benchmark report
airline marketing
traditional
fifa worldcup 2014
blocked content banners BRUSSELS AIRLINES
In an effor t to promote its low-priced flights from Belgium to France to the audience of French speaking Belgians, Brussels Airlines used blocked content videos to achieve the goal. Approximately 58 percent of the Belgian population speaks Flemish as their native language, while almost 40 percent speaks French. Fur thermore, 40 percent of these French speaking Belgians watch TV programmes broadcast on French television rather than those broadcast in Belgium. When a viewer misses an episode of his/ her favourite TV programme, he/she usually can watch it online in a later stage. However to be able to do so, one has to live in France and those viewers in Belgium are shown the following message instead: “This content is not available in your country.”
AUGUST 2014 ISSUE
EMIRATES
Spotting an oppor tunity, Brussels Airlines used these so-called ‘blocked content’ messages as an adver tising medium, and placed banners within the video screens on websites such as The Voice France that told viewers from Belgium to “Go where the content is available. Fly to France.” This video explains the concept in more detail. When viewers clicked on the banners they could directly book their flight. According to Brussels Airlines’ ad agency BBDO, the ‘blocked content banners’ reached a click through rate of 14,58 percent, a level which hasn’t been the norm since 1994, and which is almost a 100 times more than a traditional banner campaign.
Soccer’s huge popularity around the world has made it a magnet for carriers looking to raise their profile. Over the last few years, fast-growing airlines such as Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines have been using using soccer to build their brand names and reach a broad audience. Emirates in particular has spent lavishly to become one of the world’s biggest sponsors of sports, including half a dozen European soccer teams such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Arsenal and AC Milan – four of Europe’s top 10 clubs by revenue. According to BusinessWeek, the GBP150 million Emirates is paying Arsenal for five years is more than five times the entire sponsorship budget of Lufthansa. According to an estimate from London-based Brand Finance, Emirates also spent about
USD100 million over the past four years to be one of FIFA’s six top “partners,” a group that includes Adidas, Coca-Cola, Hyundai/Kia, Sony and Visa. Being an official FIFA partner also gave Emirates the opportunity to take central stage at the World Cup final. Or as BusinessWeek nicely put it: “As the jubilant German soccer team hoisted its World Cup trophy and FIFA President Sepp Blatter preened, a phalanx of Emirates flight attendants flanked the scene in frozen smiles. The women, dressed in their beige Emirates uniforms topped off with red pillbox caps, presented the German athletes with gold medals on silver trays. That gave it the chance to place its flight attendants in countless images of the winning team.”
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TRADITIONAL
