In 2015, Amorphous New Media partnered with Edgars Club Magazine to produce the first truly interactive South African lifestyle digital magazine, and only 15 months later the app has been downloaded 100 000 times, beating its closest South African competitor by a wide margin.
As the biggest mobile lifestyle magazine of its kind in South Africa, the Edgars Club Magazine takes advantage of digital developments to give readers a superior user experience.
While other digital publications have, to date, generally mimicked print versions by replicating the use of page turning effects, static adverts, and large volumes of text, the Edgars lifestyle app uses simple techniques, including backlit images, digital-friendly, visually appealing spacing, and both left/right and up/down swipe movements.
This is while encompassing the editorial pillars of “Style, Beauty, Live, MAN” held by the print magazine.
Of the 275 free lifestyle magazine apps available on iTunes, Edgars Club Magazine peaked at number two and was at positions two and three among its South African counterparts in the Google Play store.
What this means for advertisers
Since its launch, response to the Edgars Club Magazine app has been positive. Those who have downloaded it consistently spend eight to ten minutes longer engaging with the content than they would spend on PDF page floppers or print replicas. Page floppers in particular are unappealing to users because they are simply a reduced-size version of the printed publication – often making them difficult to read and uninteresting to interact with.
With the Edgar’s Club Magazine app, there is no limit to how interactive the adverts in the magazine can be, which opens up new options for advertisers. The magazine and digital teams have created a reader experience that is slick, seamless, and high definition, filling the magazine app with rich video and audio, digital-only content, and exclusive competitions or links to e-commerce sites.
The uptake of advertising space on this platform has grown exponentially as advertisers have recognised the opportunities available when the potential of interactive advertising is harnessed.
South African consumers are increasingly using mobile digital platforms to access their media, with tablet use by internet users growing from 7% in 2011, to 26% in 2015. The app, created by Amorphous, has over 100 000 Edgars Club interactive subscribers. The range of fashion and beauty content, features, supplements, and exclusive digital content, as well as the large audience offer a plethora of advertising opportunities.