benchmark report
airline marketing
JUNE 2015 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com June 2OI5 Issue 33
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.
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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
istanbul – san francisco
the orange experience 2
TURKISH AIRLINES San Francisco is one of the most competitive long-haul markets in the world. Vying with the likes of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines knew it needed to do something truly different to promote it’s new Istanbul—SFO service, which commenced in mid-April. The airline went for a multi-pronged approach to stir up chatter and buzz in several different communities. First, it got the attention of plane-spotters and #avgeeks (a demographic notorously active on Twitter and other types of social media) by decking out a Boeing 777-300 in a new custom livery. Displaying colourful, symbolic frescas of Istanbul and San Francisco along opposite sides of the aircraft, it’s a flying billboard hard to miss. Next, a par tnership with creative content leader BuzzFeed helped marketing JUNE 2015 ISSUE
KLM X HEINEKEN Turkish Airlines get their message out to a more general (and arguably more millenial) audience via the web. One product of this effor t, a post called 15 Reasons San Francisco and Istanbul are Long-Lost Sister Cities received great traffic from readers on both ends of the route thanks to BuzFeed’s massive market penetration, as well as the highly visual and shareable nature of the post itself. The third piece of the campaign encouraged random people to experience Turkish Airlines’ world-wide destinations without their feet leaving the ground. Together with Turkish creative agency Efabrika, the airline developed a set of custom binoculars (the coin-operated kind you often find atop tall buildings or popular lookout points) and placed it on a street in the hear t of San Fancisco. During just four days more than 6,000 passers-by became lost in another world (video ) by gazing through the ‘magical’ peep-holes.
If one had to pick one day of the to party in Holland, the best day for that is undoubtedly ‘Kings Day’ on April 26th, which is a national holiday on which the entire populace of Holland flood the streets, decked out in orange, to celebrate the birthday of the king. Last year, KLM and Heineken partnered to surprise (video ) ten New Yorkers with a free trip to Amsterdam for the big party. This year, the two were at it again with a similar campaign. Just hours before the festivities were to begin in Amsterdam, lucky winners were randomly selected from bars and nightclubs in Oslo, Cape Town, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles. After learning and then loudly singing a Dutch folk song in public (to prove they had ‘the right stuff’) the still unsuspecting winners were told to grab a bag and a friend. They were then whisked away via KLM flights
to Amsterdam, where they were greeted like true celebrities. Followed throughout the day by a camera crew to capture every smile and surprise, the lucky international transplants toured the Dutch capital on bikes, tasted local foods and met plenty of fellow King’s Day revellers. Ending the day with bang, KLM and Heineken announced to the group that they were to float through the city’s canals, sharing a party-barge with international superstar DJ Hardwell. While Twitter and Instagram activity around the event were both great, nothing speaks more to the success of this campaign than the sheer number of clicks (nearly 1.5 million in less than 30 days) the YouTube video received.
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escape to the caribbean
stillness in motion
BRITISH AIRWAYS After a long and dreary winter, a pop upstyle British Airways campaign at London’s bustling Victoria Station got commuters into a sunnier mood while promoting the airline’s extensive Caribbean network with a fun experience and a chance to win a getaway. Par tnering with multiple tourism boards, Time Out London, and Secret Escapes, a sign-up service offering big discounts on luxury hotels and vacations – British Airways invited folks in transit to hit a big ‘escape’ button and leave the rat-race behind. Thank to a vir tual reality set up, par ticipants at Victoria Station could spend time exploring different sandy beaches and inviting resor ts in the Caribbean. To formally enter the “Escape to the Caribbean” contest, people had to generate a holiday postcard by selecting a photo from one of five destinations, explaining thier best JUNE 2015 ISSUE
DELTA reason for wanting to go, and a including a picture of themselves. They were then prompted to share this digital card, which doubled as their entry ballot for a chance to win a pair of tickets (‘behind the scenes’ video here ). The stunt at Victoria station was suppor ted with traditional press adver tising, poster site and digital display boards, all designed to draw attention to the competition and to encourage even more people to enter through Time Out’s competition web portal . Colm Lacy, BA Head of Commercial for Gatwick said: “We wanted to bring to life the variety of options we have for people wanting to escape to the Caribbean this year. With great Caribbean sale pricing and a targeted adver tising, par tnership and experiential campaign, we really hope people will be influenced to book their next Caribbean escape.”
Delta has aligned itself with TED Talks over the past few years, blending art with marketing . These innovative campaigns help the airline connect with creative, and entrepreneurial business travellers, and reflect Delta’s position as a forward looking brand, encouraging customers realise their dreams—both in the clouds and at sea level. This year, with its Stillness in Motion installation, a melding of interactive art installation and lounge (especially built for the TED Conference in Vancouver), Delta suggested participants could achieve more by standing still. The project was inspired by the work of TED speaker Pico Iyer, author of The Art of Stillness, and brought to life in conjunction with agency MKG , which specialises in experimental marketing.
As shown in Delta’s YouTube video a combination of mirrored walls, light effects, and immersive organic visuals were designed to soothe the senses. A quote on the wall by Pico Iyer set the theme: “In an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” Inside, a dynamic soundscape imbued a sense of calm. Within a prismatic cocoon of mirrors, a chair equipped with heart-rate sensors let participants control a light show with their heartbeat. This was recorded on a keepsake orb, which pulses to match the owner’s lowest heart rate. Later, a walk through Delta’s Productivity Lounge, featured business-oriented cabin features, like onboard Wi-Fi, in-seat power, and demos of the Delta app. Of approximately 800 influencers who participated in Stillness in Motion, 95% shared their experiences on Social Media . .
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inflight cinema
the escalator experiment
LOT AEarlier in May – to the delight of some for tunate cinema fans – LOT Polish Airlines transformed a movie theatre into a vir tual business class experience, promoting the perks of its premium product. As people filtered in to grab a seat for a newly-released comedy, they noticed there was something different about this movie theatre at Cinema City in Warsaw. The front row of seats (typically the most unattractive in a movie theatre) were made positively alluring. Fully equipped with the airline’s premium cabin comfor ts and amenities, each front row seat boasted a soft pillow, warm blanket and fresh blue headrest cover emblazoned with LOT’s logo and the words “Business Class”. As the lights went down in the theatre, moving projections replicated Boeing 787 Dreamliner windows and the sky beyond along the side walls of the theatre. On the large centre screen, a video shot inside JUNE 2015 ISSUE
SAS one of these aircraft helped moviegoers feel even more as though they were in the premium section of a LOT Dreamliner cabin. The same crew from the video then appeared in the theatre, serving an amuse bouche (with trolley and trays) from LOT’s Business Class menu to the first row. While those in the first row were experiencing the menu, the rest of the audience were invited to quickly take a picture and post it to the LOT’s Facebook page. The first three to do so were given Premium Economy tickets. In addition to getting good mileage on Instagram , a video made to capture the special experience had received more than 18,000 views and tons of shares by LOT’s strong Facebook following.
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has taken an experiental approach (both in real-life as well as digitally) in communicating its new A330 cabin interior and the passenger experience it offers on the ground. Following the contrails of its Comfy Challenge sleep competition (featured in last month’s report), SAS has put passengers’ need for speed to the test with a social experiment carried out at Stockholm Arlanda airport. The airline rigged an escalator to move at a snail’s pace, leaving the one besides it to run at a faster pace, and recorded passengers’ choices and reactions—all to answer the question: do passengers choose a faster track? The Candid Camera-like comical results are shown in the airline’s YouTube video .
Salon de Mobile , and partnered with Google Streetview to let the general public experience its refreshed A330s in a digital way. Th 360-degree Google Streetview tour of the aircraft interior, lets visitors explore and focus on features which interest them most. High-resolution images let visitors get close enough to find USB outlets on seats and identify the colour of the earphones in economy—light blue. To enhance the engagement of this virtual-reality tour, SAS added map flags which visitors can click, to learn more about select features, and a clickto-book prompt. SAS complemented the digital initiative with a Google Streetview of its lounge at Copenhagen Airport.
In another experiential initiative, SAS took its new A330 seats on show to Milan, at the
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social
things only a canadian would know
#hemigram
BRITISH AIRWAYS Though cer tainly not as famous for it as their neighbors to the south, Canadians love their country and can be quite patriotic – especially when travelling abroad. British Airways is tapping into this sense of national pride with a new campaign aimed at building brand aff inity with young Canadian travelers, by recognizing Canada’s own cultural identity, its sense of humor and wanderlust of its millennial population. The campaign began with online and outdoor adver tising in large Canadian cities to raise awareness of deals for “Canadians only”. These preceded a set of quizzes (a massive trend right now in web content and adver tising), circulated mainly though social media and designed to ‘authenticate’ the par ticipant’s status as a real Canadian – thus making them eligible for things like free car rentals, hotels JUNE 2015 ISSUE
UNITED and connecting f lights in the UK from BA and par tners. This campaign is clever for several reasons. Canada is often viewed by the rest of the world as an appendix of the United States, but this BA activation really recognizes Canadians in their own right. Folk-style illustrations that def ine the campaign come from Toronto ar tist Jeannie Phan and the quizzes themselves are funny, making great use of terms heard only in Canada, like toque (a warm winter hat) and double-double (a coffee with two cream and two sugars). Caroline Titmuss, VP of marketing for the Americas at BA told Strategy Online: “We thought of how can we could do something that will stand out and perhaps be a little provocative, but still creates an aff inity by playing to something that is impor tant to this audience.”
Sometimes a simple plan is the best plan. Since January of this year, United Airlines’ Hemispheres inf light magazine has been setting aside a quarter page space just to feature self-snapped photos of passengers holding a copy of the publication. All passengers need to do for a chance at being featured is share an image of them with the magazine through social media, using the hastag #Hemigram. The more inspiring the image, the better. United (or more likely Ink Global, which publishes the monthly inf light magazine by contract) then picks a favorite snapshot to showcase in the nex t month’s issue. It’s quick, easy and fun. This simple and non-commital nature of this campaign is actually quite refreshing in an age when too-good sounding prize packages often mask over-zealous lead generation initiatives that demand our
email adresses and phone numbers and the maiden name of our Granny’s cat ;). Regardless of it’s simplicity, the initiative does cer tainly help get United’s name out there on social media. Another thing we like about it is that it also gives passengers an oppor tunity to be playful and promote what’s important to them . United and Ink Global recently produced a short video to showcase all the #Hemigram photos that they couldn’t put in the magazine. Maybe it’s time for more page space?
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destination playlists
digital
klm jets KLM Following the success of its first branded gaming campaign, Aviation Empire , which was downloaded more than 850,000 times and received many positive reviews, the airline has just released its second game, called Jets . Jets is a mission-based endless flyer mobile game in which players lead a paper plane safely through an obstacle-ridden cardboard world. Jets’ first levels are set in KLM’s Amsterdam home-base and lets players fly their paper plane through the old city centre, over its world-famous canals, while avoiding cars, trams and boats. Players must keep an eye out for quirky elements, such as functioning drawbridges, trams that ring their bells when players get too close, and rusty bikes about to fall in the canal. In single player mode, players can unlock new missions, collect items and set high JUNE 2015 ISSUE
VARIOUS AIRLINES scores. In the turn-based multiplayer mode, players challenge friends to join them in the mission. Winners can instantly share their victory on social media using the in-game social media challenge system. Applying the benefits of gaming to real life, KLM rewards players with the game’s currency – Wings – each time they book a ticket. When they show up at their gate on time they receive even more Wings, an innovative feature that is facilitated by Amsterdam Airpor t Schiphol’s beacon technology. Jets can be downloaded free of charge in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store . Paper-crafted versions of other famous cities will be added to the game later this year.
With its power to influence moods and help fix memories of our experiences in the mind for many years to come, several airlines and travel agents are tapping into the opportunities that streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer offer to connect with their audience. Travel agency First Choice (part of the TUI Group) has partnered with Spotify for a new ‘Summer of Music’ campaign, which lets fans assemble the perfect summer soundtrack to accompany their holiday adventures, using a customised playlist generator. Similar to the music streaming service’s own playlist creator, the First Choice Spotify Playlist Generator uses a bespoke formula to determine the perfect track for every stage of the holiday, from packing to poolside. Travellers can customise the playlist to match their music preferences by picking a genre, choosing a holiday activity, and then using the app’s sliders to adjust their soundtrack settings.
To increase engagement, which extends to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, First Choice had pop-star Alesha Dixon create a fancurated music video called ‘The Way We Are’ with three possible endings for fans to vote for, deciding which should make the final cut. Last year, British Airways also collaborated with Spotify on its ‘Music Travel Guide’ campaig. The airline released dedicated playlists for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Valletta (Malta), Naples and Edinburgh which included both trending songs in the destination and the music of local artists. Jetstar Asia, meanwhile, in 2014 offered custom playlists and a two-month Deezer subscription with access to Deezer’s #travelbeats service, which found the right tunes to complement the journey.
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behind the scenes
surfing safari
QANTAS X GO PRO On May 4th, GoPro and Qantas took viewers behind the scenes with a creative YouTube video (with 17,000 views on the Qantas channel) showing exactly what happens to our luggage after it’s been tagged and carried off by a luggage belt prior to our flight. Shot entirely with GoPro cameras and set to lively rock music, this clip follows a little red suitcase on its exciting journey through self-service tagging, airpor t drop off, a network of conveyor belts, a digital tracking process and more. The two-minute video is the first instalment the public can expect in a series of videos produced by GoPro and Qantas. It plays on the established success of GoPro’s other action-packed ‘Behind the Scenes’ videos showing the inner workings of spor ting events, movie sets, musical performances and more. JUNE 2015 ISSUE
AIR NEW ZEALAND “We often get requests to look behind the scenes at our airpor t terminals and on board our aircraft, and thanks to GoPro we’ve come up with a novel way of doing it,” said a spokesperson from Qantas. “We’ll be rolling out a series of videos using strategically-located GoPro cameras to focus on different par ts of the Qantas operation or the travel experience.” Qantas has promoted this first effor t on Facebook and Twitter. As of May 25, the video reached 99,000 Facebook followers and was viewed 31,000 times in that medium. Through Twitter , ‘Baggage Behind the Scenes’ reached more than 240,000 sets of eyes and was watched over 3,500 times. Upcoming GoPro initiatives for Qantas include: ‘How To: Turn Around An Aircraft’, ‘How To: Change A Tire On A Plane”, and ‘How To: Build A Business Class Lounge’.
Air New Zealand has once again made waves by complying with safety regulations in an imaginative and engaging way. The originator of infotainment safety videos and ‘reigning world champion’ in this developing art-form, launched a new Surfing Safari video , produced in collaboration with Sports Illustrated. This latest video features some of the world’s top surfers Anastasia Ashley, Alana Blanchard, Mick Fanning, Laird Hamilton, Paige Hareb, Gabriel Medina, and Masatoshi Ohno, in their native habitat at iconic surf destinations in Australia, California and New Zealand. To capture images of the safetyvideo’s stars riding the waves, Air New Zeland worked with GoPro to mount its HD cameras on surfboards. To celebrate its release, the airline launched a contest in which the big prize was a trip for two to Los Angeles, including a two hour surf
lesson on Malibu Beach with surfing legend— and star of Surfing Safari—Laird Hamilton. ANZ also used the safety video for destination marketing, and included a contest for a trip for two to Los Angeles, with a two hour surf lesson on Malibu Beach with surfing legend Laird Hamilton. Launched on May 13, Surfing Safari has been viewed over three million times so far. Previously, Sports Illustrated and Air New Zealand also collaborated on the ‘Safety in Paradise’ safety video, shot on the Cook Islands, which also promoted the destination with a ticket contest. This earlier video featured Sports Illustrated models and generated over 5.8 million views and some controversy before the airline opted to pull it, stating it had run its course (the unlisted video has had 900 thousand views on YouTube since).
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the internetest safety video DELTA Delta’s latest meta-move on enter tainment safety videos appeals to the ‘Meme Hacking’ trend, as identified in our ‘2013 State of Airline Marketing repor t’ (pdf) . An Internet meme is a concept that spreads from person to person via the internet. It can be anything from an image to a video to a hashtag. The popularity of Internet memes and their deep association with the ‘internet culture,’ makes them an effective marketing tool for airlines to create buzz around their brands.
Internet out there, and, as such, you might not be familiar with every character in our film. That’s why we’ve included the list below to help you figure out what’s what,” the video summary reads. Admitting the video was a “ton of fun,” Mauricio Parise, Delta’s director of worldwide marketing communication said: “These memes and cameos tap into the zeitgeist as the latest way of capturing our customers’ attention for our impor tant safety presentation.”
Delta’s video features 19 popular memes , like Charlie Bit My Finger, PBJ Time, Dramatic Chipmunk, and the Ice Bucket Challenge. For the uninformed, Delta also included a cheat-sheet of the memes on the video’s page.
Delta’s meme-stream video was released just as YouTube celebrates its 10th bir thday and began appearing on Delta aircraft on May 25. It managed to ratchet up 800,000 views on its first day alone—at last count, it’s had 7.8 million views.
“We see you’re on the Internet. That’s great, because we made a safety video starring the Internet. Now, there’s a lot of
Response was mixed , but the video has generated a great deal of buzz .
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tv, print, ooh
hello kitty bus
freezing ticket
EVA AIR Outdoor adver tising can be one of the best ways to promote a product or service, especially when it’s done in a creative or novel way. Pop-up shops and restaurants always catch the eye and other types of public installation, for example the giant Louis Vuitton trunk that appeared near the Kremlin in Moscow (2013) also garner plenty of attention. Livery ar t promotion is a great form of outdoor adver tising, utilizing an asset airlines already have. With its growing fleet of Hello Kitty-themed jets, and the tidal wave of publicity each one has garnered, Taiwan’s EVA Airways has proven it’s got the winning formula for successful integration of outdoor (exterior of buses, trams and planes), print (boarding passes), digital (themed website) and experiential marketing (interiors of planes).
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HK EXPRESS In 2012 and 2013, EVA Airways ‘Kitted’ a city bus and double-decker tram in Hong Kong to generate buzz about its Hello Kitty jets. Now Singapore is getting its very own Hello Kitty public bus as EVA Air readies for the introduction of regular Hello Kitty flights week between Taipei and Singapore.
Hong Kong’s first LCC, HK Express, got travellers all hot and bothered on 31 May 2015 with an uber-cool giant billboard (1.7m height x 6m width) built from blocks of ice containing ‘FREEzing tickets’ and other prizes—to help Hong Kong denizens escape from the stifling hot and humid weather of summer.
For additional social media buzz, the airline par tnered with Coca Cola’s FUZE TEA brand to hand out different flavours of the ‘thirst-quenching’ beverage to those par ticipants who took a photo at the event, and uploaded their pictures to Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #hkexpress.
Singapore’s themed bus is also a doubledecker with Hello Kitty inside and out. The outside is white and decorated with sticker decals showing Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters. Along the outer sides of the bus, one can observe images of the themed Boeing 777-300ER (called Shining Star ) that will operate the new daily flights as it prepares to land over the skyline of Singapore. The bus runs mainly on service 14, which takes riders from Bedok to Clementi.
HK Express invited contestants to sign up on its Facebook page for their chance to win more than HK$1 million (USD 129,000/EUR 117,000) in prizes, including round trip tickets the airline’s destinations, flight vouchers, and HK Express branded merchandise.
On a similar note, the airline’s Endurance Challenge last year also mixed a traditional adver tising platform—a bus stop in central Hong Kong—with an experiential element, encouraging passersby to interact with the adver t, for as long as possible, to win a return flight to one of the airline’s destinations .
During pre-assigned 7-minute rounds, 10 par ticipants were given tools at random to help them crack or melt the ice blocks and claim their prize, before time was up and the next round of par ticipants got to try their luck.
When torrents of rain threatened the contest, the resourceful airline created branded Cheap-Cheap Umbrellas to protect par ticipants.
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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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