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airline marketing
#deltacupcontest
photobomb
DELTA
Delta is one of the most active airlines when it come to teaming up with well-known consumer brands in order to improve the passenger experience. In the past years, Delta has par tnered with Westin Hotels (branded pillows and blankets in Business Class) and Porsche (aircraft transfers at US hubs) and has been serving Starbucks coffee on cross-country flights in the U.S. and on its LA – SFO shuttle. Delta has now extended its par tnership with Starbucks to all flights worldwide, saying that “Seeing how well-received the Starbucks coffee was on transcontinental flights in par ticular, we wanted to extend that to the rest of the network.’’ To promote the new Starbucks service, Delta from Feb. 4 through Feb. 8 ran a social media-based contest on Instagram and Twitter asking travelers “If you could fly anywhere Delta flies and FEBRUARY 2015 ISSUE
AER LINGUS VS RYANAIR
enjoy Starbucks coffee along the way, where would you go?” Entrants were asked to write their desired destination on a coffee cup and upload a photo to Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #DeltaCupContest to enter. A winner was selected at random and received a ticket to anywhere Delta flies. Additionally, Delta has commissioned ar tists from around the world to create three larger-than-life ar t installations made solely out of Starbucks cups. The pieces feature famous landmarks and sites of global destinations where Delta and Starbucks “fly together”: London’s Big Ben , Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple and a carnival float in São Paulo . The cup sculptures are on display at Delta‘s New York JFK’s Terminal 4.
Ryanair and fellow Irish airline Ryanair have been engaged in a social media spat after Aer Lingus ‘photobombed’ one of Ryanair ads, which led Aer Lingus to take to Twitter to gloat over its unintended inclusion.
: “Even @AerLingus is talking about @ Ryanair” and, referring to the smiling man in the ad, wrote: “FYI, he’s smiling cos he saved a for tune & avoided another late @ AerLingus arrival!” (which received a mere 83 retweets and 83 favorites).
The argument commenced on the evening of 15 January after Aer Lingus clevery spotted one its aircraft in the background of a Ryanair ad, albeit with the Aer Lingus branding only apparent to the eagle-eyed.
The contretemps escalated after a Twitter user asked if the airlines hated one another. Aer Lingus graciously described the relationship as a “healthy rivalry” and asked its competitor to agree, but Ryanair was quick to set the record straight.
Aer Lingus tweeted : “Epic #photobomb… on Ryanair’s website! Even they know we’re Best for Business.” The tweet earned nearly 700 retweets and around 600 favorites.
Far less graciously, it tweeted : “We stopped being rival in the 90s @ AerLingus… We’d have to treble our fares & lose 81m customers to be your rival” (440 retweets and 375 favorites).
But Ryanair – the budget airline fronted by f iery chief executive Michael O’Leary – which has recently promised to take a less combative approach to business, retorted
Aer Lingus did not rise to Ryanair’s levels of invective, and responded: “Okay, nevermind.”
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