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Steuben Glass advertises on iPad in rebranding effort

October 22, 2010

A Steuben Glass landing page from the brand's VIVmag campaign

American home furnishings producer Steuben Glass is advertising in digital women’s lifestyle publication VIVmag’s new iPad application as part of a rebranding initiative.

Steuben launched its rebranding effort last month to reposition itself as a more accessible luxury company. The Steuben ad units appearing in the VIVmag’s application reflect the shift in branding through the inclusion of the copy, “Casual luxury for the way we live today” — the company’s new slogan.

“We believe online magazines, which incorporate the rich visuals of traditional magazines with the flexibility and interaction of a Web site, are the next important media wave, especially with the advent of the iPad,” said Robert Nachman, vice president of marketing and product development at Steuben, Corning, NY.

VIVmag is an exclusively digital magazine put out on the publishing platform Zinio. The publication claims 400,000 readers and targets affluent professional women.

Steuben felt that its repositioning strategy would better align the company to how consumers live in today and, in the process, expose the Steuben brand to a larger audience.

The campaign
Steuben’s VIVmag campaign includes two main ad units.

A full-page interactive unit appears in VIVmag’s most recent issue within the application and features eight different thumbnails of the brand’s glassware.

When users click on the images, a pop-up window generates with a larger view of the items. A link at the bottom of the new window leads to a product page on the Steuben Web site.

Full-page Steuben ad unit in VIVmag’s iPad application

Additionally, a blue, 450×100 pixel unit appears in the Shop section of the application.

The ad shows four images of Steuben products and a grey tab in the lower-right corner that reads Visit Steuben.com.

When users click the banner ad, a Web browser pops up and loads the Steuben Web site at http://www.steuben.com.

Steuben banner ad in the Shop section of VIVmag’s iPad application

The rebranding effort also includes a new collection of tabletop and decorative accessories designed by Jonathan Adler set to launch next spring, as well as several other new product lines, designer-driven initiatives and a Web site redesign.

Vehicle for luxury advertisers
VIVmag’s business model is built on revenue from subscriptions and subsidized by advertising.

The company emphasizes that its readership matches well against luxury advertisers’ target consumers.

Additionally, the publication boasts experience in the realm of interactive advertising and has several years experience in tailoring its platform as a vehicle for upscale brands to reach an engaged audience.

“VIVmag is far ahead of other publications in this realm,” said Nicholas Pavach, vice president of advertising sales and custom publishing at VIVmag, New York. “For years, a lot of luxury brands didn’t want to do banner sand buttons on Web sites, and viewed it as a kind of necessary evil.

“[Luxury brands] love big ads in specific media environments, and VIVmaga has provide a lot of those folks with a new outlook in terms of what they can do in digital advertising,” he said.

Final Take
Peter Finocchiaro is editorial assistant at Luxury Daily, New York