04/20/2009

Shape Magazine to Become the First Publication to Launch Fitness Software Applications for iPhone and iPod Touch Through Partnership with PumpOne

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 20, 2009) – As part of its expanding brand offering, Shape Magazine, the world’s top women’s active lifestyle magazine has partnered with leading mobile fitness application developer PumpOne to create an array of best-in-class fitness applications for iPhone and iPod touch.

The applications will be developed through a joint collaboration between Shape’s award-winning editorial team of fitness experts and PumpOne’s staff of professional fitness trainers. The line of fitness applications, available for sale on the iTunes App Store beginning in June, will feature step-by-step instructions, still images, video, and audio content for exercises that meet the health and lifestyle needs of women. The Shape Magazine applications will also include a mix of valuable utilities that will enable users to log, track, and share their fitness progress.

“Shape is dedicated to delivering innovative products that allow women to lead healthier and more balanced lives,” said Sabine Feldmann, Vice President and Publisher of Shape. “In conjunction with PumpOne’s impressive software development capabilities and their extensive fitness knowledge, we will be able to deliver a collection of effective, user-friendly applications that provide women with the tools and technology to help them live fit and healthy lives.”

Established in 1981, Shape is the largest active lifestyle magazine for women in the world. With more than six million print readers and a website that attracts one million visitors each month, Shape is considered a trusted resource for health and fitness information, sophisticated beauty and fashion editorial, and inspirational steps for positive change.

“We are excited to work with Shape to deliver a portfolio of software programs that will raise the bar for fitness applications on the iTunes App Store. The deep knowledge-base of the Shape editors and the breadth of their pre-existing content will allow us to develop new applications that will uniquely enable iPhone and iPod touch users to enhance their fitness while on-the-go,” added Craig Schlossberg, President of PumpOne.

The partnership deal between Shape Magazine and PumpOne is Shape’s first foray into Apple’s wildly popular iTunes App Store and the first application released by a leading health and fitness publication.

“Demand for high quality iTunes Applications that are developed by brands that consumers know and trust is unquenchable,” said Ramez Toubassy, President of Brand Sense Partners, the Los Angeles based new business development consultancy who brokered the partnership. “Shape’s position as the leader in providing practical health and fitness advice makes them the perfect candidate for such an endeavor. When partnered with PumpOne’s innovation and leadership in software development, we believe that the resulting suite of products will set the standard for fitness applications on iTunes. Beyond that, several more brand extensions are in the works, all focused on giving consumers innovative ways to engage in the Shape lifestyle.”

About Shape
Shape, the global leader in the active lifestyle category, provides today’s woman with inspiring, straight-talking editorial to enrich her mind and body. Shape is published by Weider Publications, Inc., the most influential publisher of the world’s leading health, fitness and active lifestyle magazine brands. Log on to www.shape.com for the latest in fitness, beauty and fashion.

About PumpOne
PumpOne creates portable personal fitness trainers that go where you go. With the world’s largest made-for-mobile exercise image and video library, PumpOne’s workouts cover every training method and work on any portable mp3 player or smartphone. Employing state-of-the-art technology with the simplicity of drag & drop or just a touch of a screen, PumpOne’s branded and private-labeled products help users lose weight, gain strength, build endurance, become more flexible, and help improve heart health.

About Brand Sense Partners, LLC
Established in 2001, Brand Sense Partners, LLC (BSP) is a strategic new business development consultancy with an integrated turnkey infrastructure designed to execute the firm’s recommendations. BSP fosters growth in new categories of business for its clients by leveraging brand equity and other strategic assets. Clients focus on their core businesses while BSP’s team of industry experts develops the strategy through market research and in-depth analysis, negotiates the deals and manages the new lines of business. The BSP approach reduces capital costs, risk and time to market resulting in new, profitable and accelerated growth for its clients. Headquartered in Los Angeles, BSP manages more than 200 partnerships for its Fortune 500 clients with approximately $1.5 billion in retail sales in the consumer products, media, technology, celebrity and fashion industries. For more information, please visit www.bsp.com.