Tag: Bombardier Business Aircraft

Last week, I spoke to the Custom Content Council at their pre-Pearl Awards gathering in New York. (For the record, Spafax won 5 Pearl Awards for our work for Air Canada’s enRoute, enRoute online, Air Canada’s OnAir and Mercedes Benz Canada.) Speaking about in-flight magazines and our long-standing partnership with Air Canada, I then conducted a Q&A with Air Canada’s Senior Director, Product Design Louise McKenven. We spoke about our long-standing partnership, how enRoute media enahnces Air Canada’s brand, how enRoute allows Air Canada a different level of communication with their customers, about earned media, and about the compelling brand story we (Spafax) can offer advertisers on Air Canada’s behalf.

The audience was fascinated. One, because the perception of in-flight media in the US is so different than it is in Canada (and in many other parts of the world). Two, because the story itself, of a brand leveraging the talents of its content agency to tell quality stories to a highly mobile audience – and then commercializing that conversation – is an amazing story in and of itself. Three, the audience (composed of other custom content providers) tried to figure out how to apply the in-flight model to their own customers.

At Spafax, we have taken the knowledge and experience we’ve built up with the airline and travel industry, and come to some basic truths. The people who travel, an amazing mobile and global audience, is, in fact, the customer base that all brands crave. The audiences our clients reach on the in-flight/IFE side of things and the custom media side are, basically, one and the same. And so it makes sense for Spafax to include the likes of Turismo Chile, Bombardier Business Aircraft, and Fairmont Hotels & Resorts in a client base that also includes the likes of British Airways, Emirates and Singapore Airlines, to name a few.

We have long been about content, curating brand stories for a mobile – and highly coveted – audience. What the gathering in New York learned is that the richness of the experience we have created with Air Canada is applicable to “terrestrial” brands as well. Because telling brand stories, and telling them well, is universal.

Spafax print and digital media properties recently won 4 Eddie and 1 Ozzie at the recent Folio: Awards, held in New York City. And while awards in custom media are gratifying – for both Spafax and our clients – they don’t exist in a vacuum. That is, our publications have a job to do first. Awards are, literally, icing on the cake.

So, the awards:

Eddie Award winners for editorial excellence, include:

• Custom, Frequency 6 times per year or more, Single Article: Grecian Formula by Alan Richman, published in the November 2010 issue of Air Canada’s enRoute
• Custom, Frequency less than 6 times per year, Single Article: Bubble Economics by Alan Richman, published in Issue 16 of Bombardier Business Aircraft’s Experience
• Custom, Best website: enRoute online
• B2B, Best Online Column or Blog: Print in Digital Clothing: The Problem with Magazine Apps by Charles Lim, posted on Sparksheet

Ozzie Award for Spafax for design excellence:

• Custom, Best redesign: Bombardier Business Aircraft’s Experience

We’ve always said that awards are good at highlighting a central behind our service: That truly engaging content starts with excellence. Our media are created to deepen consumer engagement and enhance our clients’ branding and marketing goals. And whether we’re producing a magazine, a website, curating IFE content, publishing an IFE guide, or designing someone else’s editorial, one of our first (and last questions) usually is: How do we make it better?

Because when we sit down in a room in front of a blank screen, we’re not thinking of winning awards. We’re thinking of how best to fulfill our clients’ marketing, branding , PR and content needs. The brief. Our job starts with the brief and then we execute that brief. If we do our jobs properly, we exceed it.

Because there’s another thing media should do (whether it is consumer, custom or B2B): delight. Media that doesn’t touch the end user in some way, is useless. Media is communication and there’s a lot of it. To break through that clutter, media needs to be more than a message. The consumer needs to feel something because of it.

One last note about the recent awards. Charles Lim’s win for Sparksheet (our blog about “content, media and marketing”) is probably the first time a Spafax art director has won an award for his writing. And this win follows Sparksheet’s record haul of 7 award at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. And it also speaks to the immense talents of everyone here.

In total, this has been a solid few weeks for us with various wins for almost all of our North American clients in award ceremonies in both Canada and the US. And we’re proud of that. But we’re also aware that an award means nothing if the winning product isn’t doing the job it was created for in the first place.

Bombardier Aerospace chooses Spafax Inc. for its expertise in media publishing and its internationally recognized experience in producing compelling custom content

Montreal, Dec. 22 , 2009 – Bombardier Aerospace, a leader in the corporate aviation industry, today announced it has selected Spafax Inc., one of the world’s leading creators of custom media, to produce Experience Magazine. This bi-annual lifestyle publication – which Spafax is set to re-launch in May 2010 – is distributed to Bombardier Business Aircraft customers, some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential individuals. Bombardier Aerospace manufactures the market-leading Learjet*, Challenger* and Global* business jets and offers fractional ownership services through Flexjet*.

“We are proud and honored to have been selected by Bombardier to write, edit and publish Experience magazine globally,” said Katrin Kopvillem, Managing Director and Publisher at Spafax. “This client brings with it a crème de la crème demographic. We look forward to harnessing the global resources of our organization – both creatively and among our worldwide sales force – to create a magazine that will appropriately speak to the elite Bombardier customer, wherever in the world they may reside.”

“After a comprehensive review involving several agencies we are pleased to announce Spafax as our new publisher for Experience* Magazine.” said Danielle Boudreau, Director Public Relations & Communications at Bombardier Business Aircraft. “The magazine seeks to create a distinct connection with our readers by engaging them with authentic content that speaks to their lifestyle and experience in the world at large. We are confident that Spafax will produce a publication with the quality that our readers have come to expect.”

Experience Magazine focuses on unique travel, leisure, dining, shopping and upscale lifestyle stories and also highlights the innovations that have made Bombardier Business Aircraft a world leader.

About Spafax
Spafax is one of the world’s leading providers of custom media. Magazines published by Spafax include Air Canada’s award-winning enRoute and OnAir, as well as media for the likes of Mercedes Benz Canada, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and Royal Jordanian, among many others. Spafax is generally recognized as one of the world’s leading suppliers of in-flight entertainment, custom media and advertising sales. Spafax is a part of the specialist media division of WPP, one of the world’s leading communications companies.

For more information, please visit www.spafax.com.

For further information

Arjun Basu
Editorial Director
Spafax Canada
Tel: +1 514-840-5300
* Either registered or unregistered trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries