I’ve just got back from a morning’s fly-fishing on my local River Guash, where I caught several cracking wild brown trout on the dry fly. I’ve fly-fished since I was a teenager and love it. It’s active, therapeutic, gets me food for the table and allows me to unwind away from the 24/7 madness of the digital world.
However, escaping work completely is always difficult and, between catching fish, I was mulling over Bauer’s phone content strategy, as well as the imminence of the girlfriend moving in with me! For the purposes of this feature, I’ll ignore the girlfriend (she’ll say not for the first time) and waffle on about some of the work we’ve been doing in an attempt to crack content monetisation within the smartphone market.
We’re starting to do some genuinely exciting stuff on a couple of fronts. First up, work has started in collaboration with Rhapsody Media on a designed-for-iPhone version of our fully interactive Adobe DPS titles, of which Empire is the flagship. And secondly, my colleagues in Germany have just released an app called My Cosmo Daily, which is an excellent example of where mobile phone content publishing is going. I’ll return to that shortly: for now, let’s concentrate on Empire’s new, imminent iPhone iteration.
We’ve known for some time of the need to start selling content on and designed for smartphones. The question has always been, without breaking the bank or killing editorial staff through stress, how do you do that?
Following discussions with various key members of the Empire team, I found our views were similar and revolved around the same, broad solution: our phone app should initially comprise responsive HTML5 templates, managed via a CMS and imported into Adobe DPS.
The more I thought about it, the more this seemed a decent route to market. Such a system is a balance: it isn’t too impactful on workflow and could potentially be done within existing team resource, yet it will be impressive enough to make content reading on the phone interactive and enjoyable for users.
Such a solution also gives the editorial team, if resource is available, a chance to intersperse templates with bespoke-designed DPS pages if required (so we can make an interactive cover and other specialised phone content if we want to). Hence, the user doesn’t get bored issue after issue with the same functionality limitations and templates. Keeping things fresh is a key to magazine flat-planning – the same should be true of the digital equivalent.
To get the investment necessary to pay for this, I had to put together a business case justifying spend against the extra sales and revenue an iPhone launch would likely bring in. Profitability had to be demonstrated within months of launch.
What goes in
Doing this work for Empire wasn’t difficult. Neither was selling the app to the editorial team: the need for it was clear for all to see. A slightly more contentious debate, once that need and delivery method was agreed, was deciding whether all the magazine’s monthly content should go into the iPhone app. And if not, what should be left out? And how should the templates display the content?
For me, phone layouts should not be replicas of print design. Obviously! Neither should they replicate a tablet folio. Reading habits of phone users are different to other devices and content display needs to reflect that. So what should you do? Well, in Empire’s case, let’s take the film reviews.
Empire’s critics are greatly respected, their words and ratings persuade many a film-goer which movies to see and which to avoid. And it’s precisely the kind of content a consumer is going to turn to on his or her phone, making it a perfect cornerstone for an iPhone version that should be situated right at the forefront of the app. Unlike print, the star rating for each film should be visible at the start of each layout, along with a bullet-pointed summary of what makes or breaks the film, with a separate template and scroll for each big review.
Possibly, you could stream a trailer or add extra HD photos before the user reads the in-depth review.
I don’t think you need to run all of the magazine’s content in an iPhone app. Empire is renowned for its 15-page mega features and wonderful they are too. But how do you replicate them in a template? Have a never-ending scroll?
As I write this, we still haven’t answered all these questions. There will be disagreements. But we’re on the case with it, looking at our DPS analytics to help us decide what to do with our content on the phone version, and I’m sure we will deliver a solution that will complement the other key platforms of the Empire brand.
Maybe we could take a leaf out of Bauer Germany’s My Cosmo Daily app. If you can read German and don’t mind gratuitous photos of a questionable nature appearing on your phone when scrolling through the free content (the Germans tend to be far more liberal than us in this regard) then do install it and see what it’s like.
The strategy behind it is simple. Elements of the print PDF are removed using XML and delivered daily into the app for free. It’s intuitive, it’s simple, it’s built for phone and the free content can be monetised through advertising. Why not do the same for Empire? We could publish parts of the 15-page mega feature over the course of a month, possibly a page or two each day, engaging the user and requiring them to come back to read the entire piece. Accompany this with a clear upsell to the paid-edition and hey presto…
We’ll see how we go. Maybe next time I go trout fishing, I might be able to forget about this particular work conundrum and just ponder the girlfriend moving in and related life consequences. The chance would be a fine thing!
