takes advantage of all the resources that multimedia offers.
Group doing in terms of building the transition from print to multi-platform media?
RC: First of all, we try to keep abreast of
all the best things that our colleagues around the world are doing – on what’s working and what’s not. Simultaneously, we experiment on our own. We have long since made sites for each of our main magazines and recently added tablet editions of some 35 of them. We have also created a site to pool all the content produced by Abril’s many women’s magazines, and have seen it become one of Brazil’s leading sites, with over 22 million unique visitors.
The ideal is to welcome new ideas, not
be afraid of testing them, learn as much as possible from the ones that don’t work and
18 INNOVATION: What is the Abril
continue to invest in new digital ventures. INNOVATION: A few years ago, your
company started an operation called Abril Digital. What is its role? Are these people responsible for exploring the digital future of publishing?
RC: The first challenge for Abril Digital
was to develop a common digital platform for all of our magazines. The second was to experiment with ecommerce. We successfully achieved the first objective, but were unable to make any significant headway with our first three ecommerce attempts. But we intend to keep trying…
In 2012, for instance, we launched a new
site called iba (‘fruit tree’ in local native Indian language) to sell digital editions of tens of thousands of books, all of our magazines and most of Brazil’s leading newspapers. I’m happy to report that the new project is off to a flying start.