“Nothing sells the cover better than a person. It should be someone well known, which is why we had Albert Einstein on the cover. It should be someone beautiful, which is why we had Agnieszka Kropacz. It should be someone familiar, which is why we always choose one of our employees to be the face of the first page,” says Arkadiusz Grochala, director for coaching, development and internal communications Netia. “Making the magazine for Netia we follow the rules of the commercial market. The cover is the selling factor – if it has no story to tell, no one will want to look inside,” adds Magda Kozińska, Aude publishing director, who is responsible for the project.
@mazing has many readers. The mag has good reception thanks to carefully prepared photo shoots. “We might have used photos from external banks, but your own photo shoots for internal magazines is a great contribution to building the corporate culture, supports the emotional involvement of employees and makes the articles more trustworthy. It is important to us that @mazing shows real people, true stories and true values,” says Arkadiusz Grochala.

The research by the Internal Communications Division of Netia shows the employees like their magazine. The fact they can see themselves inside makes them wait more impatiently for the next issue. “It’s because the photo shoots ideas refer to the latest events in the company. In one of the issues people from the department dealing with business development and searching for new solutions personated famous discoverers and inventors. One of the directors became Albert Einstein, there were also Nikola Tesla and Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Another issue presents one of the teams in African-like climate. This was a reference to the recent campaign promoting company values and supporting corporate culture within Netia. The styling relates to a competition for employees, in which ten winners went for several days to Kenya to experience our values on the spot. We also prepared a video and photo coverage from that event,” says Arkadiusz Grochala.

Such stylised photo shoots are a huge challenge, but for the employees they are also good fun and a break from their everyday duties. “For the African photo shoot it took nearly two hours to characterise each of the employees. The make up for the cover girl took six hours, but it went well because the employees knew what to expect. All the ideas had been discussed in advance,” says Lena Kamińska, make-up artist for @mazing photo shoots.

“Before we put someone in front of the camera we devote much time to knowing the goal and deciding what we want to achieve. We carefully think over and work on the concept, because we believe this is the source of good communication – communication with a human face,” explains Arkadiusz Grochala.

This seems like the right principle. The Cover of the Year Title in Szpalty Roku competition, five Pearl Awards 2013 in New York, silver Global Communications Competition Spotlight Award 2013 by the League of American Communications Professionals, as well as the words of  Christine Kennedy, managing director League of American Communications Professionals, are the best proofs that it’s worth thinking things over thoroughly before you act: “Magazine for Netia employees published by Aude is characterised by a unique design, which is inseparably linked with great creativity.”