benchmark report
airline marketing
little red wishes
taste of taipei
VIRGIN ATLANTIC/LITTLE RED
A little over a year ago, Virgin Atlantic launched its f irst ever domestic f light service in the UK and called it ‘Little Red .’ To celebrate its f irst bir thday, the airline took a grass-roots approach to marketing by using face-to-face engagement. A post box, accompanied by Virgin Atlantic ‘posties,’ was stationed at specif ic locations at London Heathrow Airpor t (April 8th), and at central locations in Edinburgh (April 10th), Aberdeen (April 11th) and Manchester (April 12th). The posties provided passers-by with postcards to enter the competition and see their #LittleRedWishes come true. To raise awareness of the campaign, Virgin Atlantic utilized Twitter pictures to display exact locations . For Little Red fans who could not make it to the
JUNE 2014 ISSUE
UNITED
physical post boxes, a vir tual competition also took place on Facebook , with prizes such as 46 pairs of Little Red return f light tickets and 13 pairs of long haul return f light Economy tickets to a Virgin Atlantic destination. The vir tual contest attracted 720 Facebook comments on a single post from the airline. Additionally, Virgin Atlantic offered sale fares on several f lights throughout the month of April for Little Red’s domestic destinations.
Food trucks are a hot phenomenon these days, evolving from chip stands into quality gourmet food on the go, and many airlines have already capitalized on the food truck trends for marketing purposes. In March 2011, for example, Air France sent their own gourmet food truck to the streets of New York City as a means of promoting their on-board catering services. The AF truck featured dishes by Michelin Star Chef Joël Robuchon and was stationed at one location per day which was announced via Twitter and Facebook. Similarly, nearly a year prior to Air France’s food truck debut, Austrian Air’s coffee truck toured the streets of NYC as well. Austrian Air’s motive was centred around its direct f lights to Vienna, so the coffee itself was
a homage to traditional Viennese coffee and was distributed freely. Also on the food truck and aviation roster was Delta Airlines , who served hot cocoa, and Arlanda Airport , whose food truck promotes the restaurants and cafes that are found in the airpor t itself. The latest airline to join the food truck bandwagon is United Airlines , who in May promoted its launch of a new route from San Francisco to Taipei and celebrated this by par tnering with Taiwanese food truck Mamaliu . The Taiwanese food truck announced via Facebook that San Franciscans could enjoy free lunches cour tesy of United all week.
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
