benchmark report
airline marketing
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,
9
VALENTINES SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
