As innovative campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, the Airline Marketing Benchmark Report is categorized into the following fve themes:
Welcome to the Airline Marketing Benchmark Report
February 2013
Published by market research agency airlinetrends.com and airline branding specialist SimpliFlying, the Airline Marketing Benchmark Report contains a wide range of airline marketing case studies each month, providing you with the latest and most innovative social, digital, experiential and traditional airline marketing campaigns, and assesses their effectiveness. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or are eager to help your airline move into the next stage of engagement, while also understanding how your airline marketing initiatives compare to campaigns from competitors in general, these reports are indispensable for airline professionals working in the feld of marketing and corporate communications. The monthly reports helps agencies that work with airlines stay on top of the latest airline marketing innovations and initiatives. For any questions about the report, please contact Shubhodeep Pal at shubhodeep@simpliflying.com.
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Theme of the Month: Airline Rebrands As times and business realities change, airlines must refresh and rejuvenate their brand identities. We have taken a look at the two latest major airline rebrands.
Experiential Faced with ever more experienced consumers, who routinely ignore the commercials and ads thrown at them, airline brands are fnding new ways to break through the advertising clutter to reach and engage consumers.
Social Media Besides engaging their online audience via Facebook and Twitter-based campaigns, the airline industry is also busy experimenting with new social media platforms.
Digital With the huge popularity of smartphones and tablets, airlines are tapping into these digital platforms to engage consumers, as well as launching mobile-based campaigns that link the online with the ofine world.
Traditional Despite the current focus on social, digital and experiential campaigns, airlines continue to serve up creative, traditional media-based, initiatives.
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American Airlines 'Change Is In The Air' | After having maintained the same brand identity for 45 years, American Airlines has partnered with FutureBrand to develop a completely new look, including a new logo and livery, as part of its emergence as a “New American” following the airline’s fling for Chapter 11 protection in November 2011. AA’s new look and feel, which replace the airline’s iconic logo and livery, has received mixed reviews.
To promote its rebrand, American worked with McCann Worldgroup to develop a commercial called 'Change Is In The Air', which so far has brought in nearly 32,000 views on YouTube and was also aired on TV on the day of the US Super Bowl. The ad is one of six videos AA has released on its YouTube channel. The videos showcase different aspects of the rebrand and have garnered between 10,000 and 172,000 views each. Besides setting up a dedicated site that provides viewers a comprehensive overview of the airline's rebrand, AA issued the hashtag #newAmerican on Twitter, which was also extended to cover the airline's inaugural B777-300ER flight on January 31 which features AA’s new livery as well as a new interior. On Facebook, American's posts of videos and information about the rebrand brought in between 1,500 and 6,000 'likes' per post, as well as up to 1,700 shares.
Air France 'Hop!' | Europe's latest carrier is Hop!, recently launched by parent company Air France into the continent's LCC-heavy market as part of a reorganisation to help return AF’s short and medium-haul operations to proftability. Hop! will integrate AF’s three exisiting regional airlines, Britair, Regional and Airlinair, and will start operations on March 31. The visual identity of the new airline was developed by AF’s agency of record Brandimage, and the airline says it selected the name Hop! as it is a“simple and efcient name, synonymous with mobility and action. The name “HOP!“ evokes rapidity and the ease with which travellers can get from point A to B. Synonymous with agility, HOP! illustrates its capacity to bounce back and adapt to customers’ needs.” In developing the branding, Brandimage says it took to evoking the brand's characteristics of providing fast and efcient point-to-point services, as well as “flexibility in a creative and playful manner,” through a simple typeface and angled exclamation mark. The agency also created two static ads for Hop! which maintain a playful element through a computer-animated depiction of characters and aircraft. The branding will be applied to all of Hop!'s graphic platforms, including web, print and airport signage.
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The British Airways 'Ticket Giveaway' | One of British Airways' latest campaigns is an experiential setup in one of London's highesttrafc train stations to drive awareness for the airline's secondary hub at London Gatwick Airport. For the 'Ticket Giveaway', the airline commissioned ad agency BBH to create an “arcade-style flying game”, which was set up at the main concourse of Victoria Station.
There, a British Airways desk, staffed by airline brand ambassadors, invites passersby to 'check in', create their own 'flight card', and take part in a flight simulator game. The objective of the game is to land a BA 777 jet on a pre-specifed BA destination runway, with a different airport approach in the Caribbean, North Africa, North America or the Indian Ocean featured each day. Every 15 minutes between 8am and 8pm, the contestant with the most accurate simulator approach is awarded with two roundtrip tickets to that day's destination in question. The 'Ticket Giveaway' campaign ran between January 28 and February 3, with a total of seven possible destination wins. BA also took the experiential campaign to the social web. On Facebook, the airline's 600,000 fans could answer questions on an app to enter to win tickets to each day's destination. Additionally, BA released fve YouTube videos of the contest, which brought in between 2000 and 7300 views. BA also announced each day's 'Ticket Giveaway' destination to its 232,000-strong global Twitter account using the hashtag #BAGatwickGiveaway.
Austrian Airlines 'Lucky Luggage' | We've seen airlines such as Virgin America and Brussels Airlines use the luggage belts in the baggage claim area to surprise passengers with free gifts. On a similar note, Austrian Airlines' new 'Lucky Luggage' campaign blends the element of surprise with a contest for passengers in order to promote the launch of its new route to Chicago in May 2013. The campaign began on January 28, with passengers of all inbound flights from North America fnding red 'Lucky Luggage' ribbons on three pieces of luggage at Vienna Airport's baggage claim. Austrian tied the ribbons on random pieces of luggage from each Toronto, New York and Washington-originating flights and the luggage owners were then eligible to win prizes such as a red|carpet voucher for access to the airline’s fast track service and lounge at Vienna Airport. In addition, all passengers on the flights could enter into a drawing for the 'top prize' two roundtrip tickets to Chicago - by flling out and submitting a 'Lucky Luggage' competition card at the airport's Lost & Found desk. Winners will be announced after the six week-long run of the 'Lucky Luggage' campaign.
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LAN USA 'Ticket Surprise' | Part of its multi-year 'Only in South America' campaign to promote the continent as a tourist destination, the North American ofce of LAN took to a collaboration with a popular South American-inspired restaurant in Oakland, California to surprise patrons with an offer. On January 23, 200 diners at the Bocanova restaurant in the city's Jack London District were interrupted from their meals to be surprised with free return tickets to South American destinations in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil on LAN or its Brazilian merger partner TAM (video here). According to LAN, Bocanova was selected as a venue for the ticket giveaway because of its “unique take on South American cuisine.” LAN also took the campaign online by posting videos containing ‘secret’ codes on its American Twitter and Facebook accounts between January 25 and 30. Those who spotted the codes in the videos could use them to enter a daily giveaway contest on Facebook, which included free tickets to South America. The initiative marks the second time LAN has conducted such a surprise giveaway. In October 2011, the airline surprised patrons of New York's Nuela restaurant to kick off the 'Only in South America' campaign.
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Air New Zealand UK 'Blind Gate' | With Valentine's Day just around the corner, Air New Zealand UK has launched a new initiative which uses its own flights to pair two strangers together on a blind date. Named 'Blind Gate', the campaign invites those looking for new love to sign up for a chance to compete in a blind date contest, with two lucky couples flying from London to Los Angeles on ANZ. With the initiative, ANZ aims to promote its London to LA route as well as its innovative Skycouch seat.
For Blind Gate, ANZ UK is collaborating with the Guardian newspaper, who had those interested in the contest sign up on their site. On Valentine's Day, ten shortlisted contestants will gather at a specially built TV studio at Heathrow's T1 to take part in the blind-date contest. Each contestant will bring a passport and a packed suitcase, and the two lucky couples chosen, one gay and one straight, will board an ANZ flight to LA as soon as the winners are announced. The couples will be seated on Air New Zealand's Skycouch, often referred to as “cuddle class”. To see how they get on, a camera crew from the Guardian will also document and follow the couples' holiday to LA, including coverage of the flight on the Skycouch, for a fve-episode series on the campaign website and for a feature in the Guardian's Weekend edition.
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Turkish Airlines 'Hard to Say, Easy to Fly' | Drawing on its rapidly expanding route network, Turkish Airlines has taken to Facebook for its latest initiative, entitled 'Hard to Say, Easy to Fly'. The campaign, which runs from January 18 to February 15, 2012, is a contest that plays on the seemingly difcult pronunciations of some Turkish Airlines destination names, creating a fun and challenging exercise for customers. The Facebook-based campaign features a short and whimsical video of people on the streets of Istanbul trying to correctly pronounce the names of Turkish Airlines destinations such as Dnepropetrovsk, Guangzhou and Ljubljana. After watching the video, the airline’s Facebook fans have the option to enter the contest by clicking the button stating “I can pronounce it better.” After 'liking' the app, contestants are prompted to pronounce 14 city names using their webcam. The webcam submissions will then be evaluated for best pronunciation by staff from Turkish Airlines and its agency McCann Istanbul. Winners will be announced on February 27, with one grand prize winner receiving a roundtrip ticket to one of the 14 pronounced cities. Turkish Airlines promoted its new contest to its 1.5 mln Facebook fans and 280,000 Twitter followers, which generated 4266 clicks. A longer version of the video with peoples' pronunciation attempts on Facebook, has garnered over 22,000 views so far.
AirAsia x Tourism Malaysia 'Pin Your Own Adventure' | In an effort to promote its home country of Malaysia as a destination to the Australian public, AirAsia at the end of 2012 partnered with Tourism Malaysia to launch a Pinterest-based social media campaign. The 'Pin Your Own Adventure' campaign calls on Australians to “create their own ideal Malaysian adventure” to win a free trip to Malaysia. To participate, contestants have to frst 'like' the MalaysiaAus account on Pinterest, create their own pin board entitled 'My Malaysian Adventure', and re-pin one of the images from each of MalaysiaAus's fve premade competition pin boards: Beaches, Cuisine, Adventure, Cities and Family Fun. Additionally, contestants have to add in another image from anywhere on Pinterest that best describes Malaysia to them and explain why. To submit their pin boards, contestants then use the hashtags #MalaysiaAus and #AirAsia, and comment under the 'Pin Your Own Adventure' directions pin. In true Pinterest-style, the winners of the contest will be able to create their own ideal holiday in Malaysia for four persons. While Twitter and Facebook are more utilized social platforms, the visual-heaviness of this campaign made Pinterest an ideal platform for the brands. The contest received over 200 submissions, and brought Tourism Malaysia's Pinterest account to nearly 1000 followers. The campaign also featured a promotional video, which was released through Tourism Malaysia Australia's channel on YouTube and Vimeo.
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Vueling x ScannerFM 'MyVuelingCity' | In order to let its passengers experience the cities in its network in a more authentic way, Spanish LCC Vueling has launched MyVuelingCity, a blogger exchange program that sees bloggers exchange cities for a weekend and advice and report about the best things to see and do in their respective cities. The bloggers also listen to travel and music podcasts and attend music festivals in their cities.
KLM Bright Ideas with Kids | KLM in 2011 launched its ‘Bright Ideas’ Facebook initiative as a way to crowdsource ideas that would improve the passenger experience.
MyVuelingCity is divided in several lifestyle categories – 'MyShopping', 'MyFood', 'MyCulture', 'MyClubbing', 'MyPlaces' and MyRouting (walks) – which group the city reports by theme. Besides the reports on the MyVuelingCity website, participant bloggers' updates are also tracked on Twitter with the #MyVuelingCity hashtag, allowing followers to get real-time travel information.
The latest iteration of the concept is focused on children, with the airline turning to its Facebook and Twitter communities for input on how it could improve the experience of traveling with kids. Until February 4, fans could submit their ideas on the Bright Ideas with Kids website, with all ideas being listed in a box that together formed a matrix. Each box had its own comment and sharing functionality. Submitted ideas ranged from having a “flight simulator on the onboard system” to “Lego mindstorms” and “inflight tours for kids.” To evaluate and select the best ideas, KLM assembled a “critical jury” of ten children between the ages of four and eleven, whose photos and profles were published on the Bright Ideas matrix as “experts”.
MyVueling City is a joint venture between Vueling and ScannerFM, an online radio station that is well-known in the music and art festival scene. According to Vueling, the goal of MyVuelingCity is to “bring the independent, alternative and creative vibe that is the hallmark of Vueling Airline and ScannerFM, to city guides and allow visitors to experience the city in a more authentic way.”
KLM is not the only airline that is looking at ways to improve the travel experience for its youngest passengers. Virgin Atlantic last year invited ten year-old Billy Yeomans for a full day to “test and approve” the airline's then-recently refurbished 747-400s. Billy then had to submit a report on his experience with the airline to the airline’s founder Richard Branson.
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British Airways Travel Book Barcodes | In Brazil, a British Airways campaign aimed to build awareness about the airline’s destinations in an innovative way by using bar code readers at a bookstore.
Teaming up with Sao Paulo agency AGE Isobar, BA targeted Brazilian shoppers who were “thinking about travelling soon,” by focusing its efforts on the travel section of a major bookstore. There, the airline used the store's barcode readers, which are normally used to check book prices, to show relevant BA information and fares on the barcode's display. For example, if a customer scanned the barcode of a book on Moscow, the scanner would show a message like “Going to Moscow? Fly with British Airways. From US$900. www.ba.com.” The barcode reader ad is fun, interactive, and, most importantly, conveys the brand’s message at a time when the audience is the most receptive to hearing it. British Airways was able to gain a relevant place in their target’s frame of mind for a fraction of what a mass media campaign would have cost. AGE Isobar also posted a video detailing the campaign on its YouTube channel, which so far had brought in more than 17,000 views, as well as generating coverage from advertising media sources.
Virgin Atlantic & Monarch x Blippar | UK-based Blippar is a mobile augmented reality and image recognition app that can be used by consumer brands to add a virtual dimension to their ofine campaigns. For example, British charter airline Monarch in November 2012 distributed foldout maps to 55,000 snow sport enthusiasts. By scanning the maps with the Blippar mobile app, additional information and videos on the ski resorts served by Monarch would then show up on the smartphone. The latest Blippar airline campaign comes from Virgin Atlantic as part of the airline's 'Flying in the face or ordinary' campaign. The airline took to implementing Blippar’s augmented reality technology in an initiative with the UK's The Telegraph newspaper. Readers of the Telegraph tablet edition, upon seeing the Virgin Atlantic advertisement on their iPads, were prompted to scan the ad with their smartphone (or other device) to see flight deals, as well as cabin crew tips and local time and weather information for their destination of choice. Launched in early January, Virgin Atlanic’s Blippar campaign aimed to drive awareness of the airline’s January Sale. The initiative also It marks an attempt by The Telegraph to steal a march on its competitors by using more innovative advertising technology.
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Ryanair 'Play & Win' | Known for its penny-pinching mentality and aggressive revenue-generating methods, Ryanair's latest 'Play & Win' initiative gives passengers the chance to win back the cost of their flight. At the end of their booking process customers are provided with the option to pay between GBP 2 and 5 (depending on the total price of their booking) to take part in the 'Play & Win' game. Upon accepting the game's conditions, Ryanair gives the customer a variety of general knowledge questions about geography, history, science, entertainment and sport that are relatedg to the airline's destinations around Europe. If the customer answers the question(s) correctly, they are entered into a draw to win back the total sum of their airfare. When a customer has won a refund, this will then be shown on their booking confrmation page. Three winners each week will receive a refund, with issuance occurring ten weeks from the date of ticket purchase. The option to participate in the 'Play & Win' scheme is also incorporated into several other Ryanair ancillary products, such as priority boarding, reserved seating, a text message confrmation with flight details, travel insurance, car hire, merchandise and a subscription to the Ryanair newsletter.
Jetstar Asia 'The Feng Shui of Flying' | Ringing in the Chinese Lunar New Year on February 10, Singapore-based Jetstar Asia has partnered with well-known feng shui master David Tong to develop a ‘tongue in cheek’ feng shui analysis for “auspicious travel”. For the initiative, Tong was hired to “assess the energy flows on Jetstar’s A320 planes and ascertain how flyers can improve their chances of achieving their goals”. Those interest in feng shui can enter their name, date of birth, sex and what they hope to achieve this year (from a selection of wealth, health, career, love and friendship) on the 'Feng Shui of Flying' website. The feng shui calculator then provides advice on what seat rows to choose in flight, the best times to fly as well as the best destination to fly to. For example, women looking for wealth are advised to choose rows 1, 11 and 21 on the aircraft, while the most auspicious times to fly would be between 5am – 7am and 7pm – 9pm. Tong also created a feng shui feng shui wheel for the campaign, which shows more general advice, such as destination, aligned with the passenger's years of birth and flight schedule. This result is presented on a virtual 'scroll' on the website and gives the option to replay the result, share it, or make a booking.
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TAP New Safety Video | As airlines are thinking outside the box to create flight safety videos that passengers, and those safely on the ground, actually enjoy viewing, some of the videos have become commercials in their own right. A well-known pioneer in the feld is Air New Zealand, and most recently, Portugal's TAP has taken to its own creative way to develop its safety briefng.
Over the course of ten days at Lisbon's Airport, TAP flmed a new safety video that uses real passengers of all ages flying with the airline. As passengers were waiting to board their flights at their gates, TAP asked them to be a part of the video, giving them a line or two to recite. At the end of the flming period, 259 passengers had been part of the production, resulting in a fun, informal and informative video by the airline. TAP also created a special makeshift set for the flming that used hand-drawn elements printed on canvas and created a cartoon-like interior of a TAP aircraft. The video is about to become available on TAP flights and the airline released a video about the production on YouTube, which has been viewed over 200,000 times in just three days, and more than 500,000 times within one week.
Airlinetrends.com is an independent industry and consumer trends research agency that monitors the global aviation industry for commercial innovations in response to changing consumer behavior. Airlinetrends.com reports its fndings in a free monthly email newsletter as well as in paid trend reports and corporate trend sessions. Get in touch at info@airlinetrends.com or visit www.airlinetrends.com.
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