Havas and Zinio team up to drive digital magazines

From Mediapost

IN A MOVE TO LEVERAGE the global distribution of the Internet, digital magazine publisher Zinio has team with a unit of Havas Media to extend the reach of consumer magazines into Europe and Latin America. The deal, which combines Zinio's digital magazine publishing platform with Acceso, a powerful media management system jointly owned by Havas Media and ISP, is expected to greatly expand the number of consumer magazine titles utilizing Zinio's system from about 850 currently to more than 2,000 over the next year, executives at the companies said.
The move comes as Zinio, already the magazine world's dominant digital publishing platform, has been seeking to step up its profile on Madison Avenue. Earlier this month, Zinio raided Jeanniey Mullen, a top digital media executive at WPP Group's OgilvyOne unit, to serve as chief marketing officer.
By tapping into Acceso Group, Zinio gains both expanded global reach, as well as access to a system utilized by some of the biggest consumer magazine advertisers. Acceso, headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, is used by Havas Media to provide media content intelligence services and communications management solutions for leading multinational marketers such as Vodafone, Repsol, Nike, Coca-Cola, Telefonica, Nabisco, Volkswagen Group, Wrigley, Sol-Melia and BBVA.
"We believe that Zinio's superior technology and online marketing services for publishers will drastically increase the appeal and usage of digital publications," Alfonso Rodes, CEO of Havas Media, stated. "We want to be ahead of this process and be able to fully exploit for our clients the possibilities of this promising interactive channel,"