There’s no doubt that a number of inflight magazines are now moving
in the same advertising spheres as traditional consumer glossies and
their publishers would like to pitch the likes of Hot Air against
stalwarts such as GQ and Vogue. But what about the Economist, Newsweek
and Management Today? Over the last year there has been a buzz of
activity in the inflight magazine world aimed at improving the offering
to businessmen and the business advertiser.
Susan Byrne managing partner at BJK&E Media, which buys for the
Financial Times and Merrill Lynch, believes that inflight magazines are
now a credible vehicle. ’In the past 18 months or so they’ve gone from
being what was like a duty-free catalogue to something a business person
would find relevant,’ she says.
But, despite this and the appeal of a package which integrates other
inflight media, she still regards them as supplementary to a media
schedule which includes business travellers: ’I don’t view inflight as
stealing money from other print vehicles.’
Craig Waller, managing director of Premier Magazines, which produces the
British Airways magazines, thinks that despite media buyers’ changing
perceptions, advertisers aren’t likely to be keen enough to add on
inflight as an extra.
’We’re not stupid enough to think people are going to go out and create
extra budgets because we’ve told them so,’ he says. So the British
Airways inflight monthly, Business Life, does pitch itself against
newsstand business media and points to numbers like those in the 1997
British Business Survey showing Business Life more than holding its own
against business magazine rivals such as Management Today, or topping
the Economist’s reach of 43,000 high-profile businessmen by another
21,000.
Waller also knows that numbers aren’t everything; advertisers are
increasingly fussy about environment. The airlines may get that reach,
but their magazines’ content is constrained by what those bums on
airline seats actually feel like reading on board. British Airways’ High
Life magazine keeps the attention of all sorts of travellers, both
business and leisure. Business Life, its spin-off title launched 11
years ago, is free to hit on the businessman.
The only standalone spin-off airline business title that Waller is aware
of, Business Life is specifically aimed at frequent business travellers
making short-haul hops in Europe. Although it has seen its revenue
increase 120 per cent between 1993 and 1995 and then by 30 per cent in
1997, it was relaunched this summer and is still being tweaked for its
exacting readership.
British Midland is focusing on precisely the same readership with its
inflight magazine, Voyager, and, according to its publishing director
Peter Moore, attempting to reflect BM’s new positioning as the airline
for Europe. The magazine is being relaunched this month, increasing its
frequency from bi-monthly to ten times a year, and will have a more
European focus. Moore is clear about rival publications: ’We certainly
see ourselves competing with other magazines like the Economist,
Newsweek and Time.’ Like many of those publications, he’s targeting more
pan-European advertisers with a ratecard set smack in the middle of the
market (a page costs upwards of pounds 4,000). So far Voyager has been
bringing in an average of pounds 120,000 advertising revenue for each
issue.
Voyager’s decision to increase frequency is partly to counter the
inflight magazine Groundhog Day syndrome, suffered particularly by
frequent business travellers. Business Life tries to address this with a
combination of short articles and in-depth features. BA has done
qualitative research into what the business traveller wants to read with
their orange juice or G&T. ’Our starting point is that a business
traveller is also a leisure traveller and they don’t necessarily want to
read about business. Most of the research indicates they definitely
don’t want to read about business on the way back from an appointment,’
Waller says. This varies by nationality: the Brits are happy to relax on
the way back; the French are positively averse to thinking business;
while the Germans are a tad more concerned.
Over at John Brown Publishing, which publishes Virgin’s inflight
magazine, Hot Air, Andrew Hirsch, managing director of customer
magazines, doesn’t think that businessmen care tuppence for
business-related articles. ’Do they want to read articles about Mark
McCormack or what kind of tie to wear with their business suit, or do
they actually want to get away from all that?’ he asks. It’s clear from
Hot Air’s content: the current issue features a nightclub in South
London, a week in the life of a park bench and Sophie Dahl on her career
as a size-14 model. But the issue only carries a couple of handfuls of
ads targeted at the business audience. The editorial, which Hirsch
unsurprisingly believes is streets ahead of other inflight magazines
(and which has won the accolade of World Airline Entertainment
Association best inflight magazine for four years running), aims to
attract a different sort of consumer advertising.
At London City Airport, the customer magazine, City to Cities, takes the
corporate option. Relaunched by River Publishing this summer, the
bi-monthly has changed from an advertising-heavy publication, filled
with reprints of acquired articles, to a tightly targeted glossy with a
distribution which now includes 40,000 copies sent out to names on the
airport’s database.
Its publisher, Sue Stevens-Hoare, explains that it is aimed at a
predominantly male readership, since less than 20 per cent of people
going through the airport are women. City to Cities is full of men and
sport.
Although all this activity is undoubtedly helping airline publications
become an increasingly credible medium for reaching business people,
BJK&E Media’s Byrne is not alone in thinking that many still have that
catalogue feel. And in a climate where the traditional business media
have become adept at marketing themselves to potential advertisers, the
inflight magazines have not landed yet.
