The global publishing company will migrate its international portfolio of interactive editions to SPRYLAB’s Purple DS platform in a phased execution throughout 2017, and the partnership will cover four key markets: the UK, Germany, Australia and the US.
The migration process has already started, with the new platform being used to create sleek, multi-layered apps, and memorable, unique user experiences, says the company. Between November 2016 and January 2017, four of Bauer’s biggest digital magazine brands were successfully migrated to the SPRYLAB Purple DS platform – Empire, Car, Bike, and Practical Photography as well as a number of titles in Australia.
In seeking a new digital publishing platform provider, Bauer Media Group said it wanted to centralise its global, interactive digital editions business by identifying one solution that could meet all editorial needs and expectations.
Bauer chose SPRYLAB primarily because of the high level of flexibility offered by the Purple DS solution and its ability to facilitate the migration from existing digital providers onto one, new platform.
SPRYLAB’s digital publishing software platform will deliver enhanced publishing workflows, from manually created pixel perfect apps using Adobe InDesign, through to automated content delivery – giving both small and large editorial teams the ability to create aesthetically optimised content, with minimum impact on time and resource, says SPRYLAB.
This scalability, along with added flexibility, will enable weekly digital magazines such as Grazia and MCN to be published in as little as one day – a factor that was key to Bauer Media Group selecting the Purple DS solution.
Commenting on the decision to engage SPRYLAB technologies, Cedric Atta, Director of International e-Publishing at Bauer Media Group, said: “Our decision formed part of a broader program of change aimed at streamlining our editorial systems and processes.”
Atta continued: “We’ve been intending to centralise our digital publishing solutions for some time now – a plan that has been expedited by tech-led industry developments that dictated our need to deliver more and more titles in digital format for mobile and tablet devices.”
Jim Foster, Head of e-Publishing UK at Bauer Media Group, added: “More flexibility and support for editorial teams was top of our agenda – as was the need to have device-optimised apps that can be created with minimal impact on workflows.”
Foster continued: “Post migration to SPRYLAB’s Purple DS platform earlier this year, the Empire art team has been able to produce top-quality, fully interactive digital editions up to three days faster than was previously possible. This extra time is now being used to improve the app further, giving us significant competitive advantage by enabling the creation of ever more impressive digital versions.”
Commenting on the engagement, Stephan Heck, CEO at SPRYLAB technologies, said: “Our team is thrilled to be partnering with Bauer Media Group – a globally renowned and highly regarded publishing business. The company is a leader in its field and we’re delighted to hear that both the team at Bauer, and the editorial teams working at their prestigious publications, are already experiencing quick time to value with regards time, resource and cost savings.”
Heck concluded: “We developed and built our Purple DS platform and infrastructure to support a contract of this size, and our engagement with the team at Bauer Media Group is great validation of our robust offering. After the successful migration of four publications to date, we are now focusing on supporting and training the editorial teams at these titles so that they can fully utilise the innovative features of Purple DS® in order to optimise revenue possibilities.”
