Zinio has put the final touches on its three-pronged “unity” platform with a new digital magazine network and two new partner distribution deals. The first partner is new to the digital marketing space. Kia Motors America (KMA) announced that the all-new 2011 Kia Sorento CUV advertising campaign, which is already the largest marketing effort in company history, will now include the company’s first digital magazine advertisement ever. That effort will span 15 publishing groups through a collaboration with Zinio’s Publisher Advertising Network (ZPAN).
Kia will be the first advertiser to leverage ZPAN which is the first cross-publisher ad network for the digital magazine industry. The network will reach more than 45 digital magazines across several categories, including business, men’s lifestyle, news, sports and technology. Readers can activate and interact online or on mobile with enhanced features such as audio, video and live links. Kia Sorento digital magazine advertisements will run in the March and April 2010 issues of Car and Driver, Esquire, PC Magazine Digital Edition, PC World, Popular Science, SKI Magazine, SmartMoney, VIVmag and Yoga Journal, among many other titles, which are available on zinio.com and Zinio’s iPhone application.
“Teaming with digital-publishing pioneer Zinio, this innovative campaign furthers Sorento’s tagline – ‘a departure from the expected’ – by exposing the Kia brand to a wide variety of readers across iconic magazine brands,” said Michael Sprague, vice president of marketing, KMA. “ZPAN enables Kia Motors to convey Sorento’s impressive attributes in a new digital format, generating consumer awareness in fresh, innovative and unexpected ways.”
Sorento advertising will appear across 15 publishers, including Active Interest Media, Bonnier Corporation, Hachette Filipacchi Media, Hearst Magazines, Source Interlink Media, VIV Publishing and Ziff Davis Media. In addition to digital, other components of Kia Motors’ integrated media buy include print, outdoor and television, which kicked-off during the Super Bowl.
“Historically, advertisers have loved what magazines provide: big, attractive, full-color ads with fixed placements,” said Jeanniey Mullen, Global CMO, Zinio. “Zinio has created a way to reinvent the full-page spread, digitally and dynamically, with the introduction of ZPAN. Kia Motors’ commitment to providing the most innovative reading experience made the company the perfect match for our launch.”
With two new vehicle introductions and several other key initiatives planned for 2010, Sprague says he was aware of the innovative and even risky nature of the Zinio buy. “With the growth of digital readers (Kindle, Sony e-reader, etc.) and continued growth in this new medium, being a first mover in new technologies shows that not only are our vehicles leading on the technology front (UVO, Bluetooth, Aux input jack, etc.) but our communications are as well,” he says. “This is not the first time that we were a first mover, we also worked with imeem for digital bar code reader application in conjunction with the launch of the Kia Soul, which was targeted to youthful audiences. We wanted to engage consumers in a two-way dialogue as part of our media strategy. To do that, we made sure to seek out interactive environments. This way we talk with consumers and not at them, making the Kia brand more approachable.”
In addition to expanding its distribution, Zinio has also partnered with Qualcomm. At last week’s GSMA Mobile World Congress, the company previewed its new FLO technology notebooks, which unite live TV viewing with real time web content. Digital magazines can be delivered via FLO networks, and Zinio’s global newsstand is part of Qualcomm’s initial demos.
