Catalog printer R.R. Donnelley enhanced its digital presence by acquiring a $2.5 million equity stake in Real Valuable Corp., maker of the free CoffeeTable iPad catalog shopping app.
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CoffeeTable offers a discovery-based tablet shopping experience for consumers to browse and shop across multiple retailers and provides a comprehensive set of data analytics to help drive retailers’ multichannel marketing strategies.
According to R.R. Donnelley president and CEO Thomas J. Quinlan III, the CoffeeTable acquisition is in line with the company’s efforts to offer a compelling digital service to complement virtually every customer segment it serves.
CoffeeTable CEO Ben Choi says R.R. Donnelley will introduce CoffeeTable’s tablet solution to its customers as a complement to their current print and digital offerings. Choi says CoffeeTable will use the proceeds of this investment to enhance the personalization features of the CoffeeTable app as well as develop a full suite of retailer analytics.
Peri Kadaster, vice president of marketing for CoffeeTable, says the R.R. Donnelley deal plays right into the growth of tablet commerce and Kadaster views it as a new opportunity to provide digital services that are complementary to its premedia and media services.
“CoffeeTable can help R.R. Donnelley’s customers tap into new shopper segments and behaviors,” Kadaster says. “CoffeeTable can complement R.R. Donnelley’s services in providing strategic support to multichannel marketers’ planning and bottom line decisions.”
The acquisition for R.R. Donnelley continues its recent trend of trying to cash in on the digital market.
Last August, it acquired digital technology company LibreDigital, which provides digital book and periodical replicas, data analytics and content for more than 40 ecommerce sites. Two months later, it struck a $550 million deal through 2020 with American Media to assist the OK! and Star magazine publisher with its digital convergence.