Reader's Digest Looks To Web To Revive Storied But Staid Brand

How big an asset online is an established media brand? Reader's Digest believes what ails the world's largest circulation magazine and global multi-brand media and marketing company is their stereotype as the preferred magazine of grandparents and dental receptionists, and thinks the solution lies online.

Just one month after declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company is relaunching a global online network, FT reports. Described as a uniform platform intended serve 40 international markets by offering more content, automation, sleeker web design and applications on Apple's iPhone and Amazon's Kindle, Reader's Digest hopes to appeal to a (slightly) younger, more tech-savvy readership.

Reclaiming their status as the "original aggregator," RD will offer drag and drop components from their centrally curated articles and video, and will encourage user submitted-content, a mainstay of its print edition (e.g., "Kids Say The Darndest Things").

If RD can leverage its aggregation equity online, with a smart execution, it could capitalize on demand for such curation. But RD faces competition on the web it has never dealt with in print: from the likes of Google, Yahoo! and AOL; targeted upscale plays like Michael Wolff's Newser and Tina Brown's Daily Beast; and numerous aggregators that perform a similar task and make no effort to rebrand content, like Delicious, Digg, Stumbleupon and Newsvine. These have become established brands who have formed trusted relationships with a tech-savvy audience, thanks to sleek interfaces and easy accessibility.

Some would argue that if RD was "Google News of the 1920s," as their spokesman claims, then blogs (like this) are the RD of today, catering to readers' limited attention spans by repackaging content into short, pithy, curated perspectives on niche topics.

RD's biggest hurdle is the brand's staid reputation. While its brand equity shouldn't be discounted -- they maintain mass audience appeal and name recognition -- it may take more than nifty customization tools to give the aging publisher its Fountain of Youth.