Contract publisher Premier is setting up a sales house, Premier
Airplus, to target the selling of airline inflight magazines.
Premier is keen to build on its experience with British Airways’ High
Life. ’We have made a strategic decision, with BA’s permission, to grow
into new areas and we intend to dominate the whole inflight market,’
said chief executive Craig Waller.
Premier is recruiting sales staff for the new sales house.
The selling of the Caledonian, Virgin Express and Go magazines, which
are already published by Premier, will move into Airplus under the
direction of ad manager Jonathan Cupper. High Life will remain in
Premier’s BA Media division.
A new commercial manager, Adrian Setright, has been poached from the
London office of Le Figaro to develop new Airplus business. Waller
revealed that Airplus has signed up two airlines and is close to signing
two others.
The first announcement will be ’a major European scheduled airline,’
according to Waller. Setright’s French expertise might indicate Air
France, though Waller cautioned against jumping to any conclusions.
Premier is also looking for sales staff for its new Premier Symmetry
division which is to be headed by former IPC publishing director, Jackie
Newcombe, who is bringing IPC colleague, Jackie Duckworth with her.
Symmetry is set to announce a couple of big new-business wins this
week.
’We will be developing a number of new projects over the next 12 months
and Jackie will be beefing up her whole sales team,’ said Waller.
