This Is BT Experience

Teknikens Värld readers in Bedford

At the beginning of 2011, Swedish magazine publisher Bonnier Tidskrifter started a new unit within marketing: BT Experience. So far, unit staff include Annelie Wadman, marketing manager for events, Oscar Sandberg, marketing manager for travel and coordinator Victoria Aghester. Together with Bonnier Tidskrifter's various editorial staff, the unit puts together travel and activities of interest to readers.

"We work with specialized travel, not so much sun and sea but more substantive and interesting travel for the target groups of our various titles," says Sandberg. "The goal, among others, is that readers should come back with new useable knowledge. The idea is to have a travel agency in house, and we do everything from planning to booking tickets, sales, marketing and then carrying it out."

During 2011, Sandberg expects some 10-12 trips to take place, including food trips to Champagne and Roslagen with Allt om Mat. A good example is Teknikens Värld's trip to the English automobile mecca Bedford the previous May. The trip was marketed via the print magazine and on the web, and was quickly sold out. Another trip is planned for the fall. 

The boundary between travel and events is fluid. Wadman works partly with existing events, such as Bonnier Korsords-SM crossword competition and M-magasin's Mappiegalan awards ceremony, but also with developing new concepts. She has on her plate a reader trip in connection with Damernas Värld's major fashion awards event Guldknappen.

"It's going to be a weekend of shopping and styling, a visit to Lars Wallin's exhibit and of course the event itself," says Wadman. "The idea is to realize a concept with experiences and encounters that readers maybe couldn't arrange on their own."

BT Experience works closely with Creative Sales, a unit within Bonnier Tidskrifter that sells sponsorships for award ceremonies and other events.

"We'll be doing the Sinne & Smak [sense and taste] food event together in the fall," says Wadman. "Food in particular is relatively unexplored when it comes to this kind of context, and we see a lot of potential."

Above all, the purpose of the events and travel is to build the brand and create faithful readers, but bringing in income for Bonnier Tidskrifter is also part of it.

"We have good margins on all our trips so there is clearly money in it," says Sandberg. "The challenge is coming up with a good concept and profiling it in a reasonable way. But we trust that our editors know their readers and what they want. So far it's worked well!"