Curating Content Across Platforms

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CURATED BY
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Contents
Letter from Our CEO
3

Creating and Curating Content
4

Engaging the Transumer Now Playing
6

Building Brands
8 Content on the Go
Advertising and Corporate Messaging
Designing Across Platforms
10 Branding and Identity
Content Promotion
Empowering Community
12 Inflight World
New Platforms
Talking Travel and Digital
with Sir Martin Sorrell About Sparksheet
14

A Word from Sparksheet
15

Spafax
CEO CFO CTO
Niall McBain Simon Ogden Tony Taverner

President, Executive VP, Executive VP,
Content Marketing Media Inflight Entertainment,
Raymond Girard Katrin Kopvillem EMEA
Sue Pinfold

VP, Spafax USA MD, Specialized Networks
Al St. Germain & Development
Ann Willis
2 spafax.com

The Rise of Everywhere Content
At Spafax we see ourselves at the vanguard of content innovation, bringing
content to the heart of business enterprise, helping to drive growth and
opportunity through the customer experience.

Our clients, from airlines and hotels to retail and pharmaceutical, are
amongst the most connected brands in the world. There is an increasing
need for flexibility and diversity in managing channels alongside the live
experience. Thanks to mobile and social media, products and services are
now available to customers to purchase or engage in across every environ-
ment and mode, including those that were previously considered offline.

Every smartphone-equipped customer is a potential point of sale or
point of influence, wherever they are. Customers expect everything from
content. They’ll read, watch, listen, reply, share, download and play with it.
And they’ll do it on the bus, at the gym, or at the mall.

Today, Spafax connects the touchpoints of these environments with
targeted media solutions, addressing audiences in different modes
with entertainment, interaction and information. A social media story
that connects with the brand’s internet offer – say, a destination
promotion – may depend on bespoke content featured in multiple
LCD screen environments, including an elevator up to an office
floor 3,000 miles away!

As the customer experience of many client categories evolves into a
myriad of touchpoints, content plays its part with greater relevance
and greater results.

Spafax innovates, by editorial curation, production, design and scheduling
of content, across any medium, channel or technology, wherever our clients
can seed enterprise in their customers’ experience.

Niall McBain
CEO, Spafax
3

Creating and Curating Content

We live in a world where almost everything is
content and it is this content that makes up the
stories of our lives.
Content marketing is about using words (and pictures and drawings
and sounds…) to sell stuff. Content strategy is about using words to
communicate effectively.
Inflight entertainment is, in many ways, the precursor of content
marketing. Whether producing lineups of movies and TV shows,
publishing magazines or creating music channels, the earliest and
best form of custom content was created for the traveller.

Airlines as Content “ he way we use
T
Delivery Systems magazines and
interact with them
Airlines are content providers.
Think of a flight as an immersive
is completely differ-
media experience. ent from the way we
use and interact with
Once you have bought your ticket, the internet... In this
cleared security and are safely case, readers connect
strapped in to your seat, the
small screen in front of you is through the pages of
the dominant experience for the magazine.”
the rest of your long-haul flight.
– Samir Husni, “Mr. Magazine”
There is no better place for content sprk.sh/husni
marketing at its most powerful and
resonant than on an airplane. But
what’s essential is seamless integration
between the airline’s marketing and
communications voice, and how it
talks to passengers on the seatback.

Airlines need to step away from ops and engineering challenges (and pricing)
and take a closer look at how they present, package and promote their
entertainment on board.

4 spafax.com

“ irlines need to move from the
A
ABasu business of only putting movies
@spafax_arjun on planes into providing a rich
Content doesn’t care about platform. branded content experience for
It is agnostic. Just like your audience. passengers.”
They don’t care. They just want to be
– Anthony van Someren
served conveniently.

Events as Content
In a connected world, face-to-face events have
become more popular than ever. Even as technology has
made it easier to connect with colleagues and peers around
the world, our thirst for real-world interactions remains
powerful (which isn’t bad news for the travel industry). We
believe the conversation around these events should start
well before the convention hall doors open and continue
when the lights go out. In fact, it should never stop.

A conference is more than a conference. It’s a community. And the best way
to serve and extend that community is through content – before, during and
after the event. Read more at events.sparksheet.com

Print is Not Dead
With online content and digital toys aplenty, the
simplicity and tangibility of print somehow seems
new and exciting again, with some marketers even
speaking of print as a “new” form of communication
in their marketing mix.

Read more at: sprk.sh/contentrevolution

5

Engaging the Transumer

Tran-sum-er (noun)
1. A consumer in transit. A consumer
on the go. 2. A citizen of the world.
Or at least, of airports. Or hotel rooms.
Or the travel “headspace.”

A Dispatch from Airworld
It sounds a bit ridiculous, but many
frequent travellers I know tell stories
about the powerful loyalties they’ve
developed to goods and services while
travelling. Take the emotional rush I get
drinking a French 75 cocktail; it’s not just
the champagne bubbles or the memory
of the silver fox who once ordered one
for me at a Lower East Side speakeasy,
but an alchemic memory of both. These strong loyalties
and emotions help set the Transumer apart from the
jet-setting shopper.

Read more at: sprk.sh/thetransumer

“ here is wisdom in that cabin. And a
T
smart airline will try to figure out how
to get that wisdom out of it.”
– Jeff Jarvis
sprk.sh/jarvis

6 spafax.com

The Spafax Journey Cycle

The Journey Cycle is the linked system of experiences that takes
place at every step of a customer’s contact with an airline brand.
It’s the connection between the real-time activity of travel with
the planning or ideas that inspired it: the purchasing of flights,
of products, the information, communication and entertainment
on board. It’s the time spent at the destination and the memories
that accompany you on the return.

7

Building Brands

Email

Websites
Brand
Content
Ecosystem

Apps

In-flight
Print Entertainment

The 21st century brand has its own coherent content ecosystem.
Each and every part of the messaging that reaches the consumer
must come from the same place in terms of tone, quality and meaning.
What changes is the context in which the consumer engages with a brand.
A smart content strategy, then, is all about using the right platforms
to connect with the right people wherever they may be.

8 spafax.com

We are living in a world where
media outlets are becoming
more like brands and brands
are becoming more like media.
While content creators are experimenting
with new business models and digital
platforms, businesses are using
content to tell their stories, engage
people and make money.
A brand is the idea behind anything:
A company, a country, a person. It’s not a
slogan or a catchphrase. It’s more than just
words. It’s more than just a story. It’s a voice.
And that voice should speak with customers
wherever they are.

“ randed anything is fine, as long
B
as it’s backed by substance, and
‘branding’ as a purpose does
not subordinate the hard and
simple work of earning a good
reputation.”
– Doc Searls
sprk.sh/searls

Read more at: sprk.sh/contentrevolution

9

Designing Across Platforms

Print in Digital Clothing
By Charles Lim, Digital Director

The mentality of most magazine apps seems to be, “Let’s
make it look just like print.” After all, a tablet is roughly the
same size and thickness as a print magazine, so people will
use it the same way, right?

Wrong.

Technology changes the way we use things. Think about the evolution of the
calendar. A printed calendar typically consists of 12 pages: New month, new page,
new cute kitten image.

Now take that static interface and translate it to a digital device. On a dynamic
interface, time can be represented in a variety of ways and the content can be
manipulated to suit whatever you’re interested in at that moment.

The goal of designing magazines for the screen should be to improve the content
experience even if it means breaking some of the rules of print.

While the print reader is forced to move from issue to issue, page to page, column
of text to column of text – next, next, next – the digital reader scrolls through at
her own pace and can fly off to anywhere she pleases.

The “linear to web” shift that we saw with calendars hasn’t happened yet with
content, and won’t happen until we rethink the idea of “next.”

From radio to TV to print, the old media paradigm is all about one thing
(program, ad, article) leading to another. But the web experience isn’t linear.
Instead of a single thread of content it’s, well, a web.

It’s time to focus on the content experience regardless of the medium or platform.
Don’t try to make the web look like print, just because you can.

Read more at: sprk.sh/designcode

10 spafax.com

“ ontent informs design; design
C
without content is decoration.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman
sprk.sh/zeldman

Responsive Design
At Spafax, we’re big believers in responsive design, a web design philosophy that
ensures that content works on a variety of screen sizes, from the smartphone in
your pocket to the HD TV in your living room. Today’s customers want to con-
sume entertainment on their own devices, meaning we need to create portals
that work across platforms in-flight and on the ground.

It allows publishers to be multiplatform without sacrificing content or
redesigning from the ground up every time a new device comes out.

We first adopted this approach last year with Sparksheet, and haven’t looked
back. For brands that want to reach the on-the-go consumer wherever they may
be, no matter what device they’re on, it’s a no-brainer.

11

Empowering Community

Who Controls The Message?
By David Meerman Scott, Sparksheet Contributor

Companies are terrified of “losing control” of their brand
messaging. But they lost it a long time ago. And that’s
a good thing. Because it means companies are now free
to harness the power of the world to get their message
out – meaning getting consumers to do the work
for them.

With the rise of social media, message control is firmly in the hands
of consumers. For decades, companies have left messaging to a handful
of authorized and highly trained spokespeople, such as their public relations
director and their CEO.

Brands have used one-way communications – mostly advertising and press
releases – to issue formal announcements and have generally forbidden rank-
and-file employees from saying anything at all. Social media tools have enabled
anybody (company insiders as well as customers and critics) to say anything
about a brand. Yet, many organizations persist in the old command-and-control
methods of the past.

What works online is creating our own content – content that people want to
share. And we should be encouraging our employees, customers and other
interested stakeholders to tell our stories and spread our ideas. We should
be celebrating blogs, forums and the tools of social media, not clamping down
on them.

We must admit that we no longer control the sales process. We can depend on
million-dollar direct-mail campaigns that target top sales prospects, big-budget
advertisements that cast too wide a net and message-driven PR campaigns
directed at media insiders whose audience is shrinking by the day. Or we can try
something that might actually work.

Read more at: sprk.sh/dmscott

12 spafax.com

“ he internet is a word of mouth machine. Once brands let
T
the people formerly known as the customer base into the
tent, they have the benefit of their knowledge, their pas-
sion, their ideas, and especially, their communities. And
these possibilities are staggering.”
– Bob Garfield
sprk.sh/garfield

“ irports are more than cities. They are communities.”
A
– Arjun Basu
sprk.sh/contentrevolution

“ etting a handle on your community and understanding
G
how you can better serve their needs is a big challenge for
any kind of content creator today.”
– Nora Young
sprk.sh/young

“ -suite executives who engage in social media are
C
perceived to be better leaders.”
– Anita Windisman
sprk.sh/windisman

“t’s great to see airlines embracing social media. But it’s
I
time to realize that your airplanes are social media with the
ability to convert strangers into travel mates and frequent
flyers into loyal customers.”
– Jay Vidyarthi
sprk.sh/vidyarthi

13

Talking Travel and Digital
with Sir Martin Sorrell
As CEO of WPP Group, Sir Martin
Sorrell is known for his predictions
about the future of media. Here is
an excerpt from his conversations
with Sparksheet.

Q.As someone who spends a lot of time on the road,
what do you look for in a travel brand?

A. If you’re talking about airlines, research shows that the most
critical thing is how you’re received at the check-in desk and
upon boarding the plane. In my opinion, the devil’s in the
details. It’s not the big stuff. What turns me on is when people
are attentive and welcoming.

I get the impression that the major airlines see investment in
the soft touches – video, food, etc. – as relatively unimportant,
but I think it makes a hell of a difference.

Q.Tell me about the increasing importance of data in
the advertising world. Is that entirely due to digital?

A. No, not entirely due to digital. It dates back to the old
quote by John Wanamaker or Lord Leverhulme or the other
25,000 people who are claimed to have said, “I know half my
advertising spend is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”

Data was important well before the digital age. But with
the advent of online media and cable and IPTV, people are
becoming more concerned about measurement and ROI.
And the fact is that we now have the ability to measure
in ways we didn’t before.

Read more at: sprk.sh/sorrell

14 spafax.com

Good ideas about content, media and marketing

When Sparksheet launched in the summer
of 2009, our goal was simple. We wanted to
create a space where travel, media and marketing
professionals could explore the ongoing
disruption of their industries, and where the
many “good ideas” incubating within the Spafax
universe could take shape. The world was
changing in unexpected ways, the digital
revolution had tipped, and it seemed like a
good time to take a step back and have an open,
honest conversation about where things were
headed. This was going to be more than a
corporate blog. We wanted to share some of the
ideas that really drove Spafax. And still do.

As award-winning editors, designers, developers
and community managers, our role is curatorial.
We strive to bring a clear-eyed journalistic
perspective to the conversation – a conversation
that, more than three years later, we feel is more
important than ever.

Like what you see in this magazine? For more
good ideas, join us at sparksheet.com.

15

Curating Content Across Platforms

Curating Content Across Platforms

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