The skies of North America seemed a little less friendly when SkyMall announced its bankruptcy earlier this year. Now, six months later, an East Coast firm has scooped up the company’s assets for $1.9 million at auction.
According to Myles Udland in Business Insider, C&A Marketing’ Chaim Pikarski said, “Our goal is to bring the SkyMall brand back to its roots, back to the brands, products and technology that relate to all travelers.”
The potential is large – SkyMall racked up $33.7 million in revenue in 2013, but were down quite a bit in 2014.
“SkyMall’s parent company said in court filings that the increased use of electronic devices on planes led to fewer people browsing their magazines during flight,” Udland notes.
With a brand that has achieved almost cult status, C&A can make a go of this if they leverage digital to engage with print. Certainly the company received more than its share of news coverage for a firm of its size, and judging from the reaction in the press, people really do love the magazine.
Now the key is to make it compelling enough – and easy enough – for readers to purchase during flight. With more North American flights offering Wi-Fi, there must be some way to partner with the airlines to offer consumers a rebate on their Wi-Fi charges or some other incentive to make this more palatable.
I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to see a SkyMall ad the next time I get a flight confirmation email from Expedia, along with a code to get my discounted WI-FI connection onboard.
Engage where the buyers are and all that, with a truly captive audience. Because buying a spider vacuum at 30,000 feet would be an awesome way to kill some time.