benchmark report
airline marketing
world’s most valuable airline brand
experiential
comfy challenge
EMIRATES Each year, British brand evaluation consultancy Brand Finance releases its Global 500 report , which ranks the world’s most valuable brands by assessing the dollar value of a company’s reputation, image and intellectual property. With Apple (brand value of USD 128bn), Samsung (USD 81.7bn) and Google (USD 76.7bn) topping the global chart, 2015’s top 500 ranking includes seven airlines with Emirates as the most valuable airline brand worldwide for the fourth consecutive year. The airline finished 196th out of the 500 evaluated global brands (up from last year’s 234th spot) with a brand valued at USD 6.6 billion, a 21 percent increase on Emirates’ 2014 valuation of USD 5.48bn. Comments Emirates President Sir Tim Clark, “Emirates is a global company serving a global audience, and as we grow our business
MARCH/APRIL 2015 ISSUE
SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES we have to also grow our brand. Our brand strategy does not only involve marketing and sponsorships, but everything we do including product innovation and service delivery. Our aim is to become one of the world’s leading lifestyle brands, and to make the Emirates name synonymous with aspirational travel and experiences.” The other six airlines that have made it to the overall Global 500 ranking are Delta (#211 with a brand value of USD 6.3bn), United (#280, USD 4.9bn), Lufthansa (#353, USD 4.1bn), American Airlines (#422, USD 3.6bn), British Airways (#424, USD 3.6bn), and Southwest (#451, USD 3.5bn). BrandFinance has also made a ranking of the top 30 most valuable airline brands in the world (available here ).
To promote the introduction of its f irst refurbished A330 aircraft – which features a new Business Class cabin with ex tra wide seats, bedding from Hastens, and mood lighting – SAS invited a number of travellers on an international f light from Oslo Gardermoen to take par t in what it called the ‘Comfy Challenge’ sleep competition. The airline placed its new Business seat in the transit hall at the airpor t and the rules for par ticipants were simple: Lie on the bed, wear an eye mask, put in ear plugs, and fall asleep within 15 minutes. The person that fell asleep in the shor test time would win a trip to New York in SAS’ new Business Class.
who could see the different phases of sleep par ticipants went through. On the day of the competition, the airpor t was busy and there was a big crowd of bystanders. Some par ticipant fell asleep within 15 minutes after the cabin crew pulled the covers over them. The person to fall asleep the quickest was Wilhelm Blomberg from Helsinki, who was fast asleep in the new seat after just six minutes and two seconds (video here ). “We’ve received excellent feedback from our customers since we launched the new long haul cabin, and this was an informal and fun test to show how comfor table our new seats are,” says SAS Head of Marketing Marianne Orderud.
There was no possibility of cheating as the par ticipants were hooked up to electrodes that measured their brain activity and which was monitored by a sleep researcher
3
EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH