benchmark report
airline marketing
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com April 2OI4 Issue 20
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.
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
theme of the month
april fools
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:
Each year, a number of airlines around the world take April Fools’ Day in their stride and join in the fun with some believable, and many unbelievable gags. April Fools Day airline campaigns help raise brand awareness and engagement in markets that typically would not have even heard of the airline. So what did airlines have in store for April Fools’ Day this year?
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.
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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benchmark report
airline marketing theme of the month
april fools
braai in the sky KULULA.COM
yogazone SCOOT
Given the timezone that Scoot is in (GMT+8), they were the first airline in the world this year to launch an April Fools’ Day campaign. An email with the subject, “S-t-r-e-t-c-h out in the Scoot YogaZone” was sent out to its whole database, and photos featuring rather attractive yoga instructors in skimpy clothes posted on Facebook and other channels. The airline announced that it was going to offer hot yoga classes on board their flights from Singapore to Hong Kong, including raising the cabin temperature to 40.6 degrees Celsius for the Bikram Yoga enthusiasts. APRIL 2014 ISSUE
South African LCC kulula.com announced it will bring barbecue-style cooking to the skies, with dishes freshly prepared on board. Kulula’s announcement on their Facebook page seems to have confused quite a number of people as well, which goes to show how convincingly they worded their announcement : “A pilot study braai-flight will be conducted in the skies to determine the possibility of offering customers a braai catering option on board. If successful, going forward customers travelling on kulula.com will be able to select their favourite piece of braai meat or vegetable skewer from the cabin crew and have it braaied in mid-air.” And what was initially labelled an April Fools’ Day joke, actually became a first for kulula. com, when the airline attempted the first ever braai in the sky in a hot-air balloon (video ).
total temperature control VIRGIN AMERICA
In true Virgin style, Richard Branson proudly announced on YouTube that Virgin America would like to give more control to the passengers of their flying experience, by introducing Total Temperature Control (TTC). This would allows travelers to create their own personal climate controlled environment thanks to Nest thermostats built into Virgin America’s in-flight entertainment systems. Options to set your climate control include ‘Chicago Polar Vortex’ and ‘NYC Subway Sweaty’. On the landing page for the announcement, there’s even a poll where anyone could participate and share what their preference would be on-board.
metric time WESTJET
Westjet April Fool’s joke saw the airline taking over the YouTube Canada homepage, announcing that the airline will be moving to Metric time, where instead of AM and PM, flight times will be displayed in milliminutes (a rather novel invention). There was a YouTube video , and a rather complex calculation explaining the conversion. The most hilarious aspect was that they even hinted that a smartphone app would be able to do the conversion. While not as charming as Kargo Kids that they launched last year, we will be keen to see how viral this video goes, and whether it crosses the one million mark for ticket sales this year (they have done so previously).
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airline marketing
experiential
great minds fly alike
cross-media
guess who?
DELTA X VIRGIN ATLANTIC
In early 2013, Delta acquired a 49 percent in Virgin Atlantic (purchasing it from Singapore Airlines) as part of an effort to increase its presence at slot-constrained Heathrow. In the past year, both airlines have applied for – and been granted – permission to set up a trans-Atlantic joint venture, billing the partnership as ‘Great Minds Fly Alike ’in for example print ads . To celebrate the launch of the new coordination schedule on March 29 – which allows Delta and Virgin to compete more effectively for high-yielding business traffic between New York and London, the most impor tant business route in the world – both airlines took over the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street on March 25th. The ‘Great Minds Fly Alike’ event featured
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
EASYJET FRANCE
mock lounges, Business seats to try out, a free beauty make over or a shoe shine, and an ‘innovation arena’ where Virgin Atlantic showcased its recent trial using Google Glass devices. For the ocassion, the NYSE building also featured a huge ‘Great Minds Fly Alike’ banner . At the end of the trading day representatives from Delta and Virgin Atlantic rang the well-known ‘Closing Bell ’ at Wall Street to highlight their new transatlantic par tnership The event was accompanied by a 1-day social media contest which invited visitors of the Wall Street event to tweet or post their photos taken at the event that day and with the hashtag #FutureOf Flying for a chance to win two return tickets from New York to London in Economy.
Childhood memories of the globally known ‘Guess Who? ’ (a.ka. ‘Who Am I’) game were brought back to life in Toulouse-Blagnac on February 28th, when easyJet created a life-size live version of the popular board game to celebrate the fact that in 10 years the airline had carried 10 million passengers through the southern France airpor t.
After the airpor t event, the airline put a digital version of the ‘Guess Who’ game online (called Enigme A Bord by easyJet France) for 10 days, which was played over 2,500 times on the f irst day alone.
Situated airside, passengers were invited to get involved in a game to guess the 10th million passenger who was hidden in a group of 24 ‘ex tras’. The rules mimicked the real-life game, so passengers has to ask questions such as “Does he/she have blue eyes? Is he/she wearing a hat?” etc. Those par ticipants who correctly named the mystery passenger after eliminating the impostors were given free f lights with easyJet.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
grab a random
taste of iceland
AIR NEW ZEALAND
Air New Zealand has been running its last-minute promotions under the name of grabaseat since 2006, offering a wide range of destinations at bargain prices to help f ill empty seats on its planes. To help promote the program and inspire last-minute bookings, ANZ has launched a series of YouTube videos, whereby the airline asks random passersby if they will drop every thing and jump on a f light that day and head off for an adventure set out by ANZ. In a series of videos promoted on the airline’s ‘The Flying Social Network’ blog, ANZ so far has highlighted 3 different stories from passersby who actually dropped every thing and instantly took to the skies f lying to destinations throughout New Zealand, from Queenstown to Canterbury and Nor thland.
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
ICELANDAIR
The f irst episode of the series, self-titled ‘Grab a Random’ has already pulled in 30,000 views, and the second two videos both pulled in over 20,000 views. ANZ’s ‘Grab a Random’ campaign shares similarities with Heineken’s ‘Departure Roulette ’ initiative (featured in the August 2013 repor t) staged by the beer brand at New York JFK Airpor t, which challenged passengers at the airpor t to change their planned itinery to a more exotic random location with the press of a button. ‘Contestants’ had to agree to drop their existing travel plans—without knowing the new destination f irst—and immediately board a f light to their new destination.
Between March 8 and 12, in cooperation with the ‘Iceland Naturally’ tourist board, Icelandair hosted the ‘A Taste of Iceland ’ event in Boston, one of the airline’s key US cities. The Taste of Iceland event showcased Icelandic music, cuisine and culture at select venues throughout the city during 5 days.
Representatives from Icelandair also roamed throughout Boston each day giving away gift certificates to travel on Icelandair and Icelandair merchandise to unsuspecting Bostonians.
In the 4 days leading to the event, Icelandair created a series of initiatives, such as asking passersby to take photos of the airline’s on-the-ground ‘brand ambassadors’, who took to the streets of Boston as glacial kayakers or wearing Blue Lagoon spa mud maskers. By liking the airline’s Facebook page new followers then had the opportunity to win Icelandair prizes, such as a free trip to Iceland.
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social
local measure
vueling ambassadors
QANTAS
According to social metrics company Social Bakers, the airline industry is the most ‘socially devoted ’ industry on Facebook and Twitter, with carriers such as KLM and Delta being the most advanced in monitoring social media for passenger inquiries and feedback. However, to allow airlines to pick up an online conversation about their brand, the messages have to feature the airline’s name/hashtag or a strong reference to it. Qantas is currently trialling technology from Australian star t-up Local Measure at 10 airpor ts (domestically and at SIN, LA, JFK, LHR, DXB) to monitor social media conversations by those passengers inside its airpor t lounges – who have shared their location by turning on geo-location in Twitter or checking into a service such as Foursquare or Facebook Places –
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VUELING
regardless of whether the user mentions Qantas by name. Besides allowing Qantas to amplify positive feedback, the biggest benefit of the trial sofar for Qantas has been in customer service and group insights. Says Qantas Head of Digital Communications, Jo Boundy, “Passengers don’t necessarily go and tell the lounge manager ‘I liked my Neil Perry’ pie’, but they do take photos and tweet about it in real-time with hashtags and suddenly they’ve given you a very clear indication of what they think of the product inside the lounges. They also might say there’s something wrong with the barista coffee machine or there’s a leaky toilet, stuff we’d never normally see, and now we’re getting it in real time and are able to fix.”
In a bid to put a human face to the cities in its network and promote the airline, Vueling has launched an online contest to find ‘ambassadors ’ for a select number of its destination cities. Participants who wanted to become a local Vueling ambassador were asked to subscribe to the Vueling Ambassadors microsite , upload a profile shot and then generate enough votes online through friends and social networking – as well as answering a few key questions – to secure their place as a local Vueling ambassador.
To help promote the campaign, Vueling’s German city ambassadors were filmed when they were taken to Barcelona, where they participated in a photoshoot to be featured in the airline’s printed campaigns, as well as being given a tour of the city, courtesy of Vueling.
The final four candidates from each city were then put up to the vote to win the title of ‘Ambassador’ of their chosen city. As a reward the winning par ticipants are entitled to as many as 50 flights with the Spanish carrier.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
the local’s guide
innovation class
STOCKHOLM ARLANDA
Every now and then this repor t highlights marketing campaigns launched by airpor ts, high-speed rail operators or consumer brands at high-traffic locations that can serve as an inspiration for airlines. This initiative from Stockholm Arlanda Airpor t shows how social data can be used to give travellers a real-time snapshot of what’s going on around the world. Arlanda Airpor t in February of this year launched a new app called The Local’s Guide www.thelocalsguide.se which uses real-time updates by city residents on photo-sharing platform Instagram to enable travellers to discover new locations through a personalized travel guide. Currently available for tourists heading to one of ten global cities — Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dubai,
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
DELTA X LINKEDIN
London, New York, Paris, Prague and Rome — the app uses open Instagram feeds to collect live photos being taken by locals in each city. Each photo comes with a geotag, showing the name of the venue it was taken, and if users like the look of it they can save it to their personalized guide. When they’ve finished, they can download an offline guide which offers a map and details of the venues they bookmarked. In an interesting real-world twist, Arlanda Airpor t has also installed a large touchscreen kiosks with the same functionality in several of its gate areas lounge. This video explains more about the platform.
Delta has teamed with LinkedIn in an effort to pair interesting individuals with well-respected members of the ‘creative class ’. The ‘Delta Innovation Class ’ is what the airline calls “a mentoring program taking place at 35,000 ft,” and for the program Delta has picked a select number of leaders in the field of art, business and technology who will be traveling to events around the globe during 2014. Delta offers one lucky person per flight the opportunity to sit next to one of these persons, “to meet face-to-face with some of the world’s most interesting people in a truly unique one-on-one.” Says Delta on its blog: “Our jets fill up with some of the smar test people in the world. Could these leaders use this time in the air to not just fly, but to share their knowledge with an up-and-coming professional in the
seat next to them? (video here ) The first ‘Innovation Class’ flight took place on March 14th to the 2014 TED conference in Vancouver B.C, and paired inventor of the Pebble smartwatch Eric Migicovsky with James Patten, an interaction designer and inventor (video here ). The next Innovation Class flight will take off on May 5th to New York JFK and will feature food entrepeneur Sean Brock , who will be traveling to New York for The James Beard Awards , Those who want to apply can do so by entering their LinkedIn credentials on the Delta Innovation Class website. Based on their LinkedIn profiles, a shortlist of candidates will be chosen with the person selected for the empty seat receiving a free flight to the event.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
digital
spotify music travel guide
hong kong sevens
BRITISH AIRWAYS
Following a recent initiative in which British Airways ‘upgraded’ the audio channels on its IFE system by offering celebritycurated playlists from the likes of Mick Jagger, the airline has partnered with music streaming service Spotify to create the ‘Music Travel Guide ’. Designed to immerse travellers in destination-specific music, this is the first time that Spotify has officially worked with an airline, although carriers such as Ryanair and Delta have created Spotify playlists before. Available for Spotify users in the UK, users will be able to select a British Airways destination, describe their personal music taste and then have a playlist generated for them. Currently there are five destinations to discover: Amsterdam,
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
CATHAY PACIFIC
Barcelona, Valletta (Malta), Naples and Edinburgh. The recommended content includes music, bands and ar tists from the chosen city, as well as general music that is currently trending there. The guide also recommends music events in the chosen location, which can be booked directly through the Spotify website and app. Spotify users can also share their playlists via social media and click through for flights and holidays, creating a one-stopshop for music and travel lovers.
The Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament is a big annual event in Hong Kong and an excellent marketing opportunity used by many Hong Kong brands. One of the main supporters of the event for years is Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific, who this year went all-out to create a fun and viral video campaign featuring its cabin crew. Cathay’s staff have been featured prominently in the airline’s marketing campaigns over the past few years and to show its support for the Hong Kong Sevens, Cathay has created a series of videos that put flight attendants reenacting sports plays through the same drills that rugby players do.
‘Train ’ video features 7 cabin crew members re-enacting rugby training techniques under the guise of famous airline mannerisms, such as ‘Chicken or Fish?’ The second element, ‘Win’, asked the public to take a selfie to be one of 77 winners of a selection of both air tickets and gift packs. The Third element ‘Smile’, suggested visitors purchase a rugby ball decorated with a huge smile for charity and support Operation Smile China Medical Mission. The humorous and self explanatory video that supports the campaign has been watched over 45,000 times so far.
Centered around the ‘Coach ’ coach micro site, Cathay’s HK Sevens campaign works in three parts. The first
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benchmark report
airline marketing
traditional
smartwatch boarding pass
france is in the air
VUELING
Airports and airport lounges are popular and high-profile testbed locations for companies to showcase their latest technological innovations, given the diverse and international mix of consumers and the industry’s high-profile in the media. Dubbed “product or service as marketing,” here the innovation is clearly designed for marketing purposes, with the objective to have bloggers and mass media talk about it, even if the actual adoption by passengers is 1 percent in the end. This year, wearable tech devices are joining the digital revolution, with Virgin Atlantic’s six-week trial - featuring Google Glass and Sony SmartWatch 2 devices - in its Heathrow lounge creating a huge wave of publicity for the airline. Meanwhile, Spanish LCC Vueling together
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
AIR FRANCE
with Sony has launched the world’s first airline smartwatch application that allows passengers to “carry both their boarding pass and flight information on their wrist,” as the companies put it.
After running its “Making the sky the best place on ear th” ad campaign for over 15 years, Air France has just unveiled a new marketing communication initiative called ‘France is in the air ’.
Conceived for Sony’s SmartWatch 2 intelligent watch, the Android-based app allows passengers to display a 2D boarding card barcode on the watch’s display, as well as displaying details of upcoming flights – similar to the functionality offered in many airlines’ smar tphone apps.
Tapping into the popular heritage/ vintage/nostalgia trend, Air France says the new campaign “is daring to be different, creating an effect of surprise by mixing heritage and modernity.” The visuals , created by the Argentine photographers Sof ia & Mauro, feature French icons such as the Moulin Rouge, the French Revolution, the Sun King, master chefs and haute couture, in a design style that echos Air France’s past as a renowned poster specialist.
The Vueling app is one of around 300 apps in the Google Play store that are currently available for the Sony Smar tWatch 2.
France: the A380′s comfor t, the airlines new La Première cabin, the new Business cabin, gastronomy, the network, and SkyPriority. Additionally, there will be twelve visual ads utilizing different iconic destinations served by Air France, such as Paris and New York (view them here ). A par t of its highly visual approach, the campaign also appears on Pinterest , Instagram and Facebook under the #franceisintheair hashtag. The multimedia campaign will run in twelve countries: France, Germany, Brazil, Canada, China, Spain, USA, Italy, Japan, Russia, Senegal, and Switzerland.
The campaign, created by BETC, consists of six visuals of services offered by Air
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benchmark report
airline marketing
traditional
all time greats
peace
EMIRATES
Mirroring Turkish Airlines’ phenomenally successful Kobe vs Messi campaign , which featured the two spor ting giants on both their plane and around the airline’s destinations, it is no surprise that another airline has mimicked the concept, especially with the FIFA 2014 World Championships in Brazil coming closer. Featuring current soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and football legend Pelé, we see two world-famous faces onboard Emirates A380 flagship aircraft. The shor t and simple tale showcases the aircraft’s well-known premium products such as First Class showers, the Business Class cabin and the onboard bar, all successful products for the airline. The commercial offers an air of humour as two passengers whisper about the football
APRIL 2014 ISSUE
S7
star, which gets revealed within the minute long adver t, is actually Pelé, even though the viewer is lead to believe the hero of the film is Ronaldo. Helping promote the video, which as well as a TV commercial, is an online #AllTimeGreats campaign, which asks viewers ‘who’s the greatest?’ Whilst the campaign probably won’t reach the same level as Turkish Airlines 244 million views, the video has generated 1.25 million hits on YouTube in just 5 days.
Russian low-cost carrier S7 latest campaign is a daring initiative amidst the current unrest between Russia and Ukraine. By installing giant banners overnight in the center of Kiev and Moscow on March 13th, the airline showed its commitment to people living in both cities, asking for peace on both sides. The campaign was timed to start a day before the Crimean referendum.
involved in a brave and socially-responsible campaign. Print ads carrying the same message were also placed in federal newspapers and magazines.
The massive banners (video ) found across both cities show the words Moscow on one side, and Kiev on the other with a peace sign in the middle. Although it’s quite a simple message, S7 has done a great job in taking a highly sensitive political topic, and turning it into a branding opportunity. Utilizing more than 20 of Moscow and Kiev’s biggest outdoor advertising spots – including the largest video screen in Europe – S7 is
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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.
Airlinetrends.com is an independent industry and consumer trends research agency that monitors the global aviation industry for commercial innovations in response to changing consumer behavior. Airlinetrends.com repor ts its f indings in a free monthly email newsletter as well as in paid trend repor ts and corporate trend sessions. Get in touch at info@airlinetrends.com or visit www.airlinetrends.com.
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APRIL 2014 ISSUE
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
