The app, which was unveiled at the What Car? awards last month has been created by Group FMG.
With tablet usage looking likely to hit a tipping point in the near future, it has never been more important for publishers to be able to offer users a tailored and quality experience on the platform, says Group FMG. What Car? magazine had been looking to capitalise on this shift for some time and up until January was replicating a version of its magazine using a basic “page turner” for its iPad app. However, this ultimately proved to be not as rewarding an experience for readers as the publisher would have hoped.
Rather than redesigning the magazine as a bespoke iPad app, What Car? publisher’s, Haymarket Consumer Media, worked with Group FMG to repurpose the existing magazines from the InDesign files it was already printing and add an element of interactivity.
Commenting on the new app, Andy Berg, Group FMG’s Commercial Director – Publishing, said: “Having worked closely with a number of leading publishers for many years, porting magazines over to this new format is an issue we have been coming up against with increasing regularity. However, working closely with Haymarket we have been able to create a new option for publishers, which rather than replicating the magazine’s content, enables the title to repurpose what it already has and optimise it for use on the platform – both in terms of physical fit and in terms of the integration of interactivity. This creates a much more engaging experience for the end user, and the result is a product that has 80% of the interactivity of a bespoke app, but is created with 20% of the effort.”
By taking the final InDesign pages from What Car? Group FMG has been able to create a series of templates designed specifically for tablets. All templating and design work was done in the UK working closely with the publication’s design team. And with the printed magazine being fairly template driven already it was a relatively straight-forward process to flow the content into the new tablet-friendly designs, says Group FMG.
Chas Hallet, What Car?’s editor in chief, added: “This process has been a terrific solution for us. We now have a more sophisticated, interactive digital magazine than the page turner that it replaces. And it’s considerably most cost-effective than other methods that we investigated.”
He continued: “To give an example of the type of interactivity we are now able to add to our tablet version, we currently run group tests where we’ll test and compare three different cars. On the printed pages these would be split into different columns and boxes to keep all the different details and specs together. On the app, we are able to present pictures of cars on the page, and by tapping on each one you can see all the details for that vehicle displayed on the screen. This makes it really easy to flick between the different models and compare them.
“Creating this app has also been painless for our production staff. As we have had only minimal changes to our work-flow and schedules. What’s more it’s also giving us the potential for increased revenues streams and we’re looking at how we can work with our advertisers to take their existing magazine ads and add some interactivity to them so they work in a much more engaging way on the iPad.”
Hallet concludes: “Best of all, we now have a great looking and valuable addition to the What Car? portfolio that’s rapidly winning great reviews from new and current readers.”
Although some titles may be able to warrant the cost of producing a bespoke app, the reality is that the vast majority of magazines can’t invest the necessary levels of cash upfront. This means the magazine publishers are crying out for a solution that enables them to ease themselves into the app market and decide whether they can afford to create a bespoke app. However, for those looking to effectively handle this shift, at the moment it’s not about replication or redesign, it’s about repurposing, says Group FMG.
