benchmark report
airline marketing
experiential
air france last 747 flight
royal dutch 787 VR experience
AIR FRANCE
KLM
The iconic Boeing 747 Queen of the Skies is loved by many around the world. Air France connected with the aircraft’s loyal fanbase to give the last of its 747s a majestic send-off.
Anyone who couldn’t make it onboard could enjoy the experience online. Air France created a special microsite documenting 40 years of the 747 in Air France service through videos, photo stories.
When Air France announced it would retire its 747s, its switchboard was jammed with people trying to get onto the last flights, In fact, more than 30,000 tried to get tickets.
On YouTube, Air France created a 747 Playlist featuring interviews with Air France staff, crew, and passengers who shared their memories of the 747 over the years. Included in the playlist was a summary “747 Forever” video which covered the 40 years of history in under two minutes.
Air France responded to this wave of enthusiasm by laying on a series of extra farewell flights with a dedicated tour flight number AF747, to and from Paris Charles De Gaulle. On board the flight you were able to experience a unique package with Business class lunch and champagne service, inflight commentary of France’s history and legendary landmarks, and a tour of the 747 maintenance hangar - all for a set fare of 220 euros.
FEB 2016 ISSUE
Finally, on 27 January, an Air France 747 was accompanied by the ‘Patrouille de France’, the French Air Force Aerobatic Flight Display Team in a special flight, billed as ‘Two Jewels of French Aviation flying side by side over France. The video notched up over 70,000 views on YouTube and almost 100,000 on Facebook in the first week alone.
An increasing number of brands are incorporating virtual reality into marketing campaigns, and airlines are no exception. SAS was the first airline to give passengers a virtual tour of its new cabins using Google Street View on a dedicated microsite , while last year. Lufthansa offered passengers a virtual tour of its 747 cabins . KLM however is first to produce a virtual tour on the more accessible Google Cardboard viewer, reaching potentially a far wider audience. KLM did this by creating a VR video tour of its new 787 Dreamliner aircraft viewable on Android and iOS using Google Cardboard . According to KLM ‘Flight Innovator’ Jacob Post “The arrival of KLM’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner presents an ideal opportunity to experiment with virtual reality. This plane has
so many innovative features, so we went in search of a great way to put this across to the public. This led to the ‘Royal Dutch 787 VR Experience” KLM incorporated a gaming element to the virtual tour by challenging viewers to find various cabin features marked with tags. When the viewer hits the mark, the feature animates and the features found score updates. The Royal Dutch 787 VR experience got the thumbs up from airline rating site SeatGuru, among others: “We are not going to lie… virtual reality seat maps for a plane would be awesome! KLM looks like they have the right idea!” (For those without Google Cardboard, this KLM YouTube video illustrates the VR tour.)
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
