BENSIMON*BYRNE TO WAVE SABRE AROUND
By Adnews Staff
Bensimon*Byrne of Toronto is launching a campaign within the next two months for the SABRE Travel Information Network of Ft. Worth, Texas. SABRE is a computer reservations system used by travel agencies and other companies worldwide. Its Canadian headquarters are in Toronto. SABRE uses a Canadian public relations firm, Media Profile in Toronto, but this is the first time it has used a Canadian ad agency. The company decided it wanted an ad shop that understands the Canadian market, U.S. marketing service managing director Andrea Spica told Adnews yesterday. Until now SABRE's Canadian advertising has been done by Timberlin McClain of Dallas. Bensimon was given the business without a review because SABRE liked the work the agency had done for other clients, particularly for Tilden Rent-A-Car.
SABRE is a subsidiary of AMR Corp. The latter is the parent company of American Airlines, which in turn owns 30% of Calgary-based Canadian Airlines. SABRE's adoption by Canadian aroused some hard feelings in Canada. When American made a deal to buy a share of Canadian, American set a requirement that Canadian adopt the SABRE system. This meant that Canadian had to drop Pegasus, the system it was using at the time, and the latter did not let go quietly. However, an agreement was reached and on Nov. 5, 1994 the switch to SABRE was made. A release from Canadian said this was "one of the largest information systems cutovers in the history of the airline industry."