Lufthansa ‘Future of Hand Luggage’ | Looking for creative and out-of-the-box ideas about designing the optimal hand luggage experience, Lufthansa has launched a ‘Future of Hand Luggage contest’ co-creation contest. From September 24 until November 19, Lufthansa is inviting the general public to join their open community, submit their idea in the following two categories: ‘Improving the Hand Luggage Process’ and ‘Co-Design the Next Cabin Suitcase’, classify in which step of the Lufthansa passenger travel chain their idea fts, and rate and evaluate ideas with community members. In mid-December, a international expert jury of senior Lufthansa product managers will thennarrow the pool down to the top three ideas, taking the ratings and remarks on the website into account. The winners will be announced in January 2013 and will be invited to present their ideas to Lufthansa’s executive leadership, as well as a piece of Lufthansa cabin luggage. The Lufthansa Open Innovation contest has attracted 600 participants and 175 ideas in its frst 3 weeks. Besides the Future of Hand Luggage contest, Lufthansa Cargo has also just launched the second edition of its annual co-creation contest, aimed at improving customer service in the airline cargo industry.
KLM ‘Social Ofer’ | Looking to use social media to drive revenues, KLM last August launched Social Offer, a time-limited price determining tool for fans and followers of the airline. The program allowed social media users to lower the cost of airfare on a KLM flight out of Amsterdam to predetermined destinations through the number of hits of Facebook or Twitter accounts on the campaign page. Each log-in to the KLM Social Offer site via Facebook or Twitter knocks down the price for each destination by a predetermined amount up to a lowest limit set by KLM. Each ‘Social Offer’ campaign lasted for six days, followed by a sales campaign of three days on Facebook and Twitter. During the frst two days of the campaign, participants could vote to select two of fve destinations proposed by KLM in a poll on Facebook. During the next two days of the campaign, people could reduce the price of the selected destinations by logging onto the campaign page. These flights did have a defned minimum price though. If this value is reached prior to the end of the designated duration of the campaign, the promotion ended earlier than announced. The reduced fares then were available for booking during two days. The frst set of ‘Social Offer’ destinations offered by KLM were New York, Chicago and Vancouver, with prices displayed for each destination on a “digital counter.” According to KLM, Social Offer was test-launched in fve markets (Kazakhstan, Brazil, Canada, China and the Netherlands) and resulted in a massive increase in ticket sales.
8 | Airline Marketing Benchmark Report | October 2012
