benchmark report
airline marketing
traditional
delta ‘cabin pressure cook off’ Delta have joined forces with American Express owned ‘Food & Wine’ magazine to source the next best chef to join the Delta culinary team. The contest, which will be called the “Cabin Pressure Cook-Off”, was announced late July and will feature four chefs cited in Food & Wine’s annual best new chefs program. They will compete in three challenges that will be filmed in New York in late July and early August, and distributed this fall by Delta and Food & Wine on their Web sites and social media channels. The challenges will be filmed as three episodes, while a fourth episode will feature the winning chef visiting Delta’s test kitchen in Atlanta. The winning chef will join Delta’s culinary team which currently consits of Michelle Bernstein of Michy’s in Miami; Michael Chiarello of Bottega in Napa Valley and Coqueta in San Francisco; and Andrea
qantas ‘the mane event’ Robinson, a master sommelier. The three help Delta create food and wine offerings for long-haul business-class passengers on select routes. Joanne Smith, Delta’s senior vice president for in-flight service, said the winning chef could design menus for business-class passengers on trans-Atlantic flights. The challenges will be covered across many other platforms, from a large section in the Food & Wine magazine itself, to Delta’s IFE system. Delta bought a total of 11 pages of advertising in six issues of Food & Wine in 2013. Ms. Smith said the contest was part of an effort by Delta to improve its in-flight dining experience for business-class passengers, who she said “spend a lot of money flying Delta around the world and expect a finedining experience.”
Microsoft search engine Bing and Qantas Airways have launched a five episode branded content series, The Mane Event, to coincide with the British and Irish Lions Rugby Tour of Australia. Bing and Qantas have searched the UK and Ireland for rugby’s ultimate suppor ters to join The British & Irish Lions on Tour to Australia this summer. Four passionate and pattriotic rugby fans from Englend, Ireland, Scotland and Wales won the price of a lifetime and the Mane Event, created by The Hallway, follows the four die-hard Lion fnas as they travel through Australia, after winning return flights from the UK with Qantas, taking on local Wallabies fans in a series of unusual challenges that test their skill, determination and pride.
Director of the series, and The Hallway’s creative par tner Simon Lee said “The Mane Event has the makings of a highly enter taining story. Whether it’s at rugby, tiddlywinks or sheep shearing, spor ts fans are inherently competitive. When you add national pride and a timeless rivalry to the equation, along with a pinch of comic tension, you’ve got some great ingredients to work with.” The Mane Event videos are being broadcast on Qantas’ in-flight enter tainment system and its website is being promoted on the MSN homepage in the UK. On YouTube, the first episode reached 60,000 views, yet subsequent ones haven’t had the same reach.
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