News Release
September 2009

Magazines Canada launches ad portal to automate workflows

Magazines Canada has launched AdDirect, a free, web-based ad preflighting and delivery portal that will help to automate workflow and ad handling for advertisers and advertising agencies. The new portal is powered by SendMyAd. AdDirectª automatically validates ad files against Magazines Canada and publishersÕ specifications and instantly delivers them to any participating title. Plus senders receive an automatic digital receipt providing assurance that the ad has been received. "Ad portals are the next logical step towards workflow automation," says Gary Garland, Executive Director, Advertising Services at Magazines Canada. "With AdDirect, agencies and advertisers can now easily and immediately upload, check and send ads with confidence that their files are print-ready. You can even deliver files to multiple participating publishers with just one upload."

The SendMyAd service is available immediately. Publishers interested in SendMyAd can visit www.sendmyad.com

About SendMyAd, LLC. SendMyAd, LLC, wholly owned business unit of Blanchard Systems, provides a subscription service, available as the first end-to-end solution for publishers, letting them create a web-based environment where advertisers and agencies can collaborate online to automate the workflow of receiving, approving and delivering ad materials. The easy to use system provides five major, functional services: Ad Preflight, where uploaded ads are preflighted to the publication’s specifications; Softproofing, where advertisers can preview, annotate and manage print-ready ads; Trimming of ads over the Web, an interactive tool allowing an advertiser to change the trim size of an ad to fit a publication’s specification size; Insertion Orders, creating AdsML-compliant job tickets, allowing one to tracking an ads from the moment it enters the SendMyAd workflow until it is printed; and Digital Receipt, attaching all the insertion order information as a multi-page PDF file. A preview showing the positioning of the ad verifies how the ad will print on the magazine page. The SendMyAd system is supported by a major co-location web backbone. To preserve data, the system is fully redundant, with offsite storage.