Maxim Extends Mobile Site Worldwide With Vodafone Deal
Dennis Publishing’s flagship men’s lifestyle magazine Maxim has announced a partnership with mobile phone network Vodafone to provide content to its operations in 30 countries world-wide.
The deal will build on the success of the Maxim Mobile site that launched on Vodafone’s Live! portal last summer. In conjunction with Dutch technical partner Mobile Media International, Dennis will have rolled the service out in ten countries by the end of the year including France, Italy, Portugal, Spain Australia and Sweden.
The service will offer readers the chance to download Maxim wallpapers, ring tones, games, video clips and a mobile version of the magazine direct to their handsets, extending the Maxim brand beyond its print edition and ensuring longevity of advertising campaigns.
Commenting on the service’s expansion, Richard Bean, international licensing director at Dennis said: “After our hugely successful launch in the UK, it is a natural extension to take the Maxim/Vodafone Live! deal world-wide. The partnership was an obvious one; Maxim is the world’s best selling men’s lifestyle magazine and Vodafone is the world’s largest mobile community – we are delighted to extend our relationship to the global scale.”
Vodafone’s Live! service currently offers customers access to news, information, e-mail, chat, location-based services, games and shopping. With more mobile phone users than ever making the switch to the latest data-enabled handsets its audience looks set to grow (see More Than 16.5 Million Now Use Photo Messaging).
The latest ABC results for the six months to June 2004 show that Maxim saw its circulation dip by 9.6% year on year to just over the 227,000 mark. The multimillion pound launch of weekly rivals Nuts and Zoo earlier this year has sent shockwaves through the men’s lifestyle magazine sector, with reports that the new arrivals are cannibalising the readerships of their more established monthly rivals (see Nuts And Zoo Hit Sales Of Monthly Lads’ Mags).
Earlier this year Dennis was forced to close its groundbreaking small format men’s title, Jack, due to disappointing sales and increased competition in the sector. The title, purchased by Dennis in June 2003 as part of its acquisition of I Feel Good Plc, had been increasing circulation, but was scrapped to enable Dennis to concentrate on more profitable titles and new projects (see Dennis Closes Jack Following Disappointing Sales).
Dennis Publishing: 020 7907 6000 www.dennis.co.uk
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