Condé Nast's Glamour is rolling out a new mobile application and site that lets readers buy products straight from static magazine pages.

Glamour?s new Shop Glamour program includes both a responsive site - http://shop.glamour.com - and a free iPhone application. The marketing effort integrates both advertising and editorial content to activate the magazine.

?I think that for us, mobile is increasingly becoming a pivotal platform and a huge way that readers come to us to discover fashion and beauty inspiration and then are able to take action on it is the last piece, and we feel Shop Glamour addresses that past piece,? said Mike Hofman, executive digital director at Glamour, New York.

?Over the past couple of years, mobile readership of our Web site has grown from a relatively small number to being close to half of all our monthly uniques, and that significant growth is really something that helped inform the strategy of Shop Glamour,? he said.

Print-to-mobile experience
The technology is launching in the March issue of Glamour magazine. The magazine is currently looking to deploy it into the April issue as well.

Readers will be able to shop from more than 500 products straight from the magazine, which is split between advertising and editorial content. 

There are roughly 20 advertisers involved in Shop Glamour so far, including BaubleBar, L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline, Sexy Hair and Loft.

The editorial products are compiled by Glamour?s fashion and beauty editors. More than 200 brands such as J Brand, Rebecca Taylor, See by Chloé, Guerlain and Shiseido are shoppable from the program.

The app includes an image recognition feature that triggers content to be pulled in when a picture with the Shop Glamour icon is recognized.

Consumers can either shop the products from the page or watch a video from the app. The app also houses additional editorial content.

The purpose of the responsive site is to aggregate all of the shoppable items from the magazine into one place.

The fashion and beauty magazine is offering a Baublebar gift with a purchase of $75 or more. Additionally, Shop Glamour users can enter to win a $5,000 shopping spree if they buy something from the site.

Glamour worked with Ahalife to power the new technology.

Learning from past efforts
Glamour has been experimenting with mobile for quite a few years in activating print content.

In 2011, brands including Gap put SpyderLynk snaptags on print ads that would send mobile users a coupon if they "liked" the page on Facebook (see story).

That Friends and Fans campaign netted 512,339 reader engagements and generated $85,000 in deals (see story). 

Glamour also relaunched its Web site in Dec. 2012 with a responsive design. At the time, mobile was representing 25 percent of traffic (see story). 

Mobile now averages between 40 to 50 percent of total site traffic, per Mr. Hofman, which is why it is increasingly important that the brand tie together its print and digital initiatives through mobile.

By the end of 2014, Glamour expects that more than half of its monthly unique visitors will come from mobile.

?The image recognition program really allows for this holistic experience of reading the print magazine and then being able to shop it directly from your phone,? Mr. Hofman said.

?We?ve been very mindful of all the mobile shopping trends that we have heard and seen,? he said.