benchmark report
airline marketing
experiental
heineken ‘departure route’
virgin atlantic ‘no ordinary park bench’
Although not specifically from an airline, the latest airpor t publicity stunt from Heineken truly embodies the brewery’s adventurous spirit, and showcases how airlines can learn from savvy consumer brands.
Vienna, even though he had been planning a six-week visit with his grandparents, but soon learned he would be headed to Cyprus on an evening flight. Heineken gave him USD2,000 to cover expenses and booked him into a hotel for two nights.
Twice in July, Heineken and its ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in New York set up a ‘travel’ board at JFK’s Terminal 8 and dared travellers to play “Depar ture Roulette”— changing their planned destination to a more exotic random location with the press of a button. ‘Contestants’ had to agree to drop their existing travel plans— without knowing the new destination first—and immediately board a flight to the new place.
W+K set up the board again two days later, and this time documented the game play on film, which has already been watched over 2 million times in a month.
One man, who played the game, and ended up going to Cyprus instead of
The game is inspired by “Dropped,” the new Heineken campaign that launched a month ago from W+K Amsterdam in which four men are sent to remote destinations and film their adventures, and this current campaign neatly links into the Dropped campaign with the twitter hashtag #dropped.
As we reported earlier this year, Virgin Atlantic has recently been driving it’s promotional efforts in the US, in a way to communicate its point of difference between itself and it’s competitors. The British airline likes to show that it does things differently, and their latest award winning campaign has done just that.
difference. Selecting their chosen film or game from a touch-screen placed in front of them, brought their favourite characters to life as they charged through the park. Dozens of extras were used to recreate space invaders or a period costume drama, including characters on horseback.
Virgin’s latest efforts involved a park bench in New York City that the airline had specifically built to mimic one of their aircraft seats. Passers by, who took refuge on the seat were treated to a little Upper Class service from Virgin Atlantic.
The events were documented on film and were quickly broadcast on YouTube and twitter, the video receiving 250,000 hits in one month alone. Promoting the airline’s unusual experiment, airline CEO Sir Richard Branson took to Twitter to ask: “Is this the world’s best bench?”
The par ticipants were offered champagne by Virgin Atlantic crew and even a menu to choose their cooked lunch and selection of desser ts. But the main event was as the members of the public were treated to some ‘in flight entertainment’ with a
The elaborate publicity stunt was watched by over 10,000 spectators. NYC based website traffic increased 12%, NYC to London bookings were up 8% and 10% booked Virgin Atlantic for the first time.
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