Corporate Style and Dialogue with a Passenger. The Outcome of Exploration with Boryspil Airport
14 December 2018
On December 6th, within the framework of «Infrastructure World Café: Promo Search» event, a panel discussion “Corporate Style” was held. Under the slogan “The Art of Dialogue with a Passenger: Innovating Look on a Fixed Concept”, the panel was attended by publishers, marketers and managers of corporate publications. In particular, the speakers were representatives of Boryspil International Airport, Odessa International Airport, “Chas Pershyh” magazine, and Megapolis advertising holding.
The organizers of the event were the Association of Transit Advertising Operators of Ukraine, Boryspil International Airport, the Aviation Committee at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ukraine, and the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Arts.
Moderator of the “Corporate Style” panel discussion was Igor Kretov, executive director of TOP RUNNERS, ultramarathoner 1000 km.
During the panel, the speakers have considered the main trends in the field of rebranding, corporate style development and corporate publications. In particular, it was emphasized: first, on the analysis of practical experience of rebranding within transportation enterprise and the following effect caused by the changes; second, on determining the relevance of the printed format and the relevant trends in the media market; third, on the features of the content-concept of corporate journals; fourth, on the definition of the main goals that should be the basis of company’s corporate style.
Oleksandr Derevyanko, the first speaker of the panel discussion, representative of the marketing department of Odessa International Airport, shared his experience in corporate rebranding:
“The inscription “mama” in styled wavy lines caused an uproar with the public, but the main thing is that everyone sees in our logo something that is his own, which produces a certain emotion. The slogan “Peace for You” carries an important message. Using the slogan, we would like to emphasize that Odessa is a sunny, benevolent city, and we want to bring peace to all, who comes here, to Odessa. Have we reached desired results? I believe so. It was our conscious step to declare that we are determined to open a new terminal next year. As a result, the airport received a huge amount of important feedback. We confirmed that Odessa’s long-term projects, in particular, the development of our airport and the airport’s image changes are under a watchful eye of the general public. Our new visual style is just a desire to demonstrate that we are ready for change and to prepare passengers and partners for something new, interesting and thoughtful,” – the speaker said.
Yuriy Derevyanko also noted that the basis of these changes is the desire for radical transformations and the creation of a fundamentally new identity for the enterprise. The search for unique features that would distinguish the airport of Odessa from all the other airports in the world provided a strong an inspiration.
The editor-in-chief of Boryspil Magazine Olexiy Didigurov, in turn, spoke of the features of the editorial policy and the content strategy of a corporate edition.
“Main air gates of a country is a special place that welcomes a huge number of people 24/7 7 days a week. Boryspil Magazine emphasizes that every person is a story and every passenger is unique. In each edition, we uncover exceptional and interesting life situations that occur with passengers at the airport and during flights, in long journeys. Another aspect is no less important – every employee of Boryspil Airport is also the carrier of a “story” of a separate history, and we disclose them in separate sections,” – said Alexey Didigurov.
The speaker stressed that the publishing of corporate publications is fundamentally important to establish and maintain the necessary “limit” in advertising. This approach determines the balance between commercial and editorial content and establishes clear standards that should protect against any image risks.
Yuriy Ryabchun, producer and publisher of The Time for Leaders magazine, discussed the balance between online and the print publications format, as well as the key features that distinguish them on the market.
“Looking at the common practice that is occurring around the world, we can conclude that advertising is gradually redirected to printed format. In a recently published data: this year the UK has already recorded an increase in advertising revenue of print media. According to the forecasts for the next 5 years, the growth of Internet advertising in the media will be about 25%, and 75% will be printed publications. And now I propose to draw attention to the fact that the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine receives about 50 applications for registration of new media every month. Tellingly, most of them are corporate. The only thing, in Ukraine the concept of corporate media and even the concept of corporations themselves, are somewhat distorted,” – the speaker summed up.
The speaker also drew attention to the issue of trust in the media:
“Every news that gets published in the media passes through a number of inspections, proofreaders, editors and, thus, acquires a certain value after being professionally processed. A lot of information, that gets published online, in fact, is a bubble. If we open a news generator, we’ll see about 20 identical messages with different headlines per hour. The work of the editors of such news editions comes down to quickly rewriting the news. I believe that traditional print media is somewhat like a bastion of quality literary language and content copyright,” – Yuriy Ryabchun summed up.
Chief Editor of Panorama magazine (in-house magazine of Ukraine International Airlines)
Maryna Popeleta focused on the main mission of her company’s in-house magazine.
“Task number one for us is to present and promote Ukraine among a large number of passengers. It is a very important mission, as we talk about the foreign passengers, who receive the first impression on our country onboard the aircraft, flying to Boryspil. In 2019 we will continue focusing on it and concentrating on the promotion of Ukraine. I want to confess that the process of materials preparation in this way is exciting. Even the representatives of editorial staff explore something new and discover Motherland deeper,” said Ms. Maryna.
Inna Soslovska and Yuliia Savchuk (editors of Megapolis Intercity+ magazine) on their part emphasized that without focusing on the customer oriented content, the quality in-house product is unlikely to be dreamt of:
“American researches in the field of content-marketing prove that only the third part of brands use communication via printed media. But exactly this third part highly evaluates impact of working with this format. There is a delicate balance between representing the interests of your own company and lobbying own interests. To be brief, the main aim is a quality content,” emphasized Inna Soslovska.
“As of today, a passenger spends no less than 5 hours in the train. Contact with a magazine can happen 2-3 times and more and we cannot say that one magazine is read by one passenger. In no way. The magazine, represented onboard, can be read by anyone. It can be read and put aside, or taken with you. That is, in any case, there are a few approaches of reader to the content. When you have been long time on the way, your Internet is poor, and you have a comprehensive magazine in front of your eyes, obviously, you will make a few approaches to it,” noted Yuliia Savchuk.
Speakers of the panel discussion agreed that the time of printed media has not passed. On the contrary, the trends on the market confirm that this format is waiting for a rebirth. Although, the necessity of traditional printed media to expand their own coverage area was not left behind, as well as to involve the reader to its paper content via various electronic “platforms” (e-versions, mobile applications etc).
In the end of the panel discussion Igor Kretov, the moderator, summarized that orientedness of the corporate cultures towards the dialogue with passenger, providing him with useful and convenient information exchange with the company is a very positive trend. It means that our corporate environment transits to the “worldview” turning stage that will certainly improve the business culture in Ukraine.
MORE SPEAKER QUOTES CAN BE FOUND IN A PANEL DISCUSSION VIDEO RELEASE FOLLOWING THE LINK: https://youtu.be/2WHo_0s9k3Q