In-flights create stronger identities with redesigns

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 1, 1992 by Susan Hovey

Kate Greer, editor of United Airlines' in-flight magazine, likes to borrow a term from the New Age movement in discussing the newly named and redesigned Hemispheres. "We're taking a very holistic approach," she says of the publication's attempt to create a more service-oriented, global focus. "We're talking to the business professional as a whole person."

While that may sound a little ethereal, even for an in-flight editor, the changes at Hemispheres, formerly Vis-a-Vis, do in fact point to a new age dawning for magazines in the category.

Under new publisher Pace Communications, located in Greensboro, North Carolina, Hemispheres becomes the sixth major in-flight to redesign over the past year. Thanks to consolidation in the airline industry and the shutdown last winter of East/West Network (which at one time or another published most of the in-flights), each of the remaining publications is carving out a more distinct personality in an effort to shake its second-class status in the eyes of advertisers.

"One of the complaints in past years was that all in-flights looked and read alike," says Jim Rullo, president of Portland, Oregon-based Skies America Publishing Co., which produces Northwest Airlines' World Traveler. "I think the changes taking place are very healthy for the category."

The changes at Hemispheres, Greer notes, are an attempt to address United's growth as a global carrier. Although the target audience is still the business professional, Greer says she wants the title to be more inclusionary.

"Many people traveling now live at such a fast pace that their business and leisure times intermingle," she explains. "We need to address professional, leisure and family concerns and how that fits into their personal growth."

Still, it's the graphics changes that Hemispheres is counting on to lure more non-traditional in-flight advertisers such as cosmetics makers. And to that end, the magazine has both dropped its celebrity covers (and all cover lines) in favor of more striking images from international artists, and beefed up the quality of artwork inside the book. (Greer estimates that she has expanded the overall edit and design budget by about 25 percent.)

"When you're talking about in-flights," says TWA Ambassador ad rep Jeff Saad, "the graphics prompt the whole thing. Everybody goes onto an airplane with a set agenda. But ultimately, they will pick up an in-flight for entertainment."

That's why, even though the demographics of the in-flight reader compare favorably with those of the Fortune, Forbes and Business Week reader, "we are not trying to compete editorially with those magazines," notes John Caldwell, president of Boston-based Marblehead Communications, which won the contract for Continental Profiles after the collapse of East/West.

As any media buyer will affirm, the key to making in-flights more competitive with their counterparts on the ground is to create a product that encourages reader involvement.

"Any redesign that holds that promise is something we look positively on," says Rich Hamilton, senior vice president, media and administration, for DMB&B. "The issue has been and will continue to be the attractiveness of these titles to advertisers outside their endemic base."