications: SMH, Daily Telegraph, BBC online, ABC online, the Australian, Monocle, the Guardian, New York Times online, New Scientist, Reddit, MX, and Sunday magazine. Blogs include: TheyAllHateUS, amandpalmer, showstudio, and design milk blog.

I then tried to gain an understanding of my consumers by looking at the way they make decisions. I separated answers into 4 categories: "humanist", "indecisive", "safe" and "personal". So, for example buying a present for a friend, giftcard would be the "indecisive" option, jewellery would be the "safe" option, something at the oxfam store would be "humanist" and taking her out to lunch would be "personal". In retrospect, I'm not sure these answers worked the way I wanted them to. The response for my movie choice one, for example "A Comedy because there's an actor in it who was funny in some other movie so you think it'll probably be okay" was my "safe" option, but I'm not sure it really determined attitudes, people may have simply chosen it because they like comedies.


I think the most interesting answers came from my question about definitions of beauty and weather society's ideals match what people's ideals are. Every single person who answered the question (34 responses) said they largely disagreed with societal/ media repsresentations of beauty, or that they were influenced by them and wish they weren't. There were many responses who said they recognised beauty in confidence and personality: "inner beauty", and beauty in people who were unique and different. It is therefore so surprising that media strays so far from consumer demands. It is possible, also, that some people shaped their responses based on social desirability, ie what they "should" say in reponse to such a question. But I think that largely the reponses were truthful.


45% of reponders said they did consider or strongly consider a product to have more monetary value if it is ethical/ sustainable/ fair trade/ funding charities/ protesting against malpractice/ etc. 56% said it did sometimes, and only 7% said it didn't. Examples of products people pay more for are: local food produce, fair trade coffee, free range eggs, oxfam toys, underwear made in Australia, organic products, hand made clothing, lush cosmetics, Trilogy products, organic materials & cotton, authenticity of design, vintage clothes, charity products, and non-mass produced products.

Survey Monkey!

I've just started customer profiling by asking a few detailed questions relating to the psychographics of my customers on my SurveyMonkey.

Editorial Philosophy

My "evolving" editorial philosophy:

Editorial Philosophy

"The best way to predict the future is to create it" – Peter Drucker.

LookUp (working title)’s philosophy centres around the idea of sustainability. In environmental terms, sustainability means using the resources of today while ensuring not to detract from the needs of the future. LookUp extends the use of the word sustainability by applying it to any world issue. For example, sustainability as applied to consumerism may allude to the idea that the contemporary society is not balancing its need for material wealth with a seemingly forgotten need for the happiness within. LookUp is about reclaiming the true essence of design: creating an object that solves a problem or rectifies a societal need; a feature that can be said is missing from much contemporary design, especially in fashion.

Business Placement

LookUp provides what no other fashion/ lifestyle magazine provides: a second dimension. LookUp does not aim to sell garments, epitomise the beauty of the latest fashion styles, or convey the latest celebrity intrigue, to the public. LookUp combines the love of amateur craft such as Frankie, the environmental concerns of Peppermint, the parody of Adbusters, the format subversion of Is Not Magazine, the satire of Zoolander, I Hurt I am in Fashion and the Onion, and the Utopian future ideas in Kelli Anderson and the Yes Men’s hoax New York Times in 2008.  

Target Market

In contrast to the Fashion/ Lifestyle magazines of today whose Target Market is always a fairly specific age group and gender, LookUp prefers to look beyond age and other less meaningful demographics and reaches out more to a group of people who share in the philosophy that the only thing standing between the world we have and the world that could be is the dream of making it so. LookUp embodies the quote of Peter Drucker, a creation aspiring to be future by design.

Objectivity

The objective through the definition of LookUp’s philosophy is to reach out to a society which is not always aiming to attain a sustainable future. Through its target market, it endeavours to encourage critical thought and activism and, through consumer demand, eventually force creative business to change its own philosophies.

Content

LookUp will achieve its objectives through a series of creative endeavours and collaborations that seek to encourage critical thought and provide visions of the world we could have. The content will be intellectual and largely based on theory, and many parts will involve the technique of satire. Imagery will be largely artistic and conceptual, while written pieces will be closer to literary works, rather than journalism. Advertisements will be exclusively hoax ads/ spoof ads/ or serious ads only from business/ companies who parallel LookUp’s vision. The publication will include basic things one might expect to find in a magazine such as horoscopes and crosswords, however these will be deconstructed either through parody, or changing their essential uses. LookUp will also include photography and art that returns to its most basic forms: displaying the beauty of raw practice and creative talent, as well as showcasing the older practices of lithographic printing.

Outcome

LookUp is not just a “magazine”, it is also about confronting the very definition of “magazine”. It publishes two poster magazines as street art each year with the aim of encouraging user input on the theme, running alongside its online forum, all of which is documented and included in the annual publication. LookUp ensures its practices adhere to its own philosophy including fair trade, use of sustainable resources, and encompassing forgotten practices of printing by its relations with the Big Fag Press team.

Topicality

The theme of Issue 1 is Fashion, specifically looking at psychological sustainability with regards to self-image, and how this is situated in the realms of body image issues, practice within fashion systems, the ideal body and self esteem.

It draws on Plato’s theory of forms which looks at the concept of a perfect form that exists outside of reality. (Plato Symposium 210E) For example beauty has a perfect form that we aspire to. The fashion industry constantly provides us with a fantasy world through catwalks, advertising, and imagery, and I am concerned with society’s lack of ability to critically separate this fantasy from reality (Franklin 2010).

LookUp’s philosophy aims to create a fantasy of its own, which is a world that operates prioritising what ethically and morally would make a better world. This issue is therefore aimed at consumers of fashion with the capacity to critically analyse the difference between reality and fashion’s ideal form as well as change consumer demand and ultimately reach the fashion industry in order to instigate practices which fit within LookUp’s better world. 

Business Structure

LookUp is not-for-profit, independently published, and relies on grants through promotion of charity organisations. LookUp publishes limited edition copies of its magazine and Street Art Posters, which can be purchased online. Money from sales pays for printing, and splits the rest among contributors.