benchmark report
airline marketing
SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com September 2OI3 Issue 13
benchmark report
airline marketing
welcome. Published by market research agency airlinetrends.com and aviation marketing strategy consulting firm SimpliFlying, the Airline Marketing Benchmark Repor t 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 recently launched by airlines around the world. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or are eager to help your airline move into the nex t stage of engagement, while also understanding how your airline marketing initiatives compare to campaigns from competitors in general, these repor ts are indispensable for airline professionals working in the f ield of marketing and corporate communications. The monthly repor ts also helps agencies that work with airlines stay on top of the latest innovative airline marketing initiatives.
SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE
experiential
For any questions about the repor t, please contact Shubhodeep Pal at shubhodeep@simplif lying.com. As innovative campaigns come in all shapes and sizes, the Airline Marketing Benchmark Repor t is categorized into the following four themes:
Faced with ever more experienced consumers, who routinely ignore the commercials and ads thrown at them, airline brands are finding new ways to break through the adver tising clutter to reach consumers.
social
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 smar tphones and tablets, airlines are tapping into these digital platforms to engage consumers, as well as releasing videos online which they hope will go viral.
traditional
Despite the current focus on social, digital and experiential campaigns, airlines continue to serve up creative, traditional media-based, initiatives in order to reach a mass audience.
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experiential
love is in the air
go big bingo
AIR NEW ZEALAND FIJI AIRWAYS JET BLUE & HAWAIIAN
Fiji Airways and Air New Zealand have been promoting they had airborne marriages at 40,000 ft last month. Both went for record-breaking attempts. To mark its brand launch, Fiji Airways set out on a search for five couples to get married on board its flagship A330 aircraft on a flight from Auckland to Nadi, Fiji. More than 400 New Zealand couples entered hoping to be one of the lucky pairs married in the business class cabin, also earning a free flight and complimentary stay in Fiji to enjoy their honeymoon. Five winning couples exchanged vows on August 7 at 41,000 feet aboard a brand new Fiji Airways A330 to attain the record. The minimum altitude required to set this new world record was 40,000 feet.
SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE
VIRGIN AMERICA
Air New Zealand , taking a different approach to record breaking, celebrated the allowance of same-sex marriage in New Zealand by performing the first samesex marriage in the skies. The winning couple made history when they exchanged vows in New Zealand’s skies, the day the Marriage Amendment Act came into effect on 19 August. Lynley Bendall and Ally Wanikau were married onboard a special Air New Zealand flight from Queenstown to Auckland with only family and friends present together with special guest Jesse Tyler Fergusson, from award winning US TV series Modern Family. In the US, JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines also par tnered up to offer a wedding in JFK’s terminal 5 followed by a honeymoon in Hawaii cour tesy of Hawaiian Airlines to promote it’s NY route.
Virgin America on the 8th of August, celebrated their sixth birthday. Among the marketing elements to promote the fact was an in-flight bingo birthday party . The winning passengers who took par t in a plane wide competition were awarded with free drinks and snacks. To help promote the very ‘Virgin’ competition hosted at 35,000ft, Virgin America launched an online version of the self titled ‘addictive’ game. The epic bingo award is 500,000 Elevate points. There are also daily prizes supplied by the Elevate par tners which include: two round trips from the West coast to Hawaii, a 2 night stay at the Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas, one free year of Crunch gym membership and other prizes.
premise. Pick 6 partnered brands that appeal to the user, and then begin answering questions based on the brands. The more that are answered correctly, the higher the chances of winning. Prizes vary depending on the partners you pick. The online competition runs for one month. anf finishes on 6th September 2013.
The online game works on a simple
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let’s make flying fun again
create your own plane
MONARCH AIRLINES
In the UK, Monarch’s latest ‘Let’s make flying fun again’ campaign has been helped by a standalone video feature aimed at kids on youtube, currently with just under 4,000 views, which is presented by Monarch’s star pupil, Pixie Davies. Pixie Davies has featured other adverts for the airline, part of the larger campaign, which is meant to evoke happy memories, prompting the Monarch teams and their passengers to put the fun back into flying, a message translated in traditional print and supporting TV commercials. The latest video promoted a nationwide campaign to appeal to schools, asking for head teachers to help them in their quest to make flying ‘fun!’ Monarch took three lucky schools on what they marketed as “the day trip of their lives”.
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KLM
The airline gave in total six hundred children - up to 200 from each school - exclusive use of a Monarch aircraft on 24th April 2013, with a range of fun activities in the air and on the ground. The three flights in total departed from the UK at the start of the summer this year. One flight departed from Manchester, taking students from Ickenfield Community college to learn the real story of Romeo & Juliet in Verona, complemented with an acting lesson during the flight. The second took off with kids from Harris Academy Beckenham from London Gatwick to visit Gibraltar with a geography lesson during their flight. The third flew from Birmingham with 200 children from Fulbrook Middle School as they spent their day exploring the ancient city walls in Dubrovnik after a history lesson in the air.
KLM have recently joined the ranks of airlines that are tagging onto Disney’s latest film ‘Planes’ to help co-promote themselves and the film. Whilst last month, American were proud to announce they would be showing ‘Planes’ on their fleet first, and also featured their new livery in the film itself, KLM have now exclusively partnered with Disney in the Netherlands. As par t of the collaboration with Disney, two initiatives have been organized. “Planes” will be pre-screened in a 3D drive-in cinema at Schiphol on September 28th. The KLM Netherlands campaign “Make your own plane” on planes. klm.com enables par ticipants to design their own digital aircraft by changing the colors and shape, or decorating it with special accessories. The aircraft will then
be exhibited in an online gallery where visitors are able to vote for the most fun or interesting aircraft. The 100 most popular planes will win free entrance, together with 2 friends, to the pre-screening of “Planes” in the 3D drive-in cinema at Schiphol. Another event for children will also be held at a later date. From November 1st “Planes” will be featured in the KLM Inflight Entertainment system. To help promote the competition, the KLM crew center has also recently been wrapped with a banner to promote the partnership between Disney and KLM. The banner and standalone website is also supported by more traditional poster campaigns at Schiphol airport.
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social
trueblue badges
#Unitedin Chicago
JETBLUE
UNITED AIRLINES
JetBlue has launched TrueBlue Badges . They are ostensibly the first airline to merge two important ideas by adding, to their existing TrueBlue loyalty program, a social element that allows users to earn points for social actions. The point of difference in this case is that the airline does not run two seperate programs (a social and a “traditional” one) but has simply updated its existing one to reward users for their social advocacy.
rewards will carry a real world (miles) component.
The program allows users to earn social rewards such as virtual badges, and compete with each other in a mechanism very similar to that seen on FourSquare , or recently launched new smartphone app ‘Flying’ — in which users compete with each other to earn badges by checkingin more and more. In this case, and in a more appealing aspect, many of the social
What’s more interesting is seeing how the airline has attached real world value (in miles) to many social actions: like connecting to Facebook (500 points) or sharing 5 times updates on Twitter (50 points). Often, these actions hold considerable value, as social interactions are seen as a more trusted advocate of a brand.
SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE
The program also has some travel-specific badges that are earned when a user travels to a JetBlue destination on the airline. Achievements are then displayed in a personalised map and transformed into rankings to allow users to compete against their friends and the wider True Blue community.
In a similar event to one hosted by Virgin Atlantic a few months ago in Boston, United Airlines ran a twitter treasure hunt in the streets of Chicago on the 27th June of this year. After posting a series of clues on twitter using the hashtag “#unitedinchicago” to their 280,000 following, Chicago based followers of @united were able to guess the location and try to hunt down a team of United employees in order to win a host of prizes, from sporting event tickets and free tickets on United through to model planes and retro United satchels, as described in an online promotional video . The driving concept of this social interaction was to get customers in front of the new United uniforms, which were launched a few weeks earlier and to
allow them to interact with both United staff and fellow travellers in a positive atmosphere. Many airline companies are becoming increasingly social media-minded and United like other brands, wants to use Twitter and Instagram and other social media tools to develop a closer dialogue with customers and get feedback about how United is doing and what it can do to be better. After a few issues with the merger between themselves and Continental United has stated it is entirely focused on improving their customer service experience.
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twitter handles on aircraft liveries
#fraspots, #pilotdiary, ich bin #deinberliner
AER LINGUS JETBLUE VIRGIN AMERICA EMIRATES
LUFTHANSA
Airlines are one of the leading industries in the use of social media for customer service and marketing communication. Although not the first airline to do so, Aer Lingus have recently added their twitter handle to one of their Airbus fleet.
Also, in response to Aer Lingus’ new twitter handle on site mediabistro , JetBlue were quick to respond, mentioning one of their aircraft has had joined the fray with “#Follow @JetBlue” flying the network since July 2011.
With just 12,000 followers on Twitter at the time of launch (in comparison American Airlines has over 615,000), the modest following is being serviced by Aer Lingus every weekday, and since placing their Twitter handle on the A320 the airline has gained an increase in following by 25%.
Facebook has also had it’s time on aircraft liveries too, with Emirates adorning one of it’s fleet with a “one million fans” facebook thumb .
Other airlines have picked up on using hashtags and twitter handles like Aer Lingus. For example Virgin America’s A320 aircraft named #nerdbird has recently had it’s own themed competition.
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Social media is becoming an increasingly effective communication medium for airlines and recently even KLM crew now encourage pax onboard to contact the airline via social media when making the “thank you for flying” announcement after the aircraft has landed.
Capturing the power of Instagram, a well used app during travel by passengers, Lufthansa has launched a series of campaigns that help promote the airline in a variety of subject matters. Lufthansa launched its Instagram channel in June this year with the #DeinBerliner campaign : a platform to offer discoverers travel ideas or a look behind the scenes, because it is well-known that pictures say more than a thousand words. Currently, the airline has more than 4,000 followers on the web platform with the square photos. #pilotdiary , contains a series of images created for Lufthansa through the eyes of an international commercial airline pilot to share his experience of the airline. A total of 39 photos chronicle the early mornings and
long flights of Philipp, a Senior First Officer on Lufthansa’s 747s. Jetting back and forth between Frankfurt and Los Angeles at the yoke of a new 747-8i, he snaps anything and everything—from a lunch over Greenland to a generic layover hotel room, and even a brief beach break—to essentially provide a full picture of life in the skies. #fraspots , is another Instagram project that features two female Berlin bloggers who on 21st to 23rd August toured Frankfurt Airport and the city centre. Documented under the hashtag #FRAspots. Lufthansa wanted to provide its customers an entertaining way to look at their home base from a new perspective and offer inspiration for future trips to or via Frankfurt. The programme was decided by Facebook’s Lufthansa fans.
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digital
emirates x google streetview
visit mum
EMIRATES AIRLINES
Emirates has become an airline synonymous with the A380, and has celebrated 5 years of service and 18 million passengers flown on type as illustrated in their celebratory infographic . The airline will boast a fleet of the superjumbo totalling almost 100 when all the aircraft are delivered, and to celebrate this acheivement have now showcased their product online on something perhaps apt for the behemoth of an aircraft. For the first time, Google Maps has taken its virtual Street View mapping inside the Emirates Airbus A380, based at Concourse A of Dubai International Airport. Using the Google Maps software, usually reserved for viewing whole cities, you can check out all the amenities onboard, including the suites, lounges, spas, and even the cockpit.
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BRITISH AIRWAYS
With hundreds of feet of aisles, the technology was easily adapted from sitting atop a moving car, to a stationary tripod that was positioned around the plane to create a vir tual world that could be navigated with ease.
Brands usually take two different routes to promote their message. British Airways, instead of a more factual basis behind its adver tising, British Airways tries to connect with its audience on a more emotional connection.
At every few feet, the camera was repositioned and a 360 degree camera shot was taken allowing the viewer almost full control over their experience of the A380.
The airline’s latest “Visit Mum” ad campaign takes the connections par t to a very personal level, and in the first video in the series, explores the connection between an immigrant son in New York and the mother back home that every immigrant and expat anywhere in the world will identify with. Targetting the USA - India traffic routes with very limited direct connections, British Airways are trying to win over their rivals such as Lufthansa and the Gulfbased carriers and generate otherwise
unconsidered travel with a poignant, nostalgic and emotionally exploitative shor t film. The video features a mother in Mumbai talking about how much she misses her son in New York, who hasn’t been back home in the last 15 years; during the video, she cooks her sons favorite meal of spiced Okra for BA to fly it to him in NYC, but instead ends up being surprised when BA flew him back home to meet her and family. Mix that with gorgeous slowmotion shots of quintessential Mumbai, and you have a winner. The video , published 29th of July, has already received over 750,000 views and is already one of British Airways most successful videos on their YouTube channel.
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romance class
traditional
p.s.
AIR NEW ZEALAND
Air New Zealand has become famous in the industry for it’s controversial and humorous safety videos for it’s flights. Their videos quickly become viral sensations on the internet, with tens of millions of views on YouTube. Their latest safety video , which curiously will only be seen online, rather than onboard, is a romantic love story, aimed strategically at the Chinese marketplace. The video short is part of the New Zealand flag carrier’s romance-themed marketing campaign in China, which featured romance themed amenity kits and special fares. ANZ has been presenting New Zealand as an idyllic destination for couples, and follows on from the airline’s recent partnership with hit Chinese reality dating show You
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UNITED AIRLINES
Are The One. Because Air New Zealand knows full well the viral pulling-power of its videos, this tale stars influential Chinese social media celebs Molly Wang and Solo Zhuang. Perhaps it’s the fact this is indeed a ‘fake’ safety video , and hasn’t the exposure as some of their more successful campaigns, the ‘love story’ footage has currently received less than 10,000 hits since being launched at the beginning of August.
United Airlines has a new television ad out for their Premium Service (p.s.) flights between New York JFK and Los Angeles/San Francisco. Narrated by Matt Damon and showcasing United’s new BusinessFirst lie-flat seats on the route, the ad compares a p.s. flight to an international flight, specifically emphasizing meal service. Currently competing against American, JetBlue and Delta’s new products, all recently revealed and competing on the premium market between the two US coasts, United has had to reinforce it’s footing in the marketplace and the new upgrades to the product are reason enough for the airline to air adver tising on TV, something it now rarely does.
McGarryBowen, suggests United’s transcon premium cabin service has all the luxurious amenities one would expect to find in premium cabins on international flights, including lie-flat seats, multi-course meals, Wi-fi and large-screen video monitors. Interestingly, the video is a little premature, as the roll out of the new product across their fleet isn’t expected to be complete until later this year, meaning there could be a difference in product from that adver tised and experienced.
The straightforward new 30-second TV spot , created by ad agency
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gay getaway
journeys MALAYSIAN AIRLINES
In mid-June, Malaysian Airlines, one of only 7 five-star airlines in the world, launched a global brand campaign that leverages its edge in delivering “Malaysian Hospitality” as part of the previously introduced positioning “Journeys are made by the people you travel with.
KLM
media that establishes the brand’s presence and digital activation for consumers to engage with the brand .
The ‘Journeys’ campaign , covering markets across Malaysia and ASEAN, Europe and China, is the first major brand campaign in recent years. Cognisant that a brand cannot be built on one campaign alone, Malaysia Airlines found it absolutely critical that they first establish what the brand stands for.
The second step was to instigate adoption. “The core brand message was reinforced with messages of product excellence and to make it personal – we created a platform that allowed people to share the stories of their journeys.” It got the message out on Facebook, creating digital postcards, and users got to tag the people they have shared the journey with ‘Journey’ Inspired competitions .
Brought to life via a combination of media including a TV commercial to tell the brand story, combined with strong print ads featuring brand and product messages will cater specifically to different consumer segments. These are supported by outdoor
Currently totalling 882,463 Facebook fans, 221,220 Twitter followers, 176,913 on Google Plus and 7.153 million views on its YouTube channel .The social element was designed to double the percentage of sales that happened online.
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While celebrating gay pride has becomes less and less of a controversial issue for brands, and much more a profitable enterprise, travel brands have gone the extra mile to cater to the growing global community. The Netherlands in particular is a bastion for the gay community, and even recently placed rainbow flags infront of governmental buildings as a sign of protest, during the Russian visit to the country. It is no suprise then, that KLM, the Royal Dutch Airline, is adver tising their LGBTfriendly travel services with a clever new ad with a simple visual statement that tells consumers that it will fly “to the world’s proudest festivals,” and lists dates of upcoming pride events in Las Vegas, Atlanta and Cape Town, South Africa generating interest in more international travel.
KLM has been a supporter of the LGBT community for years. This year, the airline served as the sponsor to Sweden’s Stockholm Gay Life Award. Three years ago, its Gay Getaway campaign consisted of an online game that allowed players the chance to win flights to any gayfriendly KLM destination of their choice. The Dutch airline isn’t the only airline that made strides to show its pride this year. Both San Francisco based United Airlines and Virgin America have cashed in on the pink pound. After a 10-year relationship with the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, United Airlines finally committed to being an official sponsor of the group, whilst Virgin America marched in Gay Pride in San Francsico.
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world environment day TAP
TAP Air Portugal has long been a champion of world environment day , and last year become the first airline to produce a carbon neutral inflight sales catalogue during the month of June to support the event.
The leaflet was also photographed and placed on the TAP Air Por tugal Brasil Facebook page, followed by 20,000 viewers, unfor tunately this post has had a lower than average interaction compared to other posts on the site.
This year, to help promote the event, the airline created card leaflets to fur ther promote the concept of World Environment Day which were handed out to all flyers on the day. The leaflet was created from bio-degradeable cardboard that was infused with plant seeds with instructions on how to turn the card flier into a fully living plant. The other side of the cardboard flower was covered in a simple message in por tugese and English “Plant a positive thought in your life�
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benchmark report
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world
airline marketing benchmark report rlin ai e marketing
SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com of the most A monthly selection August 2013 campaigns innovative marketing around the world launched by airlines
At SimpliFlying, we believe in thinking differently about aviation marketing. We thrive at the intersection of aviation and marketing, and in the past four years have advised over 30 airlines and airports on customer engagement and marketing strategy. Our growing clientele includes Airbus, LATAM Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Toronto Pearson and more. One of the top five most influential on Twitter with over 12,000 followers, with over a million YouTube views, SimpliFlying. com is also recognised by Flightglobal as one of the Top 2 blogs on aviation. Get in touch at engage@simpliflying.com or visit www.simpliflying.com.
SEPTEMBER 2013 ISSUE
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 repor ts its f indings in a free monthly email newsletter as well as in paid trend repor ts and corporate trend sessions. Get in touch at info@airlinetrends.com or visit www.airlinetrends.com.
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