The redesign, coming on the heels of parent Postmedia?s redesign of the Ottawa Citizen, aims to let each product attract its own distinct audience while allowing advertisers to engage with specific customers. It is the most ambitious transformations in the 236-year history of the Montreal Gazette and is made necessary by consumers? increasing embrace of smartphones and other mobile devices. 

?Consumption of content is increasingly moving to mobile, both smartphone and tablet, primarily because that is where consumers increasingly spend their time,? said Chuck Martin, CEO of Mobile Future Institute. ?Interestingly, the four platform strategy of Postmedia mirrors the current situation in retail, where it is referred to as omni channel. 

?The move to providing content and services in all forms available to consumers is the only way to remain relevant,? he said. ?While paper is not going away anytime soon, the interaction with it is clearly on the wane as the migration to mobile shows no signs of slowing.?

Postmedia said the redesign, which represented 2.5 years of investment, would offer a more relevant, meaningful and engaging experience to readers, while offering advertisers the ability to target customers across four distinct, complementary platforms.

?Two years ago Postmedia undertook a massive reader survey, including more than 2,000 anglophone Montrealers, about how they consume news ? and what news they consume ? across the various traditional and digital platforms,? said Michelle Richardson, the Gazette?s managing editor. 

?As a result of that survey we decided to reimagine our products. It is not so much a redesign as the launch of four new, distinct products across different platforms.?

 

The new mobile products cater to distinct mobile audiences.

?We are thinking of the tablet as an evening news magazine while the smartphone app aims to deliver up to date news in a bit-size conversational tone,? Ms. Richardson said. ?Think talk radio meets Twitter.?The four-platform strategy reflects Canadians? consumption of different information on different platforms throughout the day, and each of these platforms - print, Web, tablet and smartphone ? attracts its own distinct audience, Postmedia said. 

The mobile-optimized Web site has a clean, vertical design that lends itself to easy reading via smartphone. Text use is minimal.

A responsive design makes it easier to navigate and share stories through social media.

Smartphone content is updated frequently throughout the day and delivered in small bites.

The tablet app for iPad offers a multimedia experience for users, delivered at 6 p.m. each weekday.

In May, Postmedia launched a redesigned Ottawa Citizen. By July, average daily unique visitors across the Web, tablet and smartphone platforms had grown 18 percent to 1.08 million unique views.

The tablet?s average user consumed more than 13 pages per day and the average smartphone user consumed more than 20 pages per day.

Next up for Postmedia is the launch Nov. 25 of the redesigned Calgary Herald. 

More brands will be rolled out across Canada over the next 12 to 15 months, Postmedia said.

?The difference between the quick-hit-approach for smartphones compared to the rich media approach for tablets makes total sense, since that?s what consumers are drawn to on each device,? Mr. Martin said.

?For print, a move to more context orientation is the only way to remain at least a little relevant, since there is no hope of staying current compared to the speed of mobile content delivery.

?The challenge for the publishing company will be to track consumer usage in hopes of make the transition from one platform to another a continuous journey rather that starting each one from scratch,? he said.

Michael Barris is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York.