Mission

Facts & Figures, the subsidiary of G+J Wirtschaftsmedien AG + Co. KG, hired us as a subcontractor for an innovative project: The “report” magazine of pharmaceutical group BAYER AG was to be converted to a digital format and published as a magazine app for iPad, Android and the web, to fully replace the old print version. The app was designed to utilise all the possibilities of the various platforms and provide users with interactive entertainment.

Objectives

Digital storytelling allowed the ground-breaking company BAYER to produce complex scientific topics and reports from the group’s wide range of business fields for broad target groups in a multimedia-based fashion. To implement the app, it was thus particularly important for users to have access to the topics and further information through a wide variety of means: Apart from graphics, photos and texts in classic reading mode, there were also films, animations, games and even an audio book mode. The print version could thus be re-interpreted and replaced in a completely interactive manner.

Implementation

Facts & Figures, the advertising agency of Gruner + Jahr, carried out the project for Bayer AG. We were hired by F&F to assist with the magazine’s design as well as graphic and technical realisation.

Native kiosk apps for the mobile operating systems iOS and Android were developed for the presentations at the app stores and to manage the various tasks. Innovative realisation with CSS, HTML and JavaScript also served as a technical basis to display content both on the web and in the apps, meaning the magazine can also be viewed and experienced with regular web browsers as an alternative to using iPads and Android Tablets. This app thus breaks down the barriers of different operating systems and device categories.
Users are guided through the cover story with animated images and can retrieve additional articles, pictures and videos during the course of the film. Ever present navigation and individual article teasers within the reports ensure a clear, comprehensible layout. Readers can thus easily find their bearings at all times just like with a print magazine and systematically view the information of interest to them.

The app was successfully launched in December 2011 and has been in use ever since.