VOGUE Germany now interactive following partnership with Conde Nast

A landmark campaign went live this week. One which will have fashion bunnies and trend-watchers twitching in their front row seats… along with the whole excited Blippar team: the first ever blippable edition of VOGUE.

VOGUE Germany has become the first national edition of the legendary fashion bible to embrace Blippar, understanding the extraordinary opportunities it offers publishers and editorial teams by enabling them to pack their magazines with thrilling digital content.

After meetings with the forward-thinking VOGUE Germany team in Munich, we worked with them to create a series of augmented reality experiences for the September issue – famously the beefiest of the year.

Using our DIY blipp-creation tool Blippbuilder we created 15 blipps across 54 pages, each launching fantastic, behind-the-scenes-at-VOGUE video content, exclusive interviews, insight into how the magazine is put together each month, and top secret footage of new season fashion shoots.

And we’ll be doing the same for the next five issues, right up until February, when the team will see exactly how many people have been interacting with their blipps and (hopefully) decide to continue using our self-serve platform to make every future issue of VOGUE Germany interactive.

Editor-in-Chief Christiane Arp has written a terrific editor’s letter explaining why the team decided to embrace augmented reality.

Arp says the aim was to transport the reader into Vogue’s digital world, but without them putting down the print publication itself: ‘The new technology gives us the opportunity to make even more VOGUE and to break the boundaries between the analog and digital world.’

She goes on to say that no longer will she be complaining about a lack of space for features in Vogue; Blippar now enables the team to pack every edition with infinite amounts of additional content, without paying for any extra printing costs!

There is also a full page of Blippar education posted on the VOGUE Germany website, in which the September issue is described as an exciting ‘new multimedia era’ for Vogue.

In it, Arp clarifies: ‘Augmented reality is a future topic that holds interesting possibilities, especially for media brands. During this first step we focused on video content that offers our readers more personal access to the editorial staff and the magazine’s staple themes, and we will gradually expand this.’

The team also created an impressive YouTube video further elucidating how to use Blippar to draw additional content from the magazine. An excellent piece of user education.

Speaking to Blippar, Silke Friedrich, Head of VOGUE Digital, said of our partnership: ‘Mobile devices act as second screens during TV but also magazine consumption. At an early stage for augmented reality in Germany, Blippar offers possibilities to test our reader's affinity for multimedia contents in a print context.

‘In times of social media and blogs delivering individual content, it is more important than ever to strengthen a brand’s credibility. With Blippar we offer our readers additional editorial content that shows how we create and produce our stories, gives insights into the work of our editors and thus allows our readers to feel closer to the brand. Another aspect is service: with the upcoming issues we will offer additional features, such as shopping recommendations.

‘My favorite blipp is the one on the cover - for several reasons: Besides a charming Vanessa Axente, VOGUE Germany is one of the few magazines that is able to make the cover "blippable" at all!’

Krischan Lehmann, Director Digital Strategy at VOGUE Germany, went on to say: ‘Mobile devices are constant companions of most of our readers. So it’s a logical step for us to extend the VOGUE experience into mobile. Blippar offers a very good way to seamlessly connect our print issues with multimedia content making VOGUE a truly interactive experience.

‘Through blipping, VOGUE readers will meet the editorial team and get an unprecedented look behind the scenes of VOGUE’s editorial process and the subjects covered in each issue. We start with video content that was specifically produced for this purpose. So the VOGUE readers can directly dive into the stories behind all the stories. It’s a very personal experience.

‘Hard to say which my favourite blipp is. Getting a “private walkabout” along the issue’s topic by Christiane Arp is great, but I also liked the creative atmosphere in the making of video of the cover shoot.’

Pick up your copy of VOGUE Germany now!