Harper's Bazaar Subscribes to CustomShow for '09

Harper's Bazaar will use CustomShow for their sales presentations in 2009. By working with Sales Graphics to create and develop their 2009 sales materials in Sales Graphics' CustomShow software, Harper's Bazaar will be giving their sales team the best presentation tool available. Joining Good Housekeeping as Hearst titles using CustomShow, Harper's Bazaar will use CustomShow to manage, update and present their magazine to advertisers across the country. Now their presentations will be as well-dressed as the models in their magazine.

Glamour Celebrates Reel Moment's 5th Anniversary

As Glamour Magazine celebrates five years of their hugely successful Reel Moments Short Film Festival, they knew they needed a great marketing piece to take to potential sponsors that would show the full scope of this great sponsorship opportunity. Having worked with Sales Graphics' DesignStudio on several great videos in the past, we worked together to create a visually stunning and detailed overview of the highlights of the last five years of Glamour's Reel Moments. A "reel moment" in itself, the Glamour Reel Moments 5th Anniversary video will be a great tool for salespeople to showcase one of Glamour's premiere events and sponsorship opportunities.

The Parenting Group Launches New GP

The Parenting Group launched their new General Presentation today with a new look, new message and a great new intro video for their CustomShow Presentation. Using CustomShow to manage, present and share presentations for all of the print and digital titles, The Parenting Group gave their sales team a powerful new tool to reach and engage with advertisers across the country. Working with our DesignStudio designers, The Parenting Group was able to fully realize their new brand look and feel with a great new design. Sales Graphics also produced a series of videos of real moms sharing their experiences and insights into being a mom. By incorporating these videos into the presentation, The Parenting Group's salespeople can bring these moms with them on every sales call.

The Parenting Group really does "get moms." And they also get great sales presentations!

DesignStudio Video Boosts Newsstand Sales for EW

Marketing is all about making an impression, producing a reaction and driving people to action. Much of what Sales Graphics' DesignStudio does, like creating impactful videos and sales presentations, can only be measured qualitatively with terms like "looks great" or "really engaging." However, we are always looking for opportunities to quantitatively measure the impact of our design work and it's great when we are able to get specific results back from the design work that we do.

Entertainment Weekly recently gave us the opportunity to see that kind of measurable results with a video project for their newsstand sales. We had originally created an exciting intro video for their ad sales presentation that really wowed advertisers and started the presentation off with a bang. Once EW's consumer marketing team saw the video, they asked if they could have a version to try out at newsstands. So Sales Graphics' DesignStudio created a version of the video that had a newsstand call to action. The results were amazing:

"I wanted to let you know that the video you helped create for the newsstand video test in the San Fran airport was a huge success, lifting sales 137%. The newsstand team is rolling out the video to an additional 15 locations. Thanks for all your help and creative genius!" - EW Consumer Marketing

This kind of measurable result is what Sales Graphics is always striving for and working towards with every design project we produce.

Golf Digest Gets Ready for 2008's Hot List

Every year Golf Digest published its Hot List of the best golf equipment available. To get advertisers excited about this year's great-looking Hot List issue and to remind them to get in it while they can, Golf Digest came to Sales Graphics' DesignStudio to produce an exciting online video with a strong call to action.  Even though we doesn't make golf equipment, by getting advertisers excited about advertising in Golf Digest's Hot List 2008 issue, we think our DesignStudio should be on this year's Hot List!

Smithsonian Media Goes Traveling

Smithsonian Media is reaching out to travel advertisers and they've come to Sales Graphics' DesignStudio to help them do that. We created an ad sales video showcasing the extensive travel content across all of Smithsonian Media's properties, including Smithsonian Magazine, goSmithsonian.com and the Smithsonian Channel. "Just about every story we run is a travel story," explained Carey Winfrey, the Editor of Smithsonian Magazine. Sales Graphics' DesignStudio created a video that helps the Smithsonian's sales team effectively present all of their great media platforms and highlights the fantastic travel content across all of them.

Glamour.TV Unveils 2009 Lineup

Glamour.TV announced their 2009 lineup with a great new video produced by Sales Graphics' DesignStudio. With such a compelling, video-based product to sell, Glamour's sales team needed much more than a PowerPoint presentation to get advertisers excited about this great sponsorship opportunity. So, in order to take full advantage of their great content and strong brand, Glamour called upon Sales Graphics to put together a video that showcased the engaging and unique content that will shown on Glamour.TV in 2009. The video was a huge hit, firing up the sales team to go sell and demonstrating to advertisers the power of the content and brand of Glamour.TV.

Newsweek's Women & Leadership Conference

Newsweek Magazine's annual Women & Leadership Conference and issue kicks off in October. And to kick off their ad sales efforts surrounding this great franchise Newsweek came to Sales Graphics and our DesignStudio to create a video promotion for potential advertisers. With editor interviews, footage from last year's event and testimonials from satisfied sponsors and partners, the video helps bring across the unique value that Newsweek and the Women & Leadership Conference bring to advertisers.

Metropolitan Home at Home with Sales Graphics

METROPOLITAN HOME joined ELLE DECOR as Sales Graphics' clients today. By combining their marketing resources into a single CustomShow Library, the new Luxury Design Group now has an unprecedented ability to share presentation materials across titles, work together to create truly integrated presentations and collaborate between ELLE DECOR and METROPOLITAN HOME.

ASME Announces 2008 Winners

The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) bestowed the industry's most prestigious editorial honors tonight at the 43rd annual National Magazine Awards. Among the winners were several Sales Graphics clients, and we would like to offer our own congratulations to the winners.

While the editorial staff certainly didn't use CustomShow to produce their award-winning editorial, you never know... 

• Vanity Fair for Profile Writing and Photo Portfolio
• Condé Nast Portfolio for Magazine Section

Congratulations again from Sales Graphics.

Men's Health Grooming Awards 2008

Men's Health today announced the winners of it's annual Men's Health Grooming Awards 2008. And to kick off the presentation, they used a smooth video created by Sales Graphics' DesignStudio. Already a CustomShow user, Men's Health recognized the value of creating a video piece that could both be used for the event and added to their CustomShow Library to help present the event to advertisers and sponsors. And the best part about it that everyone came away looking great!

Portfolio Debuts CustomShow Presentation Library

Portfolio debuted its CustomShow Presentation Library to its international sales team today at 4 Times Square. Packed full of presentations, category information and editor videos, Portfolio is giving its sales force all the tools they need to get advertisers to invest in Portfolio. As one of Condé Nast's newest titles, Portfolio needed to go out into the marketplace and make its presence felt. The sales team needed to convey the new brand, new value proposition and new design and content to a difficult audience. Sales Graphics' DesignStudio created a brand video and a library of editor clips that clearly show and speak to Portfolio's strong new brand. CustomShow allows Portfolio's salespeople to access and present this information beautifully, consistently and efficiently anywhere around the world.

Men's Vogue Launches CustomShow Presentation in Style

Men's Vogue today launched their new CustomShow Presentation library at their annual sales meeting. Fresh off their win as Startup of the Year, Men's Vogue is arming their national sales force with a library of presentations as full of interesting things and as beautifully designed as the magazine itself. With video clips of editor interviews, a new brand video and a deep library of research and category presentations, the Men's Vogue are ready to sell in style.

CondéNet Wins min's Best of the Web for Sales Producer

Christine deMaio, Publisher of Epicurious.com and Concierge.com, was awarded today with min's Best of the Web Award for Sales Producer/online. With a great collection of websites and the great design and content of Condé Nast, along with a great CustomShow library of presentations that show all of that great content and design off, Christine deMaio has grow the brands and grown online sales significantly. Congratulations!

The Best of the Web Use CustomShow!

min announced the winners of its 2008 Best of the Web Awards and we were thrilled to see our clients well represented.  The same sales and marketing tech savvy that made them the Best of the Web also made them see the benefits of using the best sales presentation platform available. Specifically designed for media ad sales teams, CustomShow empowers media sales professionals both online and offline. 

We'd like to give a special congratulations to our clients who were named min's Best of the Web 2008:

• Portfolio.com (Design, Uses of Interactivity)
• InStyle.com (Email Newsletters, Mobile Application)
• Newsweek (Integration with Print)

The Power of Glamour

Glamour Magazine kicked off its 2008 sales effort with a new video designed by Sales Graphics' DesignStudio. The combination of a new strong brand message, beautiful images, compelling client interviews and cool musical beat will give Glamour's sales team an engaging and effective tool to take out to the advertising community in 2008.

Domino Debuts 2008 General Presentation

Domino Magazine debuted their 2008 General Presentation at their national sales meeting this week. This is Domino's second year of working with Sales Graphics DesignStudio and managing their presentation using CustomShow presentation software. Once again Domino's presentation represents the look and feel of the magazine and embodies the brand through beautiful photography and engaging animations.

ASME Nominations Announced

The 43rd Annual National Magazine Award Finalists were announced today and we were proud to see many of our clients among the finalists. While all of the nominees are certainly deserving of the recognition, we at Sales Graphics would like to give a special congratulations to those people we've worked closely with over the years:

• Condé Nast Portfolio - Magazine Section
  
• Domino - Leisure Interests and Single-Topic Issue
  
• ELLE - Essays
  
• Entertainment Weekly - Essays
  
• Essence.com - Interactive Feature
  
• Field & Stream - Personal Service and Leisure Interests
  
• Glamour - General Excellence
  
• Good Housekeeping - Personal Service
  
• Men's Health - General Excellence and Leisure Interests
  
• New York Magazine - General Excellence, Leisure Interests, Feature Writing, Columns and Commentary, Reviews and Criticism, Design, Photography, Photo Portfolio and Personal Service Online
  
• Newsweek - Photo Portfolio
  
• Vanity Fair - General Excellence, Reporting, Feature Writing, Profile Writing, Design and Photo Portfolio
  

Are You Ready? In Style Launches New Presentation

At their national sales meeting this week, In Style Magazine unveiled their new ad sales presentation in CustomShow presentation software. Working with Sales Graphics' DesignStudio, In Style put together an exciting presentation that is both fun to watch and right on brand for the magazine. With music, video and animation throughout the presentation, salespeople and clients alike will be energized and excited about In Style in 2008.

Fore! Golf Digest Goes Traveling

Golf Digest introduced Matt Ginella, their new Senior Editor of Travel, with a look back at his experience as Photo Editor for Sports Illustrated and then Golf Digest. Working with Sales Graphics' DesignStudio, Gold Digest put together a look at what's coming up for Golf Digest travel, both in the magazine and online. Matt then explained a little bit about what his new job entails, which sounds just about as good as it gets. Travel around the world and play golf!

Condé Nast Portfolio Invests in CustomShow for 2008

Condé Nast Portfolio Magazine signed up Sales Graphics to design and produce their 2008 Ad Sales Presentation. Working with Sales Graphics' DesignStudio to create a rich media presentation that includes video interviews of their editors, Portfolio.com online content and featuring their beautiful photography, Portfolio will also use CustomShow to manage, present and deliver their presentation to their entire sales force and marketing department. We certainly think it's a great investment and we're confident they'll see quite a return on it!

Rodale Healthy in 2007

Rodale, owner of Sales Graphics clients Men's Health and Women's Health, had a strong 2007 according to TNS Media Intelligence ("Paper Tiger: Rodale Soars in 2007"). In today's competitive media marketplace, we recognize how difficult it is to consistently created compelling content that continues to engage readers in the face of the many varied media alternatives available to consumers. The growth in Men's Health and Women's Health sales are a testament to not only the quality content and editorial but also the hard work and creativity of their sales teams. Success in publishing is a combination of many things - editorial, marketing, sales - and Sales Graphics' CustomShow and DesignStudio are proud to be a part of that process at Rodale. Congratulations on a great 2007 and good luck in 2008!

TV Is Back!

TV IS BACK! Just in case anyone didn't hear, Entertainment Weekly wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the writers' strike is finally over. And that means that good TV is back. And no one is happier than Entertainment Weekly! Except maybe their readers.

MPA Digital Awards Finalists

Congratulations to Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, Newsweek and Epicurious.com for being named finalists in the MPA Digital Awards. EW.com was nominated for "Entertainment/Celebrity" (not surprisingly), nymag.com was nominated for both "Service and Lifestyle" and "Magazine Blog of the Year", Newsweek.com was nominated for "Best Online Video - Series"  and "Best Podcast Series" and Epicurious.com was nominated for "Best Online Community". We're always excited to see our clients recognized for the outstanding work that we get to see throughout the year working with them.

Newsweek.com Gets Video Kudos

Adage.com gave some nice kudos today to Sales Graphics client Newsweek.com for their use of video on their website ("Magazine Sites Add Video, but Not Much Expertise"). The article talks about the challenge that magazines have in translating their print image and brand into compelling video content that online viewers will watch. I'm sure Newsweek's expert handling of their video content has nothing to do with the fact that they've been using video content in their CustomShow presentations for several years now and Sales Graphics' DesignStudio has successfully created many video pieces for them to convey and explain their brand. But it probably didn't hurt, either.

Magazine Clients Making Digital Deals

As more and more media goes digital, many of Sales Graphics' clients are making digital deals to bring their content to a broader audience online. Hearst, Conde Nast, Time Inc., Bonnier and Hachette Filipacchi have all announced online partnerships  ("Mags Dizzy With Digital Deals") and Sales Graphics is already working with many of them to incorporate this new digital content into their CustomShow presentations and other marketing materials. With CustomShow's ability to seamlessly and reliably incorporate digital assets into our clients' presentations, magazine sales teams that create, manage and distribute their presentations using CustomShow have a significant competitive advantage in today's publishing marketplace.

Happy Valentine's Day from Entertainment Weekly

What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day that with a good romantic film? Well, Entertainment Weekly certainly thought so. Working with our DesignStudio, Entertainment Weekly sent out the "Top Ten Romantic Films" email blast to help get people in the mood. It certainly worked for us! Click here to watch the video and get in the mood yourself!

PlanetOut Goes Out With CustomShow

PlanetOut launched their CustomShow presentation to their Ad Sales Team this week. Incorporating both print and digital into their presentations and being able to effectively present the entire breadth of their media portfolio, PlanetOut saw that CustomShow was the only tool available that allowed them to manage all of their presentation needs.

The Parenting Group Launches 2008 Presentation

The Parenting Group, newly acquired by the Bonnier Corporation, launched their 2008 CustomShow to their sales team today. In their third year of using CustomShow as their presentation platform, The Parenting Group leveraged all of CustomShow's features to create an interactive, rich media presentation that told the new Parenting Group's story in an engaging and compelling way. Combining the Parenting and Babytalk presentations into one General Presentation, it was critical that sales people had the flexibility to tell the same story in many different ways. With CustomShow's simple and powerful navigation features and the DesignStudio's engaging designs, The Parenting Group is ready to take on 2008!

Selecciones Introduces New CustomShow Presentation

Selecciones unveiled their new CustomShow General Presentation today. Under new ownership and working closely with Reader's Digest, Selecciones rolled out CustomShow software and the newly designed General Presentation to their National Sales Team. As 2007 comes to a close, they're already ready for 2008!

EW's Entertainer of the Year - Who will it be?

Entertainment Weekly will be announcing their 2007 Entertainer of the Year in their December '07 issue. And to build up the anticipation they sent out a teaser trailer to get people excited (and remind them to get their ads in!). Working with Sales Graphics' DesignStudio to create an fun video experience to get people excited, Entertainment Weekly was able to leverage our long-standing relationship to quickly and easily create a branded video email in just a few days. Who will it be? We can't wait to find out!

Congratulations to the min Award Winners

min Magazine today recognized the 2007 Sales Executives of the Year with their annual min Awards. Among the winners, many of them are long-time users of CustomShow and the Sales Graphics DesignStudio. Now while we don't want to take all of the credit, if you're looking to be Sales Executive of the Year in 2008 you might want to give CustomShow a look!

In all seriousness, though, we would like to congratulate the hard work and talent of our clients who were recognized in this year's awards:

Hall of Fame:  Tom Beusse, Former President, Time4 Media

Salesperson of the Year WINNER: Mark Magnani, Director, Integrated Sales & Marketing - Reader's Digest

Sales Team Leader of the Year (SINGLE TITLE) HONORABLE MENTION: Beth Fuchs Brenner, Vice President & Publisher - Domino

Sales Team Leader of the Year (LAUNCH) WINNER: William Li, Publisher - Men's Vogue

Sales Team of the Year WINNER: Men's Vogue (LAUNCH)