benchmark report
airline marketing
experiential
cross-media
run2fly
virtual reality holidays THOMAS COOK
British tour operator Thomas Cook has opened a concept store that is leveraging the latest digital advancements to let store visitors immerse themselves in digital content. Promoted as ‘virtual reality holiday’, store visistors store can try on Oculus Rift headsets – a head mounted virtual reality 3D display, which features an ultra-wide field of view and low latency head tracking – that have been programmed to present a 3D, 360-degree vision of tropical paradise, in an effort to help build excitement around the holidays the company offers. The headset – combined with a newly developed application – translates head and motion movements to the virtual world allowing customers to explore Thomas Cook’s Sentido resort and the interior of an Thomas Cook aircraft, while bespoke audio and fragrance complete the immersive experience.
SEPTEMBER 2014 ISSUE
MIAMI AD SCHOOL
Says a Thomas Cook spokesperson, the technology advancements in virtual reality over the last 18 months have made it a real contender for playing a key role in changing the way we can showcase experience-based products to our customers, especially in the high street environment.”
As running marathons attract an international field of amateur participants, they are interesting events for airlines to align themselves with. For example, Air France KLM’s loyalty program has set up a Flying Blue Running community which aims to bring like-minder flyers together.
Future plans include offering customers the chance to experience New York City with Oculus later this year, which ties in with the company’s strategic partnership with BrandUSA promoting America’s ‘Great Outdoors’ as well as Thomas Cook’s new flights and holidays to the Big Apple.
AirBaltic’s loyalty program BalticMiles last year launched an innovative ‘Burn The Miles’ app that gave rewards to frequent fliers who jog enough to burn off the same number of calories as miles they have flown.
If the virtual reality trial is a success at the concept shop located in the Bluewater shopping mall (just southeast of London), the Oculus devices will be introduced to the other Thomas Cook stores in Leeds, Stockton on Tees, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Essex.
Those downloading the app were challenged to match every mile they fly with a calorie burned in the space of 24 hours after they land, tracked using the smartphone’s built-in accelerometer. This case study and video explain more about the scheme.
A similar idea is behind an interesting concept dreamed up by students from the Miami Ad School . Run2Fly is an app that rewards marathon enthusiasts by converting their training miles into Virgin Atlantic air miles. Proposed as a new feature on the Nike Plus app , the Run2Fly concept would work the following way: Users have to download the Nike Plus app, choose the Run2Fly mode and the marathon they want to compete in. The app then calculates the the distance from the marathon locaton to the user’s place of residence, and the number of frequent flyer miles needed to convert into a Virgin Atlantic ticket. Video of how the concept works here . As Run2Fly is ‘just’ an idea, it can serve as inspiration for airlines to come up with concepts that ‘gamify the running experience’, or any other shared interest among passengers.
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
