benchmark report
airline marketing
OCTOBER 2013 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com October 2OI3 Issue 14
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 help agencies that work with airlines stay on top of the latest innovative airline marketing initiatives.
OCTOBER 2013 ISSUE
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
cross-media
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:
A closer look at recent media campaigns that work across multiple platforms.
experiential
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 connect with consumers.
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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cross-media
cross-media
air on the side of humanity
picture your holiday
JETBLUE
In a bid to set the airline apart from its competitors, JetBlue and its ad agency Mullen have launched a cross-media campaign showing the plight of the ultimate frequent flier – the pigeon – in documentary style videos that draw a playful comparison of how people are treated on other airlines today with the more respectful way that customers are treated on JetBlue. Hanging the campaign off a 60-second video , the campaign targets Boston consumers first, where JetBlue has the most daily nonstop flights of any carrier. The media plan includes TV spots running in 39 prime-time season premieres, with intensive coverage on TV channels NBC and CBS that star ted September 26, and first-to-market executions with Boston.com (releasing digital pigeons that fly between different adver tising
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BRITISH AIRWAYS
banners), branded trains, and a subway media flipbook that appears as commuters travel on the MBTA. Also targeting other JetBlue hubs, such as New York, the campaign includes online adver tising, microsites, mobile, social, experiential and out-of-home adver tising. JetBlue is also par tnering with Mobile Theory on a voice activation unit that teaches consumers “how to speak pigeon on their smar tphones.” Bringing the story fur ther depth, the campaign also explores online interactivity by creating a social network called ‘Central Perch ’ where users can send messages to friends through vir tual carrier pigeons on Facebook.
To reinforce its mantra ‘To Fly. To Serve’. with an interactive element, British Airways engaged BBH Labs and mobile agency Monterosa . Based on the simple premise “When thinking of a holiday, we already have a visual picture in our mind of what it should be like,“ the agencies came up with a very visual and user friendly online holiday finder, called ‘Picture Your Holiday ’. The campaign microsite is build around a visual mood board that presents consumers with a range of interlocking images depicting different holiday experiences, from beach scenes to ar t galleries and mountain hikes to cityscapes, which can be dragged into a concer tina-style (fold out) book. Using a very coherent and simple crossplatform programming code, the ‘Picture
Your Holiday’ campaign was also rolled out on six touch screens in Westfield shopping centres in London and then fur ther rolled out on the airline’s web platform, allowing users to share their ideas with people through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email. The appeal of the project is based purely on its simplicity. BBH Labs realised over complicating the user interface only deterred consumers from its use. “We explored a few options with different levels of interactivity. This exploration made us realise that we should use as few words as possible and make the most intuitive experience we possibly could,” said Jeremy Ettinghausen, spokesman from BBH Labs
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experiential
fitfoo ice-cream truck
scent marketing
VIRGIN ATLANTIC [ASIA PACIFIC]
As we have covered in previous editions of the Airline Marketing Report, Virgin Atlantic crew have regularly toured the streets of the cities they fly to, including New York (where the airline’s award winning ‘Virgin Atlantic Digital Park Bench’ campaign generated a large viral following) and Boston. The campaigns, which were about targeting passers-by with complimentary gifts, were aimed to generate awareness of the airline’s presence outside of the UK. The airline’s latest campaign was created in Hong Kong, from where VS f lies both to Sydney and London Heathrow, and has a presence warranting a Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse. The airline took advantage of the hot weather in July this year in Hong Kong by taking over an ice cream van and offering
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JAL
cooling treats to people in the street, similar to a campaign JetBlue ran earlier this year in New York City. A group of Hong Kong-based Virgin Atlantic cabin crew accompanied the van as it toured around areas in central Hong Kong. The events, similar to other Virgin Atlantic #fitfoo (Flying In The Face Of Ordinary) campaigns, were then documented on Facebook , where the photos managed to receive over 1,000 likes.
Cer tain scents can trigger both emotional and memory responses, an element that is often overlooked when creating a brand image. Supermarkets around the world, for example, have played on our noses for years, pumping their in-store bakery waste air into the entrance air conditioning to aler t the nose and help create the sense of hunger in the brain. Whilst nothing new, olfactory marketing is a relatively modern concept to the airline industry, with only Singapore Airlines (who initiated the concept 18 years ago) and recently British Airways also scenting their experience. JAL last month introduced two new scents which will appear in their lounges at Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda and Sapporo airpor ts. The scents will change dependent
on the time of day, with the morning fragrance imparting a sense of a “gentle and refreshing, peaceful morning” and the evening fragrance imparting “luxury with sophisticated richness.” The scents are purely aimed at creating a more graceful and comfortable atmosphere for its passengers and the fragrances, designed by Midori Makishima, aren’t for sale. This differs slightly from the approach that Turkish Airlines has taken in May this year, when it introduced a fragrance that it sells. Dubbed TK1933, the fragrance is used to ‘scent’ the entire travel experience (from lounges to aircraft). By selling the fragrance on board, Turkish Airlines also hopes to generate additional revenues.
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social
beachside
#socialflight
BRITISH AIRWAYS
IBERIA
Between the 22nd and 27th of August this year, British Airways took to the beach of Brighton in Southern England, where it offered lucky passers-by the opportunity to enjoy a pop-up lounge or a seat on their ‘dining in the sky experience’
dining table. On average 400 treats were handed out each hour.
For 6-days, the airline partnered with some of the more exotic destinations it flies to from nearby Gatwick Airport, such as Marrakech, Lanzarote and St. Kitts. The airline themed each day to each of the 6 destinations, offering a food and drink menu that was inspired by the destinations.
“[These kind of] initiatives grab consumers’ attention and are an excellent way to gain immediate visibility and awareness.” Said Colm Lacy, Head of Commercial at British Airways London Gatwick.
Passers-by were offered a traditional British ‘Stick of Rock ’ candy bar, which contained a prize, either to visit the airline’s #BABeachside pop-up lounge on the beach, or for a lucky few, the chance to dine at 100ft on a specially constructed floating
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In total, over 1400 guests were able to experience the 30 minute feast in the sky during the campaign.
Via the twitter hashtag #BABeachside BA also showcased the event on its social media platforms, further generating interest.
Iberia announced via email on the 18th of July to its followers that at 8pm that evening they were to hold their first social media auction , whereby passengers could ‘virtually’ name the price they wanted to pay for a ticket on a special flight between Madrid and New York that left Madrid September 20th and returned the 25th. The unique element of this online event was that the round-trip tickets star ted at 600 euros and the price dropped down 5 euros for every second that passed until someone decided to make the purchase at their chosen price. Once the first seat was bought, the whole process star ted again, until all 222 seats were sold. The average price of the economy seat was sold at 361.2 euros, providing roughly a 40% discount on the star ting
bid. The reverse auction for this themed #socialflight attracted 1 million visitors online and with 26,000 people clicking simultaneously at one point, the server crashed. Iberia has created a dedicated website page with the names of the ‘winners’ and the prices each of them paid for this ‘auction flight’, out of the 17,000 people that submitted bids. On board the flight there were additional social-themed amenities. Says Dimitris Bountolos, VP Customer Experience at Iberia, “The flight itself it has been developed with a lot of attention to all the details, everything is customized and shared via Instagram using the #IberiaSocialFlight hashtag. Each passenger found a personalized copy of the inflight magazine with his/her photo on their seat and received a special T-shirt .
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people power
fanflight TRANSAVIA
KLM low-cost subsidiary transavia.com has teamed up with popular Dutch radio station 538 to let the airline’s Facebook fans select where they jet off to in a social media competition dubbed fanflight . Set over the month of September, during each of the 4 weeks an element of the flight could be chosen by the airline’s Facebook fans. In week 1 Transavia’s Facebook fans chose Ibiza out of 56 possible destinations, in week 2 ‘Dance’ was selected as the music style for the inflight party, week 3 saw ‘relaxation’ being voted for as the main activity, and in the final week the fans decided upon ‘tropical’ as the dress code. The Transavia fanflight will leave from Rotterdam to Ibiza on October 16 and 538 DJs Barry Paf and Jens Timmermans will
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UNITED
pick the 128 lucky winners for the trip. The winners are then joined by DJ Jens on the flight who will set the mood of the trip. “We want to provide them with a memorable travel experience and to show that we value their opinions and wishes. To be able to come up with their own dream trip along with other fanflight fans, gives them plenty of choice to choose from, from a beach, city or shopping trip” said Roy Scheerder, commercial director of transavia. com.
In early September, United launched a new online promotion called ‘People Power ’, a 3 day online event seeking to leverage its MileagePlus members’ social media efforts and buying influence in a new manner. MileagePlus members were invited to go to www.united.com/peoplepower to purchase miles, share the promotion through social media channels with their colleagues, friends and family in order to receive bonus miles that could rise to as much of 60% of the purchased miles if there were more than 1,500 qualifying participants in the overall campaign. In this way United hoped its members would both inform their peers about the promotion and encourage participation to maximize the value realized.
the progress of the bonus. Over the 3-day event, there were in excess of 1,500 transactions, meaning the 60% bonus was offered, allowing each of the participants the chance to purchase miles at 2.35 cents per mile. This figure is better than the typical offer MileagePlus makes on the United website, although better deals are frequently available through the airline’s Mileage Maximizer program which is available on a booked flight rather than buying through the website.
The promotion microsite also featured a sliding scale so participants could view
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digital
jetfriends tales
big wave goodbye
LUFTHANSA USA
Kids naturally have lots of questions about flying. Whether it’s the weight of a jumbo jet or why the sky is blue. The USA regional team at Lufthansa believe their crew and passengers are ready to answer any question not matter how imaginative. “What happens when you fly through a rainbow?” is the innocent example Lufthansa used to launch their JetFriends Tales whereby a child’s response was able to win a family a Lufthansa flight to Europe from the US. Promoted via a video on YouTube in July, the Facebook campaign was an extension of Lufthansa’s already established JetFriends brand, which is dedicated to kids and teenagers who travel with Lufthansa.
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SCHIPHOL AIRPORT
The concept was to generate user interaction on the social media platform between children and Lufthansa, whereby children could either answer or ask questions on a controlled video forum. Jacquie B. from Texas, USA was the winning entry and won the Lufthansa round trip tickets for a family of four by asking “How do you learn to become a pilot?”. Runners up won either Lufthansa bears or JetFriends branded goodie bags dubbed ‘JetPacks’.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airpor t has launched an English version of an innovative online service that lets those who stay at home surprise friends and loved ones at the terminal with a vir tual wave goodbye that will be broadcast on video screens inside the airpor t and also sent directly to their mobile phone.
broadcast on the big screens at Schiphol Plaza plus the screens at the depar ture gates.
‘The Big Wave Goodbye ’ is a fully automated and integrated system that allows messages to be sent as little as 4 hours in advance, by simply using a webpage application.
This endearing value-added concept, whist currently only operational with Schiphol, has a larger scope and could easily be adopted by a raft of carriers, who already have touchstones in the form of smar tphone applications, Facebook pages and video screen technology at cer tain airpor ts.
Using the app, a user can fill in their friend’s date of depar ture and invite other friends to join in waving goodbye. Upon depar ture from Schiphol, not only will the passenger be able to watch the video on their smar tphone, but it will also be
Since the launch of the (Dutch) Facebook app in October 2012, over 10,000 people have already given their loved ones a depar ture to remember.
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traditional
travel hackathon
the lengths we go to
EMIRATES AIRLINES
Following earlier initiatives by American Airlines and British Airways , Emirates Travel Hackathon is the latest 24-hour coding marathon that brings together developers and designers to build new and innovative travel-centric applications using web and mobile API’s (application programming interfaces). Emirates, and its sister company Emirates Holidays, co-hosted the event in California’s Silicon Valley on the 21st and 22nd of September. The idea was to open the floor to some of the smar test and most creative students and professionals in Silicon Valley to “help world travelers fully experience their vacation dream.” A variety of prizes were on offer, from a USD 2000 first prize to a USD 500
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SINGAPORE AIRLINES
‘popular choice award’, both available from a USD 20,000 prize fund. The event also had its own twitter feed to cover the action, which included a few more fun social elements such as an inter-team Nerf (foam bullet) gun battle. The Emirates Hackathon event had sold out and hosted 300 ‘hackers’. The awards were dominated by the students of Carnegie Mellon University who scooped six awards at the event.
Singapore Airlines has followed the likes of Etihad, British Airways and even Malaysia Airlines to create a shor t ‘inspirational’ film series called ‘The Lengths We Go To ’.
showcase Venice, Scotland and China, (although Singapore only flies to one of these destinations) to show the global extent they go to bringing passengers the best movies, furnishings and catering.
Rather than adver tising the onboard experience, the new campaign shows through sound, sight and memory a visual postcard of what the airline stands for: quality and attention to detail.
Naturally the Singapore girl is still the heroine of these movies, although she is taking less of a centre-stage roll as this campaign is purely a captivating and conceptual vision of what the airline aims for.
It is this subtlety that now has become fashionable in adver tising campaigns, that is taking a moment of quiet showing finesse and respect in a sea of loud and over tly ‘salesy’ adver tising that we come to expect from our TV viewing globally. Created by TBWA\Singapore , the series of three one-minute videos
“The campaign is very much about the spirit of Singapore Airlines and the lengths that we go to make sure that each and every customer feels at home, feels that their needs are anticipated and taken care of” explains Sheldon Hee, Singapore Airlines’ VP of marketing communications and development.
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fly the friendly skies
land of barcelona
UNITED
In a bold move back to the past, United has resurrected a tag line to its advertising campaigns not seen since 1996. ‘Fly The Friendly Skies ’ was the iconic message created by Leo Burnett in 1965, which has now been brought back to life in the new multimedia ad campaign by McGarryBowen that is United’s biggest in decades. The campaign also features George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” the identifiable rift United has been using continuously in advertising since 1987. According to Tom O’Toole, United’s SVP Marketing and Loyalty, “The real aim of the new adver tising campaign is to say to say to customers, co-workers and competitors that United is back in the game in a big way.” The series of four videos, which showcase
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QATAR AIRWAYS
all ot the main areas of improvement – from route network to inflight products – is suppor ted by a standalone website that showcases in fur ther detail the marketing message that the airline is now trying to impar t. The adver tising spots, which took primetime slots on US television, was also suppor ted by a large print campaign , including taking over 42nd Street-Bryant Park Station subway station in New York.
FC Barcelona has recently chosen Qatar Airways as the first commercial shirt par tner in the club’s 114-year history. In a campaign to celebrate this partnership, Qatar Airways transports its viewers to a fictional island home for the global suppor ters of the ‘Blaugrana’ in a feat of creativity and ingenuity.
teaches a soccer-based dance class, and Carles Puyol heads a potted plant falling out a window as if it were a soccer ball. With over 3.6 million views in less than a month, the campaign has become a huge viral success for both the airline and the football team.
The feel-good spot, created by 180 Amsterdam , is set in the mythical “Land of FCB ”, a country brimming with billboards, cars, and clothing featuring FC Barcelona’s signature maroon and blue team colors. Mixed among the citizens are cameos from some of the world’s greatest soccer players, including Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué. Accompanied by Jackie Wilson’s iconic soundtrack“Higher and Higher,” Messi
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generation easyjet EASYJET
Pan-European LCC easyJet launched a GBP 5m multi-media campaign across 10 countries, based on the strapline ‘generation easyJet’. The campaign aims to showcase the airline’s appeal to the market. The TV ad is directed by Ninian Doff, an acclaimed young director, who has directed music videos for the likes of Graham Coxon and Mykki Blanco. Ninian uses clever camera techniques and ar tful editing to bring to life the sheer diversity of ‘generation easyJet’.
microsite describing ‘generation easyJet’ as “The head first into water, wine or work generation.” Peter Duffy, marketing director at easyJet, said: “For the past 18 years, easyJet has opened up Europe so we can all exercise our get-up-and-go in a way that simply wasn’t possible before. Today, 60 million Europeans do so each year with easyJet. With this campaign, easyJet and VCCP are celebrating our customers, our people ...’generation easyJet’.”
In print, new bold headlines are set against impactful repor tage-style photography to inspire and ignite the get-up-and-go feeling in all of us. The campaign is suppor ted by a
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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.
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