Prepress
BLANCHARD SYSTEMS LAUNCHES SENDMYAD.COM
Wednesday 23. January 2008 - The first online end-to-end solution for publishers that allows them to collaborate in a web-based environment with advertisers, agencies, and printers to automate the workflow of receiving, approving and delivering digital ad materials
Blanchard Systems announces it has launched a new, independent, wholly owned business unit, SendMyAd LLC, providing an all-in-one print ad solution that allows advertisers and publishers to save time and money by taking advantage of the latest web technologies. It is the first end-to-end solution for publishers, letting them provide an easy, personalized site where advertisers can submit advertising materials and collaborate online with the publisher to facilitate the approval, insertion information, and final delivery of the ad materials once completed.
“When we started building an end-to-end solution for digital submission and approval of ad materials, no one was doing anything close to this. The best we saw was file upload and preflighting. There was no business automation or material workflow in these systems. We consulted with a number of major publishers for ideas. By leveraging Dalim Software workflow and virtual proofing technology, the result is an intuitive advertising portal for publishers, advertisers and printers that will revolutionize the way the publishing industry works,” comments Charles Blanchard, Blanchard Systems CEO. “The SendMyAd portal lets an advertiser take a PDF file, upload it via a web browser, preview and preflight it, and generate a report about the ad-all on the web. Then, the portal provides an approval process for ad materials and information and ad insertion metadata between the advertiser and publisher, and ultimately delivers the file to where it will be printed. The addition of insertion order information into the PDF files lets the advertiser and publisher track ad materials easily. This is all done electronically through the portal.”
SendMyAd is easy for both experienced and inexperienced users. It is web-based using a standard browser, but feels like an application to the user. There is no downloaded application or modules to install.
There are five major portions to the SendMyAd service:
– Ad Preflight: Uploaded ads are preflighted to the publication’s specifications, such as size, image resolution, font information, and color space. Issues that conflict with the specification are displayed in a comprehensive, easy to read report. If the ad passes preflight, it is automatically sent to the publisher and SendMyAd notifies the ad traffickers that the new ad materials are ready for insertion.
– Softproofing: Advertisers can preview, annotate and manage print-ready ads in their full, high-resolution state, with an easy to use interface. Ads can be accessed by all authorized participants and approved by those responsible for the decision to print.
– Trimming of ads over the Web: SendMyAd has a web-based tool that allows the advertiser to change the trim size of an ad to fit a publication’s specification size. The interactive tool automatically pulls the correct trim size of the magazine’s ad specification, so there is no guessing. From there, the advertiser can place the ad, as desired, within the window-even resizing the ad material if needed. It is a great way to resize and correctly trim an ad that will appear in a number of publications.
– Insertion Orders: Publishers are able to fill AdsML-compliant job tickets that allow the tracking of an ad from the moment it enters the SendMyAd workflow all the way to the time it is printed. A publisher can either create an insertion order, and SendMyAd will automatically notify the advertiser to attach ad materials, or an advertiser can start the process by uploading ad materials and the insertion will be created automatically. Single ad materials can be picked up and used for multiple placements in different publications. SendMyAd will check to ensure that the digital ad complies with each publication’s ad specification.
– Digital Receipt: While other ad delivery systems can show what the ad looks like, none have been able to attach all the insertion order information on the same file. SendMyAd attaches all digital receipt data as a multi-page PDF file. A preview showing the positioning of the ad verifies how the ad will print on the magazine page. This is particularly important for partial page ads, along with all the approved insertion order information presented on the accompanying digital receipt. SendMyAd also creates metadata to provide easy data transfer to business systems.
For more than sufficient bandwidth, the SendMyAd system is supported by a major co-location web backbone. To preserve data, the system is fully redundant, with offsite storage.