benchmark report
airline marketing
take off: why we go
trayvertising
DELTA Delta has tapped-in to the awe and wonder of aviation with its new ‘Take Off: Why We Go’ commercial from Wieden + Kennedy in New York. Voiced by actor Donald Sutherland, the video begins with an overhead shor t of the runway speeding by as a plane prepares for takeoff, and the phrase, ”What’s happening here is not normal… it’s extraordinary.” The video was mostly filmed with the camera pointed directly at the tarmac as runway stripes whizz by underneath. As the aircraft reaches greater speeds, Sutherland explains the highest aspirations of aviators, and highlights the courage of test pilots. At the very end, the camera swoops to reveal a breathtaking lavender, blue, and green horizon as the aircraft takes off; and concludes with Sutherland uttering the tag line: “Because there’s no stop in us,
OCT 2015 ISSUE
UNITED or you. Only go.” This tag line does doubleduty for the brand with the pun “there’s no stopping us.” AdWeek described it as “the most highconcept airline ad in a while,” saying it was “either quite inspiring or a bit dismaying, depending on your level of comfor t with airline ads that focus on the actual terrifying physics of giant machines hur tling along at great speeds.” On social media the video also touched the aviation community, professionals and #avgeeks alike. Business Traveller ranked it #1 in its most recent list of favourite airline adver ts.
Despite the costs and trouble to introduce wireless in-flight enter tainment (IFE) and/or in-flight connectivity (IFC) onboard, many airlines forget to make passengers aware of the availability of these services onboard, with most mentions tucked into seat pocket cards, lost between the in-flight magazine, duty-free, and in-flight menu. The fact that many passengers are simply unaware of the new service, is a lost oppor tunity for passenger satisfaction and revenue. Simple tactics such as tray table ads, notifications on napkins and seat covers can do the trick. For example, United is currently building awareness about its wireless IFE product using print ads on its tray tables. With more than 150 of its aircraft offering Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) enter tainment as the only IFE option available, the carrier has found that passengers who are aware
of the service rate the airline better in passenger satisfaction. The airline has also used the large space of the traytable ad as an oppor tunity to promote its destinations with panoramic images. On a similar note, Singapore long-haul LCC Scoot promotes its onboard Wi-Fi with specially printed headrest protectors . For those airlines which might want to use a more high-tech approach to promote the service to customers, SITA OnAir revealed plans at this year’s APEX EXPO to do so with a dedicated app and beacons , located at the airpor t and on the plane, which push messages offering connections to passengers’ mobile devices.
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
