• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer, January 29, 2007

Media buyers and planners are scouting for opportunities in digital magazines. But getting traditional advertisers to leap into the idea of a fully paperless, downloadable magazine like the new Viv (www.vivmag.com) remains a challenge. “It was a tough sell,” admits publisher Barbara Moses. “They confused ‘digital magazine’ with an online magazine.” The difference is that the 239-page women’s service book is designed like a magazine but runs on a PC via a Zinio reader. The editorial content and more than 20  pages of ads in the January/February issue include audio, video, and animation. A page in which Audemars Piguet jewelers appears had an embedded QuickTime video spot and other links activated in-page slide shows. Viv’s editorial and multimedia are designed from the bottom up for the digital reader — a print layout with Web-like interactivity.

Fiji Water Founder David Gilmour spearheaded the endeavor, along with Doug Carlson, who is Viv’s CEO. Anne Russell, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, is the former editor of Shape magazine. Targeting women ages 35 and up, the magazine currently has a digital circulation of just 10,000.