Best Health magazine teams with Sympatico to provide health and fitness content

Best Health magazine, published by Readers Digest Canada, is partnering with the web portal Sympatico.ca to provide its health and fitness section. Besthealthmag.ca content has been progressively integrated into Sympatico.ca (owned by Bell Canada) since the beginning of August and, according to a Best Health press release, there have been 1.5 million visits in the first three weeks. A tab on the Sympatico.ca site links directly to the Best Health website.

The two companies will cross-sell ads and integrated programs; the Reader's Digest's ad sales team will sell cross-platform opportunities through the mag's print component and Sympatico's sales team will sell the section's online-only ads.

"The base of this deal is to transform a channel that was purely online for Sympatico and a (print) magazine that has an online component but that was smaller, into a multi-platform brand that can be sold by both teams," Yann Paquet, director of digital media for Readers Digest Canada, told Media in Canada. "We sell a lot of integrated programs with the magazine that are driving people to the website to have an extended experience and more interactivity."