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Air New Zealand 'Airpoints or the Bag?' | Air New Zealand has had a long-standing collaboration with the country's All Blacks rugby team. A recent campaign by the airline leveraged this relationship to promote its loyalty program, Airpoints.
Wideroe 'Change Flight, Change Airline' | SAS-owned Wideroe is a regional airline in Norway that operates a large domestic network. Norway's larger and fast-expanding Norwegian Air Shuttle recently launched flights from Torp (Norway) to Trondheim and Bergen at lower fares.
Much like the popular TV show ‘Deal or No Deal’, in 'Airpoints or the Bag', contestants were given a choice between collecting an incrementally increasing amount of Air New Zealand Airpoints Dollars or taking one of the “booby prizes” hidden inside each of the 10 All Blacks tote bags.
Wideroe, in partnership with McCann Oslo, responded with an audacious campaign to woo customers from Norwegian. Last month, immediately after Norwegian's first takeoff from Torp, Wideroe announced that it would offer passengers with tickets on other airlines a free flight on Wideroe to any overlapping destination with Norwegian; the premise behind the move being to highlight Wideroe's higher frequencies and flexibility with ticketing on the routes. Additionally, unsold Wideroe seats were the ones made available to Norwegian customers, resulting in little to no impact on Wideroe's existing passenger loads. According to Wideroe's Communications Director Richard Kongsteien, the move would cost the airline money in terms of passenger revenue and tax, but was “more than worth it in goodwill and marketing.”
The bags were filled with prizes ranging from signed All Blacks jerseys to holiday packages to Fiji. The contest was open to Airpoints members between November 5 and 22, and members had to enter through the contest's campaign website. Selected entrants were called at 7:45am by the Mike Hosking Breakfast on Newstalk ZB radio show. The host of the show asked participants a quick succession of questions to determine what they'd win. Additionally, during the contest period, Air New Zealand waived fees for applicants to the Airpoints program in order to increase membership.
The move also drew national media attention in Norway to Wideroe's main assets of frequency and service, leading to greater awareness among the public as well.
10 | Airline Marketing Benchmark Report | December 2012
