Magazine content attract youth via mobile

Steve Bloom, Senior Vice President & Director of Magazines at ZenithMedia in New York has come up with two solutions for his client, Verizon Wireless, by using the content from magazines in a digital environment to drive sales for new revenue-based products. Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey is a joint venture between Verizon Communications and U.K.’s Vodafone. With 65.7 million customers and nearly $44 billion in annual revenue, it operates the most profitable wireless company in the U.S. Bloom’s assignment was to encourage the elusive young audience of 12 to 24 year olds to use more of Verizon’s services. His contention was that sports and fashion are “passion points” for this demographic, and he is a big believer in how magazine content can work well in other platforms.

For his female target, it took a popular feature from Us Weekly, a celebrity magazine, called “Who Wore It Best?” The feature shows two stars, caught candidly, wearing the same outfit. Bloom was able to get Verizon users to vote online or through their phone for which celebrity looked best in the outfit. Results appeared in the next issue of the magazine. The campaign is new, and already they are seeing that traffic is indeed spiking in connection with this feature.

Bloom created another program for his male target, using Maxim magazine feature called “Home Town Hotties.” It enables Verizon users to take these clips from print to online to their phone in order to purchase as videos or wallpaper. Maxim was also able to create a mobile Table of Contents to allow users to search for other features. This program saw an immediate increase in revenue. In fact, this new program quickly rose to being the #3 channel on the version platform.

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