Readly launches in France and unveils its first campaign

The European category leader in digital magazine subscriptions, Readly, debuts its offering in France today including over 6700 international magazines and newspapers and French titles such as Libération, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Maxi Cuisine, Public and L’Express. This marks the start of a 3-month long consumer launch campaign with a customer centric approach – “Readly for the Reader” which aims to build awareness of the Swedish brand based on analysis of French readers and their reading habits. The French magazine and newspaper market is estimated to be worth 7.5 billion USD in 2022, it will become Readly’s fourth core market.

Readly acquired Toutabo in October 2021 and subsequently launched the co-branding “ePresse par Readly” in November the same year. Since then, the European category leader has initiated the integration of the two companies and introduced the company’s value proposition and ambitions to French publishers and commercial partners. With 7 500 titles from 1200 publishers, Readly is ready to start presenting its offering and extensive portfolio of magazines, newspapers and podcasts to French consumers.

– We are delighted to start welcoming French readers to our platform to discover our breadth of renowned national and international content. Readly has shown great success in building an unparalleled portfolio with a growing number of magazines, local and regional newspapers and international podcasts. We are committed to continuing on this path and delivering strong value to the French publishers whilst providing our subscribers with world class content, says Mats Brandt, CEO at Readly.

By joining Readly, publishers will benefit from additional revenues, increased reach and digital presence. They will also be able to gain a better understanding of readers’ habits through 50 billion data points generated on the platform. In addition, Readly allows publishers to increase their top line circulation figures since issues read on Readly count towards ACPM numbers.

– With Readly’s revenue share model, publishers enjoy a better assessment of their audience as ACPM counts this digital audience in the unit sales category which is the most valuable category for publishers and advertisers”, tells us Jean-Frederic Lambert, CEO at Readly France.

The “Readly for the Reader” campaign – creatives that will elevate French editorial

To create buzz for the European category leader, and introduce users to the new service, Readly has teamed up with event agency UNEXPECTED to do a series of guerilla PR and marketing activities. Based on data and analysis of French readers and their habits, the campaign aims to highlight the diverse needs, for example the need to be informed, creative and inspired, as well as the value and consumption of content in France. The insights include that 48% of French consumers read to learn and educate themselves and 33% read to keep updated and informed.

– We want to present an emotional connection to our content and product, by bringing the personal benefits of using Readly to the forefront of our advertising. Our campaign creatives will elevate French editorial, celebrate publishing, and ensure that we are focusing on the customers and what makes our product so relevant to them. Highlighting this unique value of Readly is more important than ever and we see a particularly good fit for our vision in France, that we are excited to now bring to life, says Marie-Sophie von Bibra, Chief Marketing Office at Readly.

A number of street marketing and PR activations are planned over the coming months, inviting French subscribers to explore what type of reader they are and to connect with the content on the platform. The campaign starts with four activations going live in the first stage of the consumer launch;

a scratch card give-away competition at subway stations in Paris
experiential out of home activity by means of a truck driving around Paris showing the huge range of French content on Readly
quizzes
‘news criers’ that will be promoting and handing out free trials of Readly.
This is combined with an extensive out of home and digital out of home advertising campaign across cities as well as acquisition and influencer marketing. The launch also includes partnerships with Fnac, Huawei, Glossybox, N26 bank and several other brands. To reach French speaking consumers in other markets, Readly has specific campaign sites ready for Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Canada.