benchmark report
airline marketing
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
OCTOBER 2013 ISSUE
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 .
05
X-MEDIA EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
