#YouthMonth: Exposing Edgars' 100,000 download magic

It’s taken just over a year for the Edgars Club Magazine’s digital edition, produced in partnership with Amorphous New Media, to be downloaded over 100,000 times – beating its closest South African lifestyle magazine competitor by a whopping 95,000 downloads, according to the ABC figures for October to December 2015.

A big aspect of the success of this, now the biggest mobile lifestyle magazine of its kind in South Africa, is that it offers free monthly downloads on tablets and mobile alike, offering its readers a superior user experience through cutting-edge digital developments. View the specially-created GIFs and promo video embedded below if you don’t believe me:

See how instead of merely mimicking the print version of the magazine with static ads and that page-turning effect favoured by competitors, the images are backlit and there’s a left/right and up/down swipe movement? That makes it incredibly appealing. So appealing, in fact, that its downloaders consistently spend up to 10 minutes longer engaging with the content than they would spend on those PDF page flippers (or should that be ‘page floppers’, as many are mere print replicas.)

So impressed was I by this feat that I pinned down Grant Shippey, CEO of Amorphous Media, to find out exactly how they created this digital gem that’s proving equally appealing to advertisers, as it offers high-definition content that incorporates rich video and audio, as well as exclusive competitions.

The “touch and swipe” age

Shippey says it’s been an exciting and inspiring road and that the brief was to take one of the country's largest custom magazines into the “touch and swipe” age, which they’ve clearly done, as seen in the specially created GIFs they sent through below:

The app has grown significantly since its launch last February, largely due to the integrated content marketing program that takes the content ranging from beauty, fashion and lifestyle digital stories to Edgars Club members as well as to the public for free in the Google Play and iTunes app stores.

This content is then purposed for two smartphone screen sizes as well as portrait and landscape orientations for tablet viewing. Interestingly, he says: “Most readers prefer to read landscape on their tablet and portrait on their phones, but watch videos in landscape. Each screen is thus crafted for the environment.”

They actively “test, test, test" and learn with every reader interaction, through an environment of “active and artistic yet empirical experimentation”, explains Shippey.

They wanted to prove they could create a lifestyle publication that outstrips its premium print counterparts by a factor of 2-3 in the South African context, particularly as audience acquisition is seen as the critical success factor.

So where the Audience Bureau of Circulation or ABC’s stats are used in the print world, the digital realm requires web metrics coupled with dwell time, engagement and interaction metrics.

Appreciating app advertising

First, they had to introduce South African advertisers to a premium tablet and mobile platform. The advertising product was created using international best practices from success stories of Wired Tablet edition and New Yorker Magazine. The advertising is thus positioned as “premium multiscreen touch-enabled interactive advertising positions”, says Shippey, ultimately the antithesis of programmatic-served banner adverts.

Therein lies the true impact for advertisers, as mobile advertising brings together all the disciplines from TV, radio, print and digital with the addition of touch interaction. This is all served up in an e-commerce-enabled, ultra-high definition platform that is performing well above expectations. Advertisers in the travels sector, for example, have seen incredible successes in promoting online bookings, while healthcare advertisers have seen dramatic footfall increase in stores and beauty advertisers are venturing boldly into this new world from traditional channels, confirms Shippey. So developing native or advertorial type content offers substantial reader interest and an advertiser value opportunity for brands.

And the best is yet to come, as Shippey describes this playing field as “the nexus of business intelligence, big data, e-commerce and content.” As a result, they are aimed at managing conversations across multiple channels, both owned and earned and progressively getting more sophisticated with content promotion and customisation, based on bubbling up topics and content people are interested in as well as the ones that drive commercial outcomes.

Sounds like just the right mix as the reader of the future wants it all at the swipe of a screen. Find out more about the app first-hand by downloading it for free for Apple and Android.