Inflight media is an often-overlooked art form. However, the continued growth of air travel over the past 10 years has contributed to a spectacular evolution of the various types of inflight media, that can include magazines, television, audio and interactive applications such as the internet and video games.
Today, inflight media has moved from being duty-free booklets to fully interactive consumer magazines. Along the way, inflight media has become a particularly attractive proposition for advertisers looking to target the upscale consumer that airlines attract.
In Asia, the two major producers of inflight media are Emphasis Media and Asia Inflight. Together, the two account for the bulk of the region's carriers, and are seen as specialists in the field of inflight marketing.
Emphasis handles inflight media duties for eight Asian airlines, including Cathay Pacific, Thai Airways and China Airlines. Readership peaks at 3.3 million for Shop, Cathay Pacific's quarterly magazine, while Discovery, the airline's monthly, boasts a readership of 1.1 million.
Monica Woo, managing director of Emphasis, believes that the inflight media sector has seen profound changes over the past 10 years, and now embraces new forms of technology. "Previously, the standard, and often the only, type of inflight entertainment was in the form of the onboard magazines," says Woo. "Now with sophisticated multimedia and technological advancements, inflight entertainment encompasses audio and video on demand, PC and Nintendo Games, and inflight email and internet."
The past few years have been volatile ones for the airline industry, with several mergers and bankruptcies caused by cut-throat competition and severe cost-cutting. In this environment, it is something of a surprise to find that inflight media has actually prospered and, in most cases, grown rapidly. Recent studies indicate that there are specific reasons for the durability of inflight magazines. The first is that they boost the airlines' image, although the extent to which an inflight magazine actually helps in retaining passenger loyalty is debatable. Christophe d'Orey, publisher and chief executive of Asia Inflight, believes that inflight media can generate customer loyalty and are a useful branding tool. "It is part of the inflight service expected of an international-standard airline," explains d'Orey. "Magazine quality equalling anything on newsstands reflects the quality of carrier."
At Emphasis, editorial director, Peter Morgan, says inflight titles deliver "a soft sell message to passengers", serving as an extension of an airline's brand. "Airlines come to us as custom publishers because our expertise lies in creating magazines that reflect, and build on, the established brand values of an air carrier," he adds.
In some cases, Morgan says inflight publishers help create the brand for airlines. Emphasis is currently working with brand and identity consultancy Landor on the rebranding of an established airline. "It's a fast-track project, where Landor, as leaders of the project, has created the brand essence, and left it to us to interpret this into a magazine format. Our design and editorial recommendations will likely become the template for all the airline's onboard print media."
Beyond helping airlines strengthen their brand image, inflight media provides passengers with an additional amenity. In an industry where competition is based primarily on convenience and cost, added amenities can be of crucial value. "The main idea is to provide a service, secondly to make a profit," confirms d'Orey.
While the profitability of inflight media may well be minor compared with a carrier's other operations, the fact that they generate impressive revenues must go some way towards explaining their longevity. However, the downturn in adspend has, however, undoubtedly affected inflight media, and Emphasis' Woo reflects on the heady days of the '80s when the magazine carried 200 pages and half of them were advertising pages. "The airlines stopped us from accepting ads when there were more than 100 pages of ads because the combined weight of all the magazines onboard would affect the amount of fuel carried by the planes."
But they still provide a compelling media platform. With guaranteed high circulation and a captive audience of affluent consumers, inflight titles are highly marketable. Unlike newsstand publications, they target specific readers who are potential customers for advertisers. These readers tend to be decision-makers with high purchasing power. Varied among airlines, the majority are 30 to 50 years old, travel for business, are receptive to new ideas and are influencers or decision-makers of purchase.
Naturally, this kind of opportunity does not come cheap to advertisers.
Rates at Asia Inflight are US$20,000 per page for two months. Common advertising categories in the magazine include luxury goods, B2B, national campaigns and corporations.
D'Orey believes his magazine's unique status in China makes it particularly attractive to advertisers. "We're attractive to advertisers because we're one of the few national magazines in China, which is why we attract much more diverse advertising beyond luxury goods," explains d'Orey. "In fact, we're the largest-circulation lifestyle/business magazine in China, and there is not much around rivalling our quality, so we attract a lot of advertising that might go elsewhere to other styles of magazine."
If passengers are to read them, of course, inflight magazines must be more than mere advertising vehicles. Emphasis' Morgan says inflight publishing competes with every other magazine in the marketplace - a view that dictates the company's editorial and marketing philosophy. "We approach the process in the way any successful publisher does - to deliver an engaging and entertaining publication on time and within budget," he explains. To this end, Morgan says Emphasis has hired top talent. "Behind each of our magazines are editors and art directors who have gained their experience on media such as Reader's Digest, Vogue, Elle, the BBC, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Cosmopolitan and so on."
But inflight also has advantages, which combine to provide publishers with a greater degree of editorial flexibility. "Inflights do have some advantages over many newsstand magazines; the main one being we're not fighting for newsstand attention so we can present much cleaner covers and lavish inside spreads," notes Morgan. "And we're saved from having to jump on the latest celebrity bandwagon. It's this freedom which attracts some of the world's top freelance photographers and writers to Emphasis."
D'Orey explains the importance of ensuring interesting lifestyle and leisure stories. "Our goal is to make it the best magazine on board, and provide information relevant to our passengers, who are 89 per cent domestic Chinese travellers," says d'Orey.
"This market wishes to be informed and is eager to learn about everything new in the world at large, and in China. Destinations they don't know about and new aspects of lifestyle are of great interest. So are articles about Chinese society and culture."
Editorial independence may be compromised, but d'Orey believes that this is hardly a drawback. "With airline magazines you always have some input from the carrier or carriers. That's a given, but these aren't political magazines, they're in the lifestyle/leisure category. They're entertaining and informative, not opinionated, so editorial independence is not really an issue." D'Orey adds: "Our purpose is to help create a relaxing environment; we're not The Economist. We have a different purpose - like the equivalent of a work-out, or going to a party."
ASIA INFLIGHT
FP, 4C, ROP
MAGAZINE AIRLINE Frequency Readership rate
(USdollars)
CAAC Inflight 18 mainland carriers, Bi-monthly 4,000,000 20,400
Magazine including Air China,
China Southwest, China
Eastern, China Southern,
China Northern, Air Macau,
and Shanghai Airlines
EMPHASIS MEDIA
FP, 4C, ROP
MAGAZINE AIRLINE Frequency Readership rate
USdollars)
Discovery Cathay Pacific Monthly 1,100,000 19,000
Shop Cathay Pacific Quarterly 3,300,000 21,900
Silkroad Dragonair Monthly 330,000 9,100
Sawasdee Thai Airways Monthly 1,020,000 13,900
Dynasty China Airlines Monthly 680,000 9,400
MAS Malaysia Airlines Monthly 600,000 3,600
Namaskar Air India Bi-monthly 600,000 7,360
Golden Falcon* Gulf Air Bi-monthly 30,000 4,000
Morning Calm Korean Air Monthly 2,200,000 16,200
* To be published from Mar/Apr, 2003
Sources: Asia Inflight, Emphasis Media.