benchmark report
airline marketing
JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com Jan 2OI5 Issue 29
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.
JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
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. 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:
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.
TV, PRINT, OOH
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
experiential
airline christmas campaigns
a festive flight
VIRGIN ATLANTIC x MICROSOFT
VARIOUS AIRLINES
Each year, airlines are getting more creative in adding a festive touch to every inch of their marketing communications. Initiatives range from videos designed specifically for the time of year to ‘random acts of kindness’ that surprise passengers travelling on and around Christmas. The main objective of these efforts is to create engaging content that goes viral online. Examples include Delta’s special holiday inflight safety video and Air New Zealand ‘A Very Kiwi Christmas’ Meanwhile, United’s ‘North Pole Fantasy Flight’ is a ‘fantasy flight’ staged by 120 United San Francisco-based employees for children recovering from serious illnesses. The event saw 54 families board a United B747 at a specially designed Gate 82 at SFO, fly for approximately one hour, and then land at the North Pole (a.k.a. SFO Gate 86), where they received gifts from Santa. JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
Other initiatives such as Air New Zealand’s Christmas Fairy (video ) saw the airline put together some surprises for its passengers and delivering them onboard 11 flights.
Another airline holiday season campaign that stood out was Virgin Atlantic’s ‘A Festive Flight’ , for which the airline partnered with Microsoft.
On a similar note, Iberia’s ‘Magic In The Air’ (video ) surprised passengers on a flight from Mexico City to Madrid. In mid-flight a ‘live’ video-link appeared on passengers’ IFE screens showing how ‘Santa’ came walking along the top of the fuselage before entering the cabin and hand out presents to all passengers onboard.
At London Heathrow Airport, each of the 264 passengers boarding Virgin Atlantic’s new 787 to Boston on December 24th was given a Microsoft Windows tablet and was told that their purpose would be revealed later in the flight.
For more airline holiday season initiatives, see SimpliFlying’s round up of airline Christmas videos.
One of the pre-installed apps on the tablet was called ‘Festive Flight’ and allowed passengers to connect to the aircraft’s onboard WiFi and track the progress of their own flight, as well as seeing where they were in relation to Santa, who was in the midst of his own airborne travel on Christmas Eve. Whenever the Virgin flight and Santa’s reindeer powered sleigh were within
communicable proximity of each other, Santa would respond to messages that had been sent to him by passengers using the app. As the flight passed over Greenland, Santa appeared to radio the Virgin Atlantic pilots flying the aircraft, asking for permission to land on the plane. A simple projector was used on the ceiling of the plane to make it look like passengers could see, through glass panels, Santa’s reindeer landing on the roof. Santa jumped out of the sleigh, wiped the snow from the roof and waved hello to the people inside. Moments later, Santa appeared inside the cabin. He stopped to pose for selfies before announcing that the tablets could be kept as a gift and disappearing back into the night sky. Video and images of the event here and here .
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benchmark report
airline marketing
check in anywhere
bizmatch by vueling
KULULA.COM
Noticing how most South Africans are happy booking their f lights online but apprehensive when it comes to checkingin online, kulula.com and its agency looked to come up with a creative way of informing people, who were unnecessarily queuing at the airpor t check-in counters, that it would be much faster and more convenient to rather just skip the queue and check-in online from anywhere, i.e. the comfor t of their own home, bed, couch, off ice, or deck chair. In the campaign, travellers at Cape Town and Johannesburg airpor ts were surprised by local celebrities Siv Ngesi (actor and comedian) and Jack Parow (rapper) who made an appearance in motorized baths and beds. Decked out with kulula.com branding, these unexpected check-in locations drove around the crowds at the airpor t, making JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
VUELING
a statement about just how easy it can be to check-in with kulula.com. Comments kulula.com’s ad agency King James: “Selling the idea to kulula.com was actually pretty easy. Most conventional airlines would just put up an instructional message on a poster or banner, but (for tunately for us) kulula.com doesn’t really do normal.” “So when we told them that we wanted to put their online check-in message on a bath, and then put that bath on wheels, and enable it to move around with a remote control – they were in from the get-go. Convincing an airpor t to let you drive around in a bed and bath for a couple weeks obviously required a bit more effor t.” Video and images of the campaign here and here .
Pioneered by Silicon Valley-favourite Virgin America, more and more airlines are aligning themselves with creative and tech entrepreneurs as part of efforts to target a new class of ‘smart’ business travellers. Examples include Delta’s ‘Innovation Class’ , a mentorship program that invites up-andcoming entrepreneurs to apply for a seat on a flight next to business leaders in a variety of fields en route to select events. Turkish Airlines’ ‘Invest On Board’ program streams pitch videos from startups to the in-seat screens of passengers in Business Class, providing participating startups with a captive audience for their pitches. The most recent iniative comes from Spanish LCC Vueling who teamed with Italian entrepreneurial association Assolombarda to organise the Bizmatch by Vueling inflight event in which 100 Spanish and Italian
entrepreneurs teamed up to develop new business concepts onboard an A320 flying between Milan and Barcelona. The inflight ‘micro event’ was the ending of the Social 2 Business conference held in Milan and in which all the participants had been involved. During the flight, the participants – who were divided into 18 teams – had to choose which category they wanted to work on and work together to create a business concept. The winning concepts were ‘Massive on Air Courses’ (making use of a journey to take inflight courses), Car Swap (leaving your car at the airport to let someone else use it while away), and ‘The Aviators’ (an app that helps travellers organise their trip by putting them in touch with other travellers making the same journey).
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google cardboard
flyer’s perks VIRGIN AMERICA
In mid-January, the Virgin Group will open its first ever Virgin Hotels , which will be located in downtown Chicago. Fur ther Virgin Hotels are planned to open in Nashville (2016) and New York (2017). In true Virgin style, the ambitions are set very high: “Virgin brands are known for shaking up the status quo in the travel sector. Virgin has re-invented the upper class flight experience, created award winning Clubhouses, developed superior enter tainment systems, and built a reputation for brilliant service. It’s time to extend this thinking to hotels.” There will be a strong link between Virgin Hotels and Virgin America. All members of Virgin America’s loyalty program Elevate will receive 1,000 points per stay at Virgin Hotels, Elevate Gold members will get complimentary breakfast and a room upgrade, based on availability. Silver JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
VIRGIN HOLIDAYS
members will also receive an upgrade, if available. And putting an experiential twist to this cross-promotion, on December 9th Virgin America surprised flyers on the airline’s routes to/from Chicago with a ‘Virgin Hotels Social Hour’ in order to show “what perks Virgin America’s frequent flyers will enjoy when on the ground and in bed.” Virgin America offers three daily flights from San Francisco and two daily flights from Los Angeles to Chicago. The inflight event saw Virgin America provide passengers with free in-flight WiFi and a complimentary cocktail, which are two of the amenities the new Virgin Hotels will also offer guests for free. One passenger on each flight also won roundtrip tickets and a 2-night stay at the Virgin Hotel Chicago.
As the travel industry is always among the first to trial new technologies, we have featured experiments with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset by British tour operator Thomas Cook (‘virtual reality holiday’ ) and Marriott Hotels (‘Teleporter’ ) to drive consumer engagement in recent editions of this report.
50 Virgin Holidays stores currently feature Google’s technology, which uses a mobile device inside a Virgin Holidays branded Google Cardboard mask, playing footage of the Riviera Maya in Yucatan, Mexico. Later in 2015 footage of Miami and Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando will also be available to view.
On a similar note, Virgin Holidays at the end of December introduced Google Cardboard and Disney’s MyMagic+ technology in its physical retail stores to let customers test out holidays before making a purchase.
Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic Director of Brand and Consumer Engagement Reuben Arnold said the airline is also “eyeing potential augmented reality opportunities as devices such as Google Cardboard become more common place among its passengers.” […] “We have to think about how can we curate that [augmented reality] experience and what content we can provide them in-flight to add to that experience.”
Google Cardboard is a smartphone virtual reality viewer that lets users use their own smartphone and a set of apps available through the Google Play store. The Cardboard can be fully homemade for a list of components provided by Google. Alternatively, Google has also produced a pre-prepared kit starting at USD19.99.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
social
marriott x snapchat
go multinational
SNAPCHAT
AMSTERDAM SCHIPHOL AIRPORT
We occassionally feature campaigns from airline-related industries that we feel can provide inspiration for airlines as well. For example, Amsterdam Schiphol Airpor t’s Go Multinational campaign aims to highlight the large number of business destinations the airpor t offers through a competition that offered young entrepreneurs the chance to win a popup office for their business at a Schiphol destination of their choice. To apply for a pop-up office abroad, par ticipants had to write a shor t pitch to compete for the coveted pop-up office: Four weeks at the destination of their choice, including flights, accommodation, personal assistant and a local adver tising campaign. The campaign website also provides all sor ts of useful economic and business data for each destination. Information such JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
as ‘What is the impor t/expor t balance for San Francisco?’ and ‘How much does the average resident of Fukuoka have to spend?’ is displayed clearly on the site using infographics. Around 100 entrepreneurs applied for a chance to venture abroad and the most popular business destinations were New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin and Hong Kong. All submitted pitches were judged by a panel of exper ts, which included Maar ten de Groof (CCO Schiphol Group) and Harm Kreulen (GM KLM Netherlands). Five finalists were announced on January 8th and include architect agency MLA +, fair trade chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolony, sustainable fish feeding Protix, Lyme disease diagnosis developer Tropicare and furniture design agency Spectrum Design. They will compete against each other in the grand final which will take place on February 4th.
After gaining notoriety as a means for sending inappropriate photos, Snapchat is quickly becoming a mainstream social platform for those under the age of 35, as ‘Generations Y and Z’ these days are communicating mainly in photos and videos - quickly and instantly. The smar tphone app allows users to send ‘Snaps’ – tex ts, photos and videos – to each other that appear for up to 10 seconds and then disappear. The travel industry lends itself naturally to Snapchat due to the industry’s visual nature and the prevalence of sharing travel content. Last year, Aer Lingus became the f irst (and to our knowledge still only) airline to create a presence on Snapchat, using Snapchat to promote a playful behind-thescenes view of the company, which earned the arline a nomination for Best Use of an Emerging Platform at the SimpliFlying
Awards 2014. The f irst major hotel chain to experiment with Snapchat in order to reach and engage a younger audience is Marriott. Marriott chose four inf luencers who will create a two-way conversation with users about what cities the inf luencers to visit, while working with the Marriott brand during the visits. For its inf luencers, Marriott turned to ‘Viner’ Brittany Furlan, ‘YouTubers’ Casey Neistat and Louis Cole, and Snapchatnative star Shaun McBride to share their hotel-stay adventures on the platform in a 3 month story telling campaign. Neistat, for example, will go to Haiti to showcase the opening of Marriott’s new proper ty there and explore the country’s recovery from the 2010 ear thquake. For more on SnapChat and travel brands see this article on Skift.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
instagram endorsement paris hilton
digital
the storytellers SINGAPORE AIRLINES
EMIRATES
3.5 million people looked at photos of Emirates’ First Class in mid-December thanks to Paris Hilton. Paris has made a habit of documenting her travels via Instagram , posing in her First Class seats when she flies commercial or next to the plane when flying private. Jetting through Miami, Dubai, India, and Los Angeles to play DJ gigs and make appearances in suppor t of her fashion and fragrance lines during the first half of December, Hilton alleviated her in-flight boredom by planning her next photo op. Five times over the course of these travels she posted Instagram photos of herself enjoying the comfor t of Emirates’ First Class, and she is quickly becoming a champion for the airline, whether official or not. These images (one , two , three , four ) and one video were immediately JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
shared with her legion of followers, and average over 40,000 “likes” each. Considering a single tweet of hers praising the airline in 2009 (to only 200,000 followers at the time) was valued at USD1.5 million by brand specialists five years ago, we shudder to think of a possible valuation for her recent Instagrams. Following the initial glowing tweet—”this Airline is amazing” with a photo of the Emirates logo—in 2009, Dubai-based publication ArabianBusiness actually contacted Emirates for comment and to see if this was an official endorsement. The response was that the airline was happy Hilton liked their product, but they “did not have a business relationship with Hilton nor had [Emirates] paid her any endorsement fee.”
Content marketing is one of the major trends in digital media these days and an interesting initiative in this domain was launched by Singapore Airlines recently in order to promote destinations that can be reached via its Singapore Changi hub. The airline targeted Australian ‘millennials’ with a combination of travel, the internet and story telling in a tie up with Australian youth publisher Sound Alliance . SIA’s ‘The Storytellers’ star ted in midSeptember by inviting budding writers to submit in 250 words or less on why they should be selected. The competition received 760 entries in two weeks which were narrowed down to f inal four Story tellers who were f lown to respectively Kochi (India), Yangon (Burma), Shanghai and Istanbul after a stop-over in Singapore and briefed with one mission: To f ind and document the most interesting
story they could f ind. With constant social and video updates from the travellers throughout their journey, all content was hosted on a dedicated ‘The Storytellers’ hub within the website of Sound Alliance’s popculture brand Junkee . The Story tellers could use words, video, photos or all of the above, and, once back in Australia, worked with Junkee’s editorial team to produce interesting stories which are beautifully illustrated. Examples here (Kochi), here (Yangon) and here (Shanghai). Junkee readers could also vote for their favourite ‘story teller’ to go into a draw to win a trip to the featured destination. The f inal winner received AUD4,000, and the oppor tunity to become a Junkee contributor.
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takeoff mode
#flightetiquette
ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS
Now mobile devices are cleared for use during all phases of flight, All Nippon Airways (ANA) has created an app named ‘Takeoff Mode’ which helps distract nervous fliers with a simple puzzle game accompanied by relaxing background music during take-off and landing. Currently available through the Apple store, a player tilts their iPhone or iPad to maneuver a ball over a grid, rolling over game pieces to add or lose extra points and time credits (video here ). There are multiple levels to the game, each more challenging, with por tions of the grid popping up to block the movement of the ball. While the game is being played, the app “listens” to the ambient noise in the cabin, and when the aircraft’s engines are at full throttle during takeoff, a special animation and message is displayed. JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
JETBLUE
ANA developed the app after commissioning a 1,000 person survey, investigating passengers’ feelings about airline travel. The survey found that the most anxious flyers find takeoff to be the most stress-inducing par t of the journey. Interestingly, passengers ranked puzzle games second only to listening to music as their preferred way to relax during a flight.
Whether it’s kicking the seat in front or listening to music in headphones that’s audible from several rows back, poorly behaved passengers are an all-too-common occurrence in the air.
With changes in rules now allowing the use of personal electronic devices during all phases of flight, ANA saw the development of the app as a way to enhance passengers’ in-flight experience.
Snoring, slouching sleepers and the challenges of climbing over fellow passengers for a trip to the restroom are the first issues targeted in by JetBlue in a planned series of over-thetop videos posted on Facebook and Twitter to encourage passengers to think about their behavior and be more considerate of eachother.
In the first week after being introduced in early December, the app has had over 1,100 downloads. An Android version is expected to be available in early 2015.
JetBlue is looking to change that by teaching travellers better manners though a series of humorous video clips centered on the Twitter hashtag #FlightEtiquette .
the entire row of seats as a pillow than stay in their own seat. The second video - “How Not to Make an Exit” shows a window seat flyer who insists on consuming every available beverage and then disrupting surrounding passengers in a less-than-subtle way to make a quick bathroom escape. As JetBlue explains, “Flight Etiquette is not only entertaining and humorous, it also says to our customers that we get you. We understand that on a plane, you’re sometimes forced to rub elbows—literally—with people you don’t know, and a little etiquette goes a long way. We’ve all been there.” More clips in the Flight Etiquette series are planned throughout 2015.
The first video in the series - titled “How Not to Take a Nap” depicts a traveller that would rather use your shoulder, lap, or
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benchmark report
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seats for switzerland
tv, print, ooh
the idea
SWISS
Originally initiated in September 2013, ‘Seats for Switzerland’ invites Swiss residents to win one of 300 SWISS tickets to meet up again with faraway family or friends – relatives, schoolmates, young loves and more – by submitting a story about why they would like to do so. The most touching, emotional and exciting entries would win. Having proved immensely popular first time around, SWISS resumed the campaign in 2014 with the addition of a mobile film studio that toured the country stopping at 15 locations nationwide to enable people to record their ‘Seats for Switzerland’ story live onto video. “We’re The Airline of Switzerland,” explains SWISS Head of Marketing Bernhard Christen, “and being close to its population is hugely impor tant to us. ‘Seats for
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VIRGIN ATLANTIC
Switzerland’ gives us the chance to give something back to the Swiss people.” SWISS received over 2,000 touching and emotional personal stories and were assessed by a judging panel consisting of Swiss novelist Joël Dicker, SWISS CCO Markus Binker t and Maître de Cabine Anja Gilgen to find those with the best and most moving reasons for the reunions desired. Three winning stories were also selected based on 30,000 votes from SWISS’ fans on Facebook. The submitters of the six best ‘Seats for Switzerland’ stories also had a film team on hand to document their reunions. The resulting shor t films can be viewed on the microsite, seatsforswitzerland.com while highlights also have been uploaded on YouTube and have been shown on Swiss TV and in selected cinemas.
Ad agency Adam & Eve/DDB’s first TV ad for Virgin Atlantic since winning the airline’s creative account in August challenges customers to pursue their goals and “let it fly”. The spot – which is called ‘The Idea’ – first aired in the UK in early January and will run in 30, 60 and 80-second edits. The fast-paced ad opens on a man coming up with a business idea and then shows him travelling with Virgin Atlantic on a trip to pitch his brainwave. Throughout the spot, a voiceover talks about how ““Life doesn’t come to you, so go to it and let it fly.” The ad is backed by an instrumental version of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus. Replacing the airline’s ‘Flying In The Face of Ordinary’ advertising campaign, this advert is much more of a direct sell, driving the product, rather than the ethos of the airline. Showcased in just a fraction of the commercial, is the
Upper Class Wing, with chauffeur check-in, Heathrow Clubhouse, 787 Upper Class bar and the new Upper Class Suite. Hamish Rickman, the head of brand engagement at Virgin Atlantic, said: “Virgin Atlantic naturally attracts customers who are passionate about seeking new experiences and this campaign throws down the gauntlet to them to turn their ideas and dreams into reality. We’ll always be a challenger brand but for this campaign, instead of challenging the competition, we are challenging ourselves and the customer to ‘let it fly’.” In addition to the TV ad, the “let it fly” campaign also includes print, digital, outdoor and social media executions.
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norwegian red cab NORWEGIAN
The effectiveness of outdoor adver tising is often a result of its originality. lowcost carrier Norwegian, for example, has built a reputation when it comes to launching innovative campaigns such as the ‘Internet Sun Generator’ (video ) and ‘The Rain Gauge Board’ (video ) to persuade Scandinavians to book a flight to a southern, more sunny, destination in Europe. Taking a cue from KLM’s recent ‘Live High Fives’ campaign (featured in the October 2014 repor t) – which saw KLM enable hundreds of Amsterdammers and New Yorkers to exchange high-fives via live video kiosks placed on the streets across both cities – Norwegian in December created an interactive billboard to help inspire people in Norway to travel with its Dreamliner to New York.
JANUARY 2015 ISSUE
The airline placed a billboard at a shopping mall in Oslo that featured a live feed from a New York City cab that was outfitted with a 360 degrees camera. The passenger in the cab also had a live feed from a camera integrated in the billboard. People who took par t could choose where to go and control the 360 degree live stream camera on the roof of the car, while the driver gave them stories, information and funny anecdotes about the city. As Norwegian put it: “To create awareness around our direct long-haul connection from Oslo to New York, we decided to give shopping mall visitors in Oslo a unique experience by connecting them live with a special Norwegian Red Cab in New York in real-time.” Video of the campaign here .
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about us.
Pricing SimpliFlying is a global consultancy that believes in thinking differently about aviation marketing. Having worked with over 50 airlines and airports around the world, it has presences in Singapore, UK, Spain, Canada and India. Today, SimpliFlying advises airlines and airports on customer engagement strategy, achieving aviation business goals by harnessing the latest innovations in the social media space. The firm also conducts MasterClasses to train and develop airline and airport teams to become self-sufficient in executing measurable and rewarding social campaigns.
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SimpliFlying’s growing list of clients includes Lufthansa, Emirates, Toronto Pearson Airpor t, Halifax International, KLIA, Jet Airways, LAN Airlines, airBaltic, Airbus and Bombardier. Get in touch at engage@simpliflying. com or visit www.simpliflying.com.
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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