benchmark report
airline marketing
JULY 2015 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying | airlinetrends.com July 2OI5
Issue 34
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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experiential
ny-lon lounge bar
wingman
VIRGIN ATLANTIX & DELTA This July, Delta and Virgin Atlantic will celebrate their trans-Atlantic joint venture – which star ted in January 2014 –with the opening of NY-LON , a swanky lounge and bar at The O2 , London’s premier large-scale event and enter tainment venue. Delta and Virgin Atlantic are the official airline par tners of The O2. Trendy Manchester-based design agency, LOVE has imagined the modern 6,000 square foot space with clean lines, a midcentury flare and definitive aviation theme. The dramatic entrance features a desk reminiscent of a real airline lounge and depar ture/arrival board inspired signage. A large bar area, relaxed seating space and “secret rooms” will accommodate up to 400 guests at once. It will be managed by leading hospitality brand, Levy Restaurants UK, and visiting members of the airlines’
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JETBLUE frequent flyer programmes – Flying Club and Sky Miles – will benefit from a range perks. This isn’t the first time an airline has used a branded lounge outside of the airpor t environment to create an immersive experience. Emirates and Turkish Airlines are both prolific suppor ters of the soccer world and each have opened a lounge in the stadiums of respectively Chelsea FC and Borussia Dortmund . Delta is actually a pioneer of the outof-airpor t lounge tactic though, having opened the first of its various Delta Sky360° Club at New York’s Madison Square Garden back in October 2011.
In a bid to inject a bit of humanity back into the increasingly detached and automated world of commercial air transport, JetBlue set up a surprisingly interactive storefront display in New York City. Unsuspecting New Yorkers were drawn to a shop window by what looked like the hologram or video of a JetBlue crewmember inviting them to interact and learn more about the airline’s services. People could select service categories like inflight entertainment, legroom, snacks and more, and then the “hologram” crewmember would proceed to share more information about those services. All caught on hidden camera, the experience started getting much more interesting when the female crewmember began personalizing the interaction to the individuals. She did this by commenting on their clothing or other specific things that a digital recording could
never know, or answering their questions in real time. Before long customers were laughing and joking and even dancing with the digital image of the crewmember. Then, in a move the everyday New Yorkers were definitely not expecting, their new digital friend appeared in person before their eyes and offered them vouchers for travel with JetBlue, even giving some a big hug. The JetBlue “Wingman” interacted with more than 2,600 individuals over a weekend in New York, and leading advertising news sources like Adweek and Creativity Online published the story. Three YouTube videos resulting from the initiative (a full length video of about 2 minutes and two 30 second spots garnered well over 26,000 views in less than 20 days.
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live your american dream
soho pop up KLM For three days in June, New Yorkers walking along Mulberry Street in the city’s super-hip Soho district had a chance to “pop” into a KLM Pop-Up Shop for a multi-faceted Dutch experience. Working together with Dutch designer Hella Jongerius (who also oversaw the look and feel of KLM’s new World Business Class) the airline designed a popup experience infused with the very best of Dutch culture and airline-themed fun that was interactive on a multitude of levels. Dutch DJ’s spun records in one section, while KLM’s inflight treats were served up in another; and blue stationary bicycles (bikes are a massively popular way to get around the Dutch capital of Amsterdam) got people moving in a competition to win KLM Flying Blue points by pedaling the far thest in 60 seconds. There were Dutch waffle-
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VIRGIN ATLANTIC making workshops, live ar t demonstrations and also featured was a merchandise shop designed to promote the shop@KLM online store. Helping to spread the word about this limited time oppor tunity, KLM installed a photo booth linked to social networks in the shop. This encouraged visitors to snap a picture and share with friends. The airline also invited a number of locally–based travel writers and bloggers into the location for a sneak peek prior to public opening. In a pre-opening interview , Marnix Fruitema, senior vice-president, Nor th America Air France-KLM told APEX Media: “KLM Each activity we have planned is a key touchstone of Dutch culture and connected to the KLM brand.”
To raise awareness of the destinations Virgin Atlantic now flies to in the USA as part of its partnership with Delta, Virgin Atlantic created an experiential campaign which starred British illusionist Drummond MoneyCoutts (a.k.a. DMC). The airline brought Money-Coutts to London in a red Cadillac, accompanied by Virgin Atlantic cabin crew, for a special demonstration of the magician’s mind reading talent. Passersby were shown a list of US cities and asked to pick one, concentrate on their wishcity, and “transmit” the name of that city to the illusionist through ‘telepathy’. DMC then wrote the city he ‘heard’ on a boarding pass, the participant confirmed his or her choice, and contestants who did a good job of communicating their wishes through thought won a trip to their chosen city (full report here ).
“America is such a dream destination for many people and it was great fun to put a little magic into giving people fantastic trips and hope it inspires many others to try somewhere totally new in the USA!” said the illusionist of the event. Hamish Rickman, Head of Brand Engagement at Virgin Atlantic said: “Our joint venture with Delta Air lines gives us the opportunity to offer our customers flights to over 200 US cities. Working with DMC gave us a fun way to showcase all that America has to offer.” The YouTube video of the Virgin Atlantic campaign has garnered nearly 250,000 views since its debut this June.
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lufthansa in virtual reality
high on yoga @35000 feet
LUFTHANSA Lufthansa treated attendees at the ITB Travel Trade Show in Berlin to a vir tual flight on its B747-8 to San Francisco. The vir tual flight included a 360 degrees interactive tour of the cabin, featuring full cabin service, a seat companion, and a stop-over at San Francisco’s beaches for a view of the Golden Gate bridge. The airline released the video documenting the trade-show event on YouTube . Using an Oculus Rift DK2 headset and a Sony Move Motion controller, 2,000 attendees at the show experienced Lufthansa’s cabin product, in-flight services, and the beaches of San Francisco, while interacting with their surroundings. By adding the Move Motion controller to the Oculus experience, Lufthansa let visitors touch objects in the movie, adding salt to their in-flight meal with a vir tual salt shaker, lifting the glass to drink, fanning themselves JULY 2015 ISSUE
SPICEJET with a vir tual postcard of San Francisco on the beach. As a surprise, the same flight attendant who looked after them during the movie appeared in person to present vir tual flyers with a commemorative postcard which they could then mail to family and friends from the booth. The travel industry is catching on to the promotional potential of vir tual reality experiences. The immersive nature of this por table enter tainment pairs well with tourism, inspiring consumers to visit new destinations around the world through sights, sounds, and, in this case, even touch. After the success of the Lufthansa vir tual reality flight at Berlin’s ITB 2015, the airline says the technology is now being used at events worldwide.
Indian budget airline Spicejet marked International Yoga Day with a first-of-itskind, “High On Yoga @35,000 Feet” onboard yoga session, which got the attention of the world’s press and was documented on YouTube .
In addition to the in-flight Yoga event, several hundred Isha Foundation volunteers also performed a simple form of yoga, ‘Namaskar Mudra,’ at SpiceJet check-in counters and boarding gates at select airports. CDs and handouts were also distributed to customers.
Spicejet crew, with instructors of Isha Foundation, performed ‘Upa’ Yoga (a simple yet powerful style of yoga) in a routine designed specifically to be performed in-flight. Approximately 50 dedicated Isha instructors and specially trained SpiceJet crew members took passengers through a 10 minute Yoga session on-board select Spicejet flights that took longer than one and a half hours, across the airline’s network.
“SpiceJet is pleased to be the first airline in the world to demonstrate Yoga on board,” said Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet Ltd. “We are happy to be associated with the Prime Minister’s initiative in promoting Yoga in India. We are pleased to join hands with Isha foundation for this initiative aimed at our customers who are on the move.”
“The significance of yoga is that once you learn the practices, you do not need anyone’s help, a special place or any equipment. It can be done wherever you are,” said Sadhguru, Founder, Isha Foundation.
The airline in association with Isha Foundation intends to carry out such initiatives in future as well.
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social
the ownboard magazine
be there
TAM To celebrate the 35th anniversary of it’s Sao Paulo-Milan route, TAM Airlines recently wowed a f light full of passengers by using Facebook to learn more about them and creating a 100% personalized inf light magazine for each. By integrating Facebook Connect into the ticket purchasing process, TAM was able to access the likes, preferences, social activity and even the photos of their guests to create a completely unique “Ownboard Magazine” with customized content from front to back. When passengers boarded this special f light, they found a magazine in their seatback pocket that featured a cover showing their face and their f irst name in big, bold letters. Every single ar ticle, photo and adver t in the magazine was geared towards the passenger’s personal interests and life JULY 2015 ISSUE
EMIRATES experiences. For example, the inside of the front cover showed the passenger’s name turned into a colour, and one page showed a montage of interesting things that happened on the day they were born. The idea behind this initiative was to show passengers how much TAM cares about them and understands them. Fur thermore, TAM had previously observed that passengers spent only around 3% of their time onboard looking at the inf light magazine. Watching the YouTube video produced about the initiative (which has received more than 18,000 views since May 11), it is clear that passengers were quite happy with their Ownboard Magazines. In fact, 100% of the passengers from that f light took the magazine off the plane with them.
Emirates is in the process of positioning itself as a global lifestyle brand and has identif ied a new traveller prof ile which it calls ‘Globalistas’ and which it def ines as “a new generation of global consumers who are looking for new experiences across cultures.” Emirates’ new ‘Be There’ , marked with the hashtag #BeingThere on social media, is designed to appeal to this new ‘Globalista’ lifestyle. Emirates selected diverse employees, from a pool of 500 applicants hailing from over 130 nationalities, to serve as brand ambassadors. Each ‘Be There’ brand ambassador has specif ic travel interests which ‘Globalistas’ will relate to: some seek thrill, others culinary delights, one def ines herself as having “a passion for fashion,” and others seek various cultural experiences including ar ts and local traditions. The seven brand ambassadors will travel around the world over a six-
month period, with their adventures documented through their shares on social media and in shor t f ilms produced through a collaboration with the National Geographic Channel . “This campaign embodies what we stand for as a brand, and I am proud of our colleagues who have been chosen to represent Emirates as ‘Be There’ ambassadors,” says Boutros Boutros, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Marketing & Brand. “We hope the stories of their individual journeys will inspire even more people to see more of the world through travel.” Emirates introduced the ‘Globalista’ concept on YouTube , and features its ambassadors’ continuing stories on its YouTube channel . The airline has also established a ‘Be There’ Tumbler feed as a Yahoo! Travel lifestyle channel..
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premium help
paper plane
ETIHAD
KLM
Etihad Airways has launched the exclusive Etihad Premium Twitter account to engage with Gold and Platinum members of its Etihad Guest frequent flyer program.
Airways to create highly focused campaigns and build stronger relationships with its premium audience through meaningful conversations.”
Etihad Guest members must apply to follow the locked account by submitting a copy of their membership card, date of bir th, postcode, and Twitter handle to a dedicated email account which processes the request.
Some questions arose about whether a dedicated Twitter account would resonate and prove valuable to the airline’s high-tier customers, but one PR exper t told Gulf News : “As we move on in the vir tual world, more such exclusive platforms will be needed to have an engaging conversation with the customers,” Prem Ramchandran, managing director of White Water Public Relations in Dubai said, adding: It will be an education process. However, as [with] any social media platform, the success will be determined by the value that the Twitter channel will provide, and eventually how that benefits the members,” he said.
Approved VIPs will enjoy special offers and dedicated news content, tailored to their interests, along with 24-hour service in Arabic and English with a guaranteed reply time of 5 minutes. “The new channel aims to enhance the experience of our most valued guests by offering them a personalised service and delivering a range of unique benefits,” said Elizabeth Selby, Etihad Airways’ Head of Social Media. “It also allows Etihad JULY 2015 ISSUE
Since its launch at the end of May, the dedicated account has gained over 700 followers and sent nearly 700 tweets.
Following the launch of a fun new mobile game called JETS (covered in the June 2015 edition of this report), KLM has spearheaded a social media photo campaign calling on fans of the airline to download a paper airplane template, fold their own KLM paper plane and post a photo of it to social media using the hashtag #KLMpaperplane . The reward for KLM customers is the simple opportunity to have their image re-shared on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram by the world’s most influential airline on social media. By going to the KLM blog , participants can select from three paper plane templates; the Really-Easy-to-Fold Paper Plane, the Easy-to-Fold Paper Plane, or the Difficult-toFold Paper Plane. They can then download and print their chosen plane and watch a special KLM YouTube video tutorial for a demonstration of how to fold it. So far, the three tutorials have amassed 1,700 views together.
The final step is to simply take a creative photo of the KLM paper plane and upload to the social network of choice. This playful social media campaign is inspired by KLM’s new JETS mobile game, which puts players in the pilot seat of their very own KLM paper plane. They can select KLM destination cities from around the world and fly through them collecting blue KLM stamps, completing other missions and even challenging friends.
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#delightfulstories
#lundangtonewcastle
TURKISH AIRLINES Turkish Airlines has launched a new Delightful Stories campaign which aims to encourage people to achieve their dreams and inspire others to do the same. Through its Delightful Stories, the airline features stories of those who have pursued their passions and broadened their horizons on the storytelling microsite delightfulstories. com . Comments the airline on the campaign: “Delightful Stories is a project that aimed to trigger audience’s curiousity and instinct of following their dreams. We want to get a spark in their minds in to make them dream again (even about the impossible) and try hard to accompish. It can be love, climbing to Everest or building a handmade bridge on a wild river to let children go to school. Each story will hold a different emotion, and touch people’s lives in a par ticular way, inspiring them to run after their dreams.”
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MALAYSIA AIRLINES The first tale, “Staff Benda Bilili, a Dream Followed by Hear t,” features a group of Kinshasa musicians, some of whom suffer from disabilities caused by polio, yet pursued their passion for music ultimately performing on stage at Europe’s music festivals and around the world. The story of Staff Benda Bilili can be seen on YouTube (over 2 million views already) and on the microsite. The project will last one year and at the end of the project, a jury composed of the owners of the stories published on the website will choose a par ticipant who, just like them, chase her/his dreams but couldn’t yet achieve them. Turkish Airlines will make this par ticipant’s dream come true and her/ his story will be the last one of the project.
After tragic events and financial hardship, Malaysia Airlines has refocused the dialogue around its brand by sharing the touching story of two young Malaysians, separated by great distances and united in love.
frame the story, as a play on language which fittingly blends English with Malay. London is jokingly referred to as Lundang in Kelantanese, and Kota Bharu is the Malay translation of ‘Newcastle’.
Through an 8-minute ‘documercial’ YouTube video , which has enjoyed over 1.5 million views so far, Malaysia Airlines tells the story of the young couple—a UK-born Malaysian man who lives in London and a woman from Kota Bharu, Kelantan—as they carry on a longdistance love affair, until they decide where they should call home once they marry.
“We had the concept of ‘You’re Home Even When You’re Away’ and sent out a brief to a few production houses. We selected LOKALAB when they presented us with the storyline focused on this couple, who they happen to know through mutual friends,” Mohd Hisham Saleh, Head of Social Media & Innovations at Malaysia Airlines explains.
To make the love story more tantalising, the film ends with the open question of just how the two will resolve their separation and he suggestion that home is not a place on the map, but one in the heart.
The love story has been picked up by the international press , and the #lundangtonewcastle campaign was also picked up by the Malaysian Women’s Weekly, which has set up a contest on Instagram and Facebook for return tickets to London, on Malaysia Airlines, for a lucky winner and companion.
The airline uses the hashtag #lundangtonewcastle on social media to
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tv, print, ooh
reaching for the sky
emojis url NORWEGIAN By enlisting the help of social media influencers, knowing their audience and playing a little hard to get, Norwegian has managed to adver tise a new direct route between Copenhagen and Las Vegas in a unique way. “We know that young people aged 18 to 34 are incredibly complex to market to,” said Tina Fristrup, senior marketing project manager at Norwegian in a story about the promotion at adweek.com . “Therefore we decided to take advantage of the target audience’s way of using emojis as well as the linear feed on Instagram to hype the destination.” The airline created a simple visual image with a red background and a URL in bold across it. The URL in the image was no normal URL however, as it was made up of three emojis. Rather than sharing this image themselves, Norwegian par tnered JULY 2015 ISSUE
AMERICAN AIRLINES with eight social media celebrities in Norway who shared the image for them with a special emoji hashtag , creating a mystery and challenge to the millennial target group. Those who figured out the text characters represented by the three emojis (by the way, it is: ) and typed them in as a URL, became the first to discover the new Norwegian route. Norwegian says that the posts generated 4,171 likes and reached around 500,000 people. Just over 1,600 people deciphered the emoji code and visited the special website during the few days that it’s location was a mystery.
Hong Kong’s MTR (Mass Transit Railway) Central Station sees more than 200,000 commuters transiting through each day. It has four platforms on three levels, plus an underground passage connecting it to Hong Kong Station, which allows smooth transfers from the Island Line and Tsuen Wan Line to the Airpor t Express. In May, American Airlines teamed up with JCDecaux Transport and global leader in outdoor adver tising, to transform an elevator bank at MTR Central Station into a tunnel of American Airlines branded messaging (video ).
American and Latin connections and service offered by American Airlines. The prevailing colour of the American Airlines adver tising bank was sky blue. Repetitive use of imagery, mainly the airline’s signature American flag tailfin, made it impossible for Hong Kong commuters to miss the point with this campaign. At the same time, text in both English and Chinese lauded the perks of flying American Airlines to the Americas, such as onboard Wi-Fi, convenient schedules and direct aisle access in business class.
The campaign took advantage of every available space in the elevator bank, using a mix of large surface adver tising and more than 20 digital screens at eye-level to inform a choice demographic of Hong Kong business commuters about the Nor th
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creative print ads AIRASIA Just as Norwegian Air Shuttle differentiates itself in Europe, with clever ads pointing out flags of its destination contained within the Norwegian flag, a rain-gauge embedded in a bus-stop adver tisement as a gentle reminder to escape winter weather, and a print ad which found second life as Christmas wrapping paper , AirAsia has released three new unconventional print ads designed to be both eye-catching and memorable. Better On Weekdays | To entice passengers to travel during the weekdays, when Thailand’s tourism attractions are less crowded, AirAsia features scenic photos of popular destinations in a carefully crafted calendar frame . The weekends are crowded on either side while weekday blocks at the centre of the image reveal open views where travellers enjoy a pristine location. Air Asia launched the Better On Weekday print campaign through BBDO & Proximity Thailand. JULY 2015 ISSUE
Stop Dreaming | Is it an unmade bed or a view of the snowy peaks of Kathmandu? This Air Asia print ad , produced by Publicis Mojo, Brisbane, encourages Australians to get out and see the world, instead of just dreaming about it. Hidden Away Places | What first appears to be a printing error, or perhaps an ultraminimalist white page, is one of Air Asia’s most ingenious new print ads. On this blank canvas is the tag-line ‘Discover more hidden away places’ and hidden in the seams is a delicate panorama of a remote Asian coastline. Also produced by Publicis Mojo, this ad was placed among the colourful images of Get Lost magazine, making this AirAsia print ad even more enigmatic.
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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 Airport, 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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