benchmark report
airline marketing
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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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
