The world is not a village after all
If the world were truly a village, it would consist of countless neighborhoods where residents not only speak different languages but also have specific preferences regarding the paper on which their magazines are printed. That said, more and more of them prefer to read on a tablet computer rather than on paper.
The Swiss corporate publishing landscape, with its language regions and as the location of countless multinational companies, provides a good blueprint for international corporate publishing (CP). Hardly any CP product in this country is published in just one language, and when it is, it is often not even in one of the national languages, but in English, the Esperanto of the global business world.
No company with a presence throughout Switzerland can afford to publish exclusively in German. The minimum is a French version, which, with a little good will, is also read in Ticino. For readers east of the Röstigraben and north of the Alpine ridge, the reciprocal right does not necessarily apply to publications that appear first in one of the Latin languages. However, the prospect of finding a wide audience for the German version of a French- or Italian-language publication is also quite slim.
The effort required for translation, layout adaptation, printing and distribution is associated with cost consequences that are often out of proportion to the distribution. On an international scale, this disproportion puts a quick end to many a well-intentioned country edition.
But using adequate technology and novel distribution models - for example, as a digital edition for tablet computers - some CP products can now be published in additional languages and distributed in areas of the world where hardly anyone subscribes to them. And if they do, they would rather not be sent by mail in printed form for cost reasons.
All beginning is content
Let's start with the generation of the content. The product must have a certain credibility so that the CP agency can win over the desired expert in a worldwide author search. This is somewhat easier for a renowned agency with a well-known publisher as a client and with every author it acquires, because name-dropping works even with some luminaries who have been labeled as "divas". A continuously updated profile of the publication, which includes a list of authors as well as abstracts of the articles, proves to be extremely helpful as a door opener.
Once the author or expert has been engaged, the next step is to look for a picture. At best, a photographer can be found in the agency's network who has his or her base near the person to be portrayed, so that the assignment is associated with reasonable travel costs. However, many photographers are usually traveling somewhere in the world. The agency is therefore well advised to keep abreast of their travel plans - with a bit of luck, these will coincide with a local appointment, and once again a desired picture is in the magazine instead of an agency picture.
Adequate technology for the creation ...
International CP requires a round-the-clock editorial system that allows editors, layouters and other participants to contribute to the creation of the publication regardless of location. Work steps approved by the agency in the process, such as text production or proofreading, can thus be completed overnight by an editor in Singapore or a proofreader in Canada, for example.
This is especially true for translations, which today are also done by translators from all over the world in the case of traditional workflows. The editorial system even allows multiple language versions to be processed simultaneously.
Last but not least, it also simplifies the approval processes with customers. In the overview of the current status of work, they can attach electronic sticky notes, approve layouts and download PDF files for their internal processes.
... and for the production
If work on the publication has progressed to the point where prepress can take over the layouts, it naturally also does so with the help of the editorial system. At this stage, for example, the high-resolution images are still integrated into the layouts, and at a certain status of the workflow, print data is generated via status change. Regional advertisements are typical for multilingual publications. These can also be scheduled with the editorial system and automatically integrated in the workflow. In the case of very extensive publications, a page planning tool is used for this purpose.
Novel distribution models
Back to the world's inhabitants, who prefer to read their magazines on their tablet computers rather than printed on paper. The distribution model underlying digital publishing, with a newsstand app and issues that can be loaded into it, is worth a closer look. The editorial system provides tools to produce a publication for release in multiple channels. If the print version is the basis, an edition for the website or for tablet computers can also be generated in parallel or only slightly delayed.
If a tablet publication has to be produced in country-specific editions - for example, as a result of regulatory requirements - there is nothing to stop different versions being distributed via the App Store. The only thing that needs to be done is careful planning.
Fueled by blogs, tweets, and classic PR, a digital magazine manages to surpass the number of copies of the print edition with the number of downloaded issues within a few days. And not just in its home countries, but worldwide - even in markets where the publication has not yet been present.
A good proportion of recipients come from countries to which mailing the printed magazine is expensive and takes a long time. This reveals a highly interesting distribution model: worldwide, simultaneous availability as a pull medium, without the expense of logistics - and contact costs that become lower with each recipient. Exclusively qualified contacts, without scatter cost loss and deliberately wanted by the potential reader!
Versions à gogo
In the case of print products, regionalization occasionally goes so far that country-specific preferences even have to be taken into account when choosing the type of paper. It can happen, for example, that a version of the same magazine is printed on uncoated paper for Switzerland and the German-speaking countries and a version on coated paper for the Anglo-Saxon countries. However, since the content of the language versions often also differs greatly to completely, the choice of paper is negligible - there are hardly any more cost-saving commonalities. The coordination of several versions of a single magazine is therefore a massive challenge for the CP agency. In addition to the German edition for Switzerland, for example, there is also an edition for Austria or one for Germany. And the English edition exists in a version for Great Britain, one for the USA and one for Asia. In addition, there are language versions that have to be set with Central and Eastern European accents or even in non-Latin scripts.
Back in Switzerland, it becomes apparent that there is hardly any difference between an international magazine and a magazine that is produced in three national languages, for example. The challenges are comparable - apart from somewhat more "village-like" structures when it comes to recruiting authors, the team involved in realization, and approval by those responsible on the customer side.
Urs Arnold/Lukas Huggenberg
Specialists for international CP
Urs Arnold is Managing Director and Creative Director of Arnold Inhalt und Form (AIF) and a board member of Forum Corporate Publishing (FCP). Lukas Huggenberg heads AIF's content division and, as CIO, is responsible for the interface between design and technology.
AIF knows the needs of the international CP à fond. The agency conceives, designs and realizes the client magazine Bulletin of Credit Suisse in six print versions as well as an English-language tablet magazine. For the expert magazine Global Investor for Credit Suisse Global Research, which is published in seven languages, AIF is also responsible for text and editing and provides a US-American as editor-in-chief.
AIF also has overall responsibility for the customer magazine Think! for IBM Switzerland and IBM Austria. It is published in German and French, as well as in Austria in an edition that, in addition to the country-specific differences in grammar and language usage, contains a good 50 percent country-specific content generated by a team around the Austrian editor-in-chief engaged by AIF.
In Switzerland, AIF is responsible, among other things, for the Swiss Post magazine, which is published in three languages, the Helsana annual report, which is also published in three languages, and the Avenir Suisse newsletter Avenir Aktuell, which is published in German and French.
Contact: Arnold. Inhalt und Form AG, Urs Arnold, [email protected]
