benchmark report
airline marketing
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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VALENTINES SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
