Brussels Airlines - Blocked Content Banners

Brussels Airlines - Blocked Content Banners

Brussels Airlines - Blocked Content BannerIn an effort 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. Furthermore, 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.”

Spotting an opportunity, Brussels Airlines used these so-called ‘blocked content’ messages as an advertising 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.