benchmark report
airline marketing
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com March 2OI4 Issue I9
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.
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
theme of the month
valentines day
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:
As a growing number of airlines are tapping into global events such as Christmas, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day, here are some of the best examples of how airlines around the world have brought some love to passengers on Valentine’s Day 2014.
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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cross-media
theme of the month
el amor volador
valentines
#LoveIsInTheAir SINGAPORE AIRLINES
Translating its new tagline “The Lengths We Go To,” Singapore Airlines (SIA) went the extra mile and celebrated Valentine’s Day with travellers in Changi Airpor t Terminal 3. A singing group – dressed in steward and SIA’s traditional ‘kebaya ’ uniforms – serenaded travellers with a medley of cappella versions of love songs, including Billy Idol’s song “For the longest time,” while SIA stewardesses gave out hand-folded batik roses and chocolates to onlookers and passers-by (images here ). Singapore Idol finalist Sylvia Ratonel par ticipated as one of the female singers, dressed in a SIA kebaya. A video of the event was uploaded onto YouTube by SIA on the same day and has been watched over 130,000 times so far.
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
LAN ARGENTINA
Up in the air, SIA flight SQ462 flying from Singapore to Male, Mauritius (a popular honeymoon destination) was decked out in Valentine’s Day decorations to celebrate the special day. Passengers received handmade kebaya roses, personalized cards, teddy bears and macaroons. Enter tainment came in the form of stewardesses singing backed up by a steward playing the ukulele. There was even a marriage proposal on the flight (and yes, the girl in question said yes). The video of the Valentine’s Day flight has been viewed nearly 50,000 times.
In Argentina, the local branch of LAN par tnered with online dating site Match.com and Intercontinental Hotels to organize a speed dating event on a f light from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, called ‘The Love Flight’. Par ticipants were seated in the front par t of the cabin and changed seats at frequent intervals (video here ), while other passengers on the f light received some surprise gifts.
Upon arrival in Mendoza, a range of activities were organized for the par ticipants, including a visit to a local winery and a stay at the Intercontinental hotel, where they were offered a special dinner prepared by the hotel’s chef. Apparently the event resulted in no less than 4 romantic couples.
The 16 participants were selected by LAN and Match.com from those that had signed up on the airlines’ Facebook page . On behalf of Match.com, ‘relationship specialist’ Valeria Schapira , who is quite known in the country, joined the f light to host the speed dating event.
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valentine wannagives
luv surprise SOUTHWEST
Southwest Airlines’ stock exchange code is LUV and to celebrate this Valentine’s Day the airline set out at airpor ts across the USA “showing its LUV ” to passengers with free gift cards and complimentary drinks. Southwest employees greeted dozens of unsuspecting customers on Valentine’s Day at several of its 96 destinations across the USA and surprised them by giving away USD500 Southwest giftcards. One of the lucky passengers receiving a USD500 gift card was a family with the last name ‘Love’ who f lew with Southwest to Colorado for a family ski vacation. “We had been traveling all day, it was so late and there was really nobody in the airpor t,” Julie Love said. “This guy just came up to me and said,
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
KLM
‘Wow, how many tickets did you have to buy to get here? I bet that can be expensive.’ All the sudden, I see these cameras and lights behind him,” she said. “I knew something was going on.” More customers’ reactions are captured in this video . In addition to giving customers gift cards, Southwest for years has also been serving passengers f lying on February 14th complimentary cocktails, beer or wine, based on the idea that passengers are Southwest’s Valentines. The airline also sent members of its Rapid Rewards loyalty program a voucher good for four free drinks on their nex t f lights with Southwest.
As repor ted in the December 2013 edition of this repor t, KLM’s latest social media initiative ‘Wannagives ’ allows friends, family and colleagues of passengers flying with KLM to treat their loved ones with a surprise during their flight by preordering a gift online – whether a glass of champagne, a fresh orange rose, a watch, or anything else from KLM’s duty free catalogue – which will then be delivered to the passenger’s seat during the flight. To promote its Wannagives service, KLM on February 14th let friends and family surprise their loved ones – who were flying on long-haul routes with KLM on that day – with a free chocolate heart onboard. The chocolate heart was made of fair-trade milk chocolate, and manufactured by ar tisan Belgian chocolate maker Callebaut. Those wanting to surprise their
Valentine could add a personal message to their gift or sent it anonymously. In total, KLM surprised hundreds of travelers on board forty-four intercontinental flights with a gift from their Valentine. Video of the onboard surprises here . According to a ‘behind the scenes’ report on the KLM blog, the inspiration for the event came from the observation that most of personal messages that are put on the regular Wannagives presents are about love. With just 17 days to prepare, a group of colleagues from different departments within KLM arranged the chocolate hearts as Valentine’s gifts, created a love-card, wrote a press release, developed a print ad and bought KLM-blue wraping paper with cute white hearts. Especially for the occasion all Valentine cards were hand written.
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social
#getcomfy
fly with phoenix
KLM
During the month of February, KLM promoted its Economy Comfort product – seats that have up to 10 cm extra legroom compared to a regular Economy Class seat – with a new micro campaign that calls the airline’s fans and followers to share what comfor t means to them through a dedicated Facebook app , microsite , or via Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #KLMGetComfy. The general public could vote for the images and the fifteen “images of ultimate comfor t” that generated the most votes were shor tlisted as finalists, with a jury selecting one entry for the grand prize of two Economy Comfor t tickets. The competition was open to residents of 30+ countries.
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
AIR FRANCE
The majority of entries consisted of people comfor tably stretched out on the couch, or lying on the grass, as well as lots of images of babies, dogs and cats snoozing. Perhaps not surprising given the limited space available in Economy, there were few shots submitted of passengers sitting comfor tably onboard.
Since the launch of its ‘Air France Music ’ initiative in 2010, Air France has built a reputation for offering exclusive musical content of well-known French bands. For example, as part of its alignment with French pop music, the airline has launched a global mobile music discovery app called ‘Music in the Sky ’, which allows users to ‘unlock’ new tracks by pointing their devices upwards to the sky, using augmented reality. Last year, the Music in the Sky app was used for a collaboration between Air France and popular French techno-pop band Phoenix in which participants had to use the app to discover a hidden Phoenix track in the sky for a chance to win a trip for two to New York and see the band in concert. The latest ‘Air France x Phoenix’ initiative is called ‘Fly with Phoenix ’ and offers fans
a chance to win tickets to travel alongside Phoenix to Santiago in Chile to see the first show of the band’s South American tour, including a meet and greet with Phoenix and hotel accomodation. To win, participants must virtually book the right seat on the ‘Fly with Phoenix ’ Facebook app. The app contains 70 different flights, which means there are about 30,000 possible seats where the band could be sitting. All partipants have to do is guess the day of the week the band will be flying on, select one of the 10 daily virtual flights and pick the right seat next to the band. The competition started on February 20th and the winner will be announced on March 10.
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digital
althetes aboard
plane pitch VIRGIN AMERICA
UNITED
Virgin America has par tnered with Here On Biz , a mobile app that connects business travellers, to launch what is claimed to be the first in-f light social network , which was rolled out on all domestic Virgin America flights by the end of February.
Fi network (powered by Gogo) and purpose-built APIs that identify an aircraft’s location in the air to connect fellow travellers. Until July 2014, passengers on all domestic Virgin America flights can access the Here On Biz app for free through the Gogo network.
Travellers who have downloaded the free Here On Biz app from the Apple App store can use it to connect with passengers on their specific flight, but also on other Virgin America flights in the air, as well as with fellow travellers at their destination. App users can manage their privacy settings, so that travellers can shut off or limit their visible connections to others onboard.
To celebrate the new in-flight network, Virgin America has launched a Twitter promotion called Plane Pitch that invites flyers to share their dream business travel connection and describe how they would break the ice in 140 characters using the hashtag #planepitch . A weekly winner receives a complimentary Gogo WiFi pass and one Grand Prize winner will win Virgin America Elevate Gold status, six Business Class flights and an annual Gogo pass, “so the winner will never miss a connection on the fly,” as the airline put it.
Here On Biz’s geo-location technology uses Virgin America’s in-flight Wi-
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
Whilst many airlines have chosen not to connect to align themselves with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, United – who has been the off icial airline of Team USA for the past 34 years – embraced the fervor surrounding the US team by creating a 60 second (and shor tened 30 sec) ‘Athletes Aboard’ spot which made its prime-time debut on TV during the Opening Ceremony. Par t of the airlines ‘Friendly Skies’ campaign, the video has already amassed over 1.2 million views on YouTube. Scored with United’s long term soundtrack ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and narrated by Matt Damon, ‘Athletes Aboard’ was created to promote the connection between airline and Olympians and features winter spor ts athletes from skaters to bob-sledders,
skiers and lugers f inding their way to their seats and preparing for take off in a way suited to their spor t. For example, reigning women’s U.S. f igure skating champion Gracie Gold pirouettes her hand luggage into an overhead compar tment, while gold medal-winning Olympic speedskater Shani Davis skates through the aisles. United has also invested in a heavy social media and native ad push. The airline asked viewers to use the hashtags #AthletesAboard and #TeamUSAfriendly in their Olympic tweets (syndicated on United’s hub page ), and sponsored interactive content on The New York Times’ website, videos on Yahoo Screen and BuzzFeed posts.
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inflight safety videos go creative
go further to get closer BRITISH AIRWAYS
For the second time in a year, British Airways has created a heart-warming video as part of marketing strategy for India that focuses on introducing India-specific initiatives and create an emotional and meaningful connection with an younger audience. Last year, BA showcased how important it was to stay close to your mother (1.1 million views on YouTube) and this year highlighted the importance of spending quality time with your loved ones. Launched on Valentine’s Day, the film narrates the story of Sumeet Gupta and how British Airways helped him surprise his wife Chetna by giving them an opportunity to escape from daily intrusions and get closer to each other. The film has been produced by Ogilvy &
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
ANZ, DELTA, VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Mather India and is based on the insight that young couples today have made work their top priority in life, which is taking a toll on their personal relationships as they are unable to spend enough quality time with their partners. This is especially true for young couples, who are surrounded with extended family for most of their young lives. For these couples, international travel provides great opportunities to spend quality time with their respective partners as not only are they away from work, but also from the daily intrusions of family and friends. The successful YouTube video has amassed over 2 million views in three weeks and is supported by a Facebook quiz ‘How close are you?’ helping young couples discover each other better. Three winning couples will bag a special return trip to London and a grand opportunity to rekindle their love and passion.
One of the biggest airline marketing trends has been the revival of the traditionally boring airline safety video. As airlines are thinking outside the box to create flight safety videos that passengers – and those on the ground – actually enjoy viewing, some of the videos have become commercials in their own right. Airline safety videos are now a hive of creativity and the past month has seen three more very creative takes by Air New Zealand, Delta and Virgin Atlantic. Pioneer Air New Zealand, famous for their Lord of the Rings-themed safety videos, has changed tactics by causing controversy with the launch of its latest ‘themed’ safety video that stars Spor ts Illustrated cover girls in the Cook Islands wearing nothing more than bikinis. Whilst the video landed the airline in hot water for sexualising the safety
message, it also has generated over 3.5 million hits on YouTube so far. Delta’s 80’s inspired safety video was created by Wieden+Kennedy to inject some humour into its safety message and features 80’s icons, from now humorous hairstyles to children’s 80’s star Alf, the Rubik’s Cube, Atari and even NBA legend and Airplane! Cameo star Kareem AbdulJabbar. Since its launch at the end of January, it has generated 1.4 million YouTube hits. Timed to coincide with the 86th Academy Awards, Virgin Atlantic new safety video , made by Ar ts and Graft, nods to the breadth of enter tainment options available onboard and pays homage to a variety of British film genres. Surprisingly, the beautifully animated video has only achieved 70,000 hits in its first two weeks.
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traditional
the legend is back
snowball
AMERICAN AIRLINES
American Airlines’ latest print campaign celebrates the upgrade of the airlines’ transcontinental service, as the lucrative routes between New Jork, Los Angeles and San Francisco have become a major battlefield for US carriers vying for customers. Starring Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) and Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), the new advertising campaign mimics the heritage AA advertising campaigns featuring Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck , who apparently flew American a lot back in the day. Created by McCann, the American campaign is designed to remind consumers that is was AA that invented the transcontinental service back in 1953. Presented in black and white, with the only nod to colour being the airline’s new logo and tailfin, the
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
WIDERØE
styling and composition of the campaign taps into the current trend of ‘looking backwards.’ “We have such a rich heritage in the transcon market,” said Fern Fernandez, American’s CP of global marketing. “For some years we hadn’t really hadn’t invested in the right way. The crux of the campaign is that we want to remind people that we invented trans-continental service. Now we are completely reinventing and taking a different approach in this market.” Besides featuring in print, the current print adver tising campaign will also be translated to TV adver ts, following an initial midJanuary teaser commercial .
Following its successful Grandpa’s Magic Trick commercial (nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube), which was voted as one of the best commercials of 2012, this new ad from Norwegian airline Wideroe is par t touching, par t thought provoking. The 55-second spot documents a long-distance relationship in which a woman complains that her boyfriend doesn’t come to visit her often enough. Things seem to be going bad when he says “I thought about visiting you…” The woman seems ready to give up, and indeed hangs up the phone, when her boyfriend offers up a big surprise.
effor tlessness and natural joy of Holst’s previous work that made the last spot so popular. The tone of voice of the Snowball video is somewhat depressing and although it sums up what is obviously a complicated relationship in just a few careful brushstrokes – which captures the power of travel in connecting travellers with the ones they love – the video has only generated a few thousand views in a couple of months on YouTube.
Directed by Marius Holst, who was also behind ‘Grandpa’s Magic Trick’, ‘Snowball’ is a serious attempt to pull at viewers’ hear t strings but in the end lacks the
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modern family goes to australia
traditional
skin tone saturation NORWEGIAN
The efficiency of outdoor adver tising is often a result of its originality. Norwegian low-cost carrier Norwegian has built a reputation when it comes to launching innovative campaigns to persuade Scandinavians to book a flight to a southern, more sunny, destination in Europe. For example, last year the airline installed a rain gauge on bus shelters that recorded how much rain fell in the city to push people to get out of the country (video here )and in 2011 as par t of its ‘Internet Sun Generator campaign ’, Norwegian tracked down negative winter-related expressions on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, and conver ted this information into a digital formula that controlled a big ar tif icial sun places placed in front of Oslo’s central
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
QANTAS
railway station. The more negative the conversation about the winter-darkness, the stronger the sun would shine. The airline’s latest advertising campaign took place at Oslo’s Central Station and aimed to push Norwegian’s sunshine destinations to those in most need of them as the result of a cold and dark winter. Passersby at the station were encouraged to have their picture taken and get their skin tone saturation measured digitally. The contestants’ images then were directly uploaded onto a giant screen, where the audience could follow who was the palest person in the league. The three palest contestants won a trip to sunny Gran Canaria.
The United States is one of the biggest source markets for people visiting Australia. To promote the airline and the country, Qantas in recent years has partnered with Twentieth Century Fox Television to arrange visits of Oprah (2010) and Ellen DeGeneres (2013). Oprah Winfrey filmed four episodes down under in 2010, bringing with her 300 audience members who were hosted across Australia, and the following year half of US visitors to Australia said they had been influenced to come by Oprah’s show. On a similar note, Qantas claims it has seen a 22 percent increase in inbound flights to New South Wales since the airing of the Australian Ellen episode. This February, Qantas flew the cast of one of America’s most successful comedy series ‘Modern Family’ to Australia (on an A380 that
was renamed as ‘Modern Family Flyer’) to film a special holiday episode during two weeks. There’s little known about the said episode, other than Phil Dunphy (played by actor Ty Burrell) will have an allergic reaction to Vegemite and get struck by a kangaroo, while his son Luke (Nolan Gould) goes in search of topless women at Bondi Beach. Qantas also gave a fan and his/her friend a chance to appear in the show’s episode in a walk-on role. The nationwide contest was open to any Qantas passenger who made a booking between February 5 and 14, with frequent flyers having a double chance of winning. The holiday special will air later this year and is projected to reach 125 million viewers worldwide. Says Qantas CEO Alan Joyce,
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most valuable airline brand EMIRATES
Emirates is once again the most valuable airline brand worldwide , according to British brand evaluation consultancy Brand Finance’s latest Global 500 report. The airline finished 234 out of the 500 evaluated global brands, up from last year’s 287 finish. Its brand is currently valued at USD5.48 billion, a 34 per cent increase on its 2013 valuation. The Global 500 report assesses the dollar value of a company’s reputation, image and intellectual property. Apple and Samsung Group were ranked first and second on the global list. Emirates’ nearest airline brand rival is Germany’s Lufthansa at 331, down from last year’s 326 listing. Next was America’s United at 379, up from 415 in 2013. Singapore Airlines was the only other
MARCH 2014 ISSUE
carrier to make the list at 458, down from 398. In total, six airlines have made it to the 2014 edition. In 2012, Emirates embarked “on an integrated marketing communications campaign” with the launch of its global brand platform “Hello Tomorrow.” The marketing campaign continues to peg the airlines global airline in what it says positions it “as the enabler of global connectivity and meaningful experiences.” An airline-specific ranking for 2014 has not been released yet, but the ranking of the top 20 most valuable airline brands for 2013 is available here .
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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 airline 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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MARCH 2014 ISSUE
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