Magazine Publishers' Online Pre-Flighting Scheme

The UK Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) is encouraging members to reap the business benefits of automated pre-flight checking using the association's own online pre-flighting system.

The UK Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) is encouraging members to reap the business benefits of automated pre-flight checking using the association's own online pre-flighting system.

Powered on behalf of PPA by Vio Worldwide and Markzware, it is claimed to offer a ready-made tool for publishers to check incoming advertising files against PPA's accepted Pass4press standards.

The PPA online pre-flighting system is now live and open to all members, following comprehensive trials in live production environments by 15 leading publishers over the past year, including Archant Dialogue, Caspian Publishing, Centurion Publishing, CMP Information, Conde Nast Publications, EMAP, Financial Times, FMC, Informa UK, IPC Media, The National Magazine Company, Profil-Pursuit, PSP Communications, The Economist Newspaper and Time.

Across those publishing companies, 116 magazines are already screening incoming files via the service, pre-flighting over 2,000 advertisements a month, with volumes increasing on a daily basis.

Deputy chief executive of PPA, Nick Mazur explained: "Pass4press was established by PPA as a best-practice guide to help advertisers prepare 'right-first-time' files for publishers.

Our aim was to help members squeeze out production bottlenecks, strip out excess cost and enhance quality, with benefits for everyone concerned.

Introducing an online pre-flighting tool that advertisers could use - at no cost and with minimal pre-press expertise - was a logical step to encourage them to make practical use of the standard." Debbie Read chairs the PPA Pass4press committee, but as production director at IPC Media she has also seen at first-hand the measurable benefits of using the system from the publisher's perspective.

She commented: "The online pre-flight check has proved invaluable for IPC instead of getting files that need to be passed back to the advertiser for correction or fixed by our pre-press suppliers, we can nip problems in the bud far earlier in the schedule, which is better for customers and for us.

We're making a concerted effort to encourage more advertisers to submit files this way and by giving them additional support, for example with enhanced hints and tips on file correction, were confident that an even higher proportion of IPC advertisers will be using the solution in the months ahead".

Alice Beattie, group manufacturing director at The National Magazine Company, said: "Using the PPA's Pass4press online pre-flight system means we receive 100 per cent press-ready files, which saves us a lot of time.

We promote it to our advertisers as much as we can and many of our ads are received this way.

We find it reliable and our advertising clients like it as it's free too.

It's a real win-win for everyone." Emap Advertising is using the online pre-flighting system across 16 consumer titles in the division.

Traffic received via the system is now approaching 15 per cent of incoming advertisements on the more agency-led titles such as Arena, and Emap itself uses Pass4press pre-flighting to run an initial in-house quality check on all incoming advertisements.

Stacy Crowe, Emap's group production manager, commented: "The proportion of advertisers using the PPA web interface is increasing, and we're proactive in promoting the Pass4press standard and the online pre-flighting solution through mail-outs to clients, with emailed links to the web site and in direct discussions with key agencies.

The Pass4press flight check acts as a valuable 'early warning' system for Emap, enabling us to flag problems with advertisers at the outset and minimising last minute panics." Vio said it is simple for PPA members to start working with online pre-flighting.

Following agreement of PPA's terms and conditions, publishers click on a specific link on the PPA web site and register the titles which they want to be accessible to advertisers.

Initial registration costs £50 per publisher and each advertisement pre-flighted through the PPA online system is charged at 20 pence to the publisher, though PPA intends for that rate to reduce as volume usage of the service increases across the membership base.

Vio will be running a series of training seminars for publishers and advertisers on how to use and to get the most out of the service throughout 2005.

Dates will be announced in January.

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