benchmark report
airline marketing
MAR 2016 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying
March 2OI6
Issue 42
benchmark report
airline marketing
welcome. Published by 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.
MAR 2016 ISSUE
EXPERIENTIAL
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:
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.
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
stopover buddy
TED talks
ICELANDAIR International tourism has become one of Iceland’s main sources of revenue. That’s probably why Icelandair has often set the bar for best-practice marketing relations between a flagship carrier and national tourism authorities. The airline’s latest effor t to bolster tourism and passenger loads, the ‘Stopover Buddy’ campaign, has proven especially successful. The campaign promotes Icelandair’s policy of letting passengers stop and tour the island nation (for up to seven days) without restrictions, by offering stopover passengers a personal guide for one day. A Stopover Buddy could be a stewardess, bag handler, pilot, check-in desk worker or even the CEO himself, who takes passengers on a day out in Iceland for free. About 50 ‘Buddies’ have been recruited to provide authentic, guided experiences for travellers, who increasingly seek one-of-a-kind local MAR 2016 ISSUE
QANTAS AND DELTA experiences over big, busy attractions that appeal to the mass market. According to , Chief Executive Birkir Hólm Guðnason, the campaign will “remove” the stress of planning a stopover and show passengers a “truly unique experience”, which might include fishing, cooking, hiking, checking out the music scene and more. Marketing website thedrum.com repor ts that two agencies, The Brooklyn Brothers and Islenska, devised the campaign and will run it together across 11 markets. A series of videos have been produced to introduce the public to some of the ‘Buddies’. These videos have done exceptionally well on the airline’s Facebook page , where they have amassed more than two million views.
TED Talks (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design) are a series of engaging conference lectures by inspirational people. In recent years these talks have become wildly popular across the world; especially amongst inquisitive, educated and entrepreneurial people who seek to change the world through professional and personal development.
from Sydney to San Francisco with four TED speakers onboard. The speakers were a group of innovators who gave live presentations on the future of technology, science and design in the First Class cabin. The presentations were shared with passengers in other classes via the aircraft’s audio system, and the talks were also made available online after the flight.
Recent inflight events by both Qantas and Delta demonstrate that airlines have caught onto the power of TED Talks, and TEDx Talks (independently-organised under the TED brand). Now they are using creative partnerships with the conference brand to position their own brands as ones that support progress and innovation in design and technology.
Also on February 17, as part of a larger “Ideas in Flight”, a Delta flight departed Los Angeles and headed for Vancouver – with an esteemed group of TED-talkers in tow – for a sky-high brainstorming and networking session .
On February 17, in a project called “Ideas that Travel” a Qantas B747 took flight
Delta has been a partner of TED for several years now, and also participates in the conference on the ground by collaborating with the organizers on unique, interactive projects in the US each year.
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benchmark report
airline marketing
home advantage
#kalaniopuu
AER LINGUS
HAWAIIAN
Aer Lingus is drumming up national pride and gaining press exposure by springboarding off feelings of excitement around the annual Six Nations Rugby tournament.
Aer Lingus has created a micro-site dedicated to Irish Six Nations Rugby and the IRFU (Irish Rugby Football Union) par tnership.
As the official airline of the Irish Rugby team, the airline has painted two of its aircraft with a special Irish Rugby Livery (and re-named them #GreenSpirit) and has created the hashtag #HomeAdvantage, which it is asking fans to use across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in suppor t of the players.
The site prominently features a 90-second video called “#Home Advantage Wherever We Play”, which provides enough imagery of pumped-up fans and poetic words about “national pride” and “green spirit” to make anybody want to cheer for Ireland. The video has been an internet sensation. It has been viewed over 1.2 million times on Facebook and YouTube and has collected plenty of fan feedback in comments.
The idea of spreading the #HomeAdvantage hashtag is to make the Irish team feel that, because of their amazing fans, they always have the “home turf advantage” – whether playing at home or abroad. The hashtag also subconsciously encourages fans to travel to other countries (with Aer Lingus) in suppor t of the team.
MAR 2016 ISSUE
The three-year “official airline” deal with the IRFU will additionally see a player from each of the four Irish provinces act as Aer Lingus Brand Ambassadors, taking par t in various sponsorship activities.
Hawaiian Airlines has reinforced its commitment to the rich culture of the Hawaiian people by helping return cultural treasures lost for over 230 years after they were given to Captain Cook . Cook played a controversial role in history as a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. While he circumnavigated the world and made contact with the native peoples of the Pacific, he did not return the goodwill with which he was originally greeted. Instead, his actions ultimately led to his death and the deaths of many of his crew. Before that tragic end, the chief of Hawai‘i Island (the Big island), Kalani‘pu‘u gifted Cook with cultural treasures: the feathered cloak, Ahu ‘ula; and feathered helmet, mahiole, that he wore. The precious garments were housed in museums in England for years, but in 1912 they were gifted to the
Dominion Museum in New Zealand, where they remained in the national collection. After more than two centuries, through a collaboration with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Bishop Museum, Hawaiian Airlines will return the historical artefacts to their home in Hawai’i. They will be transported aboard a flight on March 13, which marks the third anniversary of the airline’s route between Auckland and Honolulu. Hawaiian Airlines shared a special video of Kalani‘pu‘u on Facebook. Hawaiian Airlines and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs used the hashtag #kalaniopuu to thread the story on Twitter , Vimeo , Instagram and Storify . For an airline known primarily for bringing North American holidaymakers to Hawaii’s beaches, this campaign shows that the airline’s commitment to its home goes beyond a simple name badging and branding exercise.
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benchmark report
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social
love is in the air
face of swiss SWISS SWISS celebrated the delivery of its first 777-300 with a special “Faces of SWISS” livery depicting over 2,500 of its employees from all around the world. The faces represent SWISS team members from all depar tments which, together, form the Swiss airlines team : crew, maintenance, ground staff, administrative, logistics, and management. To show that all employees are equally impor tant at SWISS, the size of each face was not tied to rank. The twelve larger faces painted on the livery were chosen at random, from among the worldwide team. The job of photographing all 2500 employees star ted in November and finished in early February, with the faces being placed on 450 sqm of 0.05mm thick foil, weighing 50kg to create the specially printed livery. The aircraft itself has been used for promotional purposes on longMAR 2016 ISSUE
VIRGIN ATLANTIC AND SCOOT haul routes. For example, when landing at New York’s JFK Airpor t for the first time, the airline organised an event where passengers were entertained by a traditional Swiss Alphorn performance. Over the past few years, a number of airlines have featured faces on liveries. For example, Norwegian has maintained a tradition of featuring the faces of prominent Scandinavians, who have left their mark in history, on its aircraft tails. Ryanair enjoyed a very enthusiastic response from fans to its 30th anniversary livery featuring faces of customers who par ticipated in a special competition. However, SWISS’s take on the genre is slightly different on representative livery, and more personal, because it focuses on the people who, every day, in ways both large and small, make the airline brand what it is.
Holidays are always a great excuse for airline marketing teams to get creative and show passengers their fun side. This February, both Virgin Atlantic and Singaporean lowcost carrier, Scoot, showed their fans some Valentine’s Day love – each in their own special way. In a social experiment, Virgin Atlantic sought to find true love stories that were inspired or helped-along by travel. Between February 12th and 14th, the airline asked social media fans on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter a series of questions, such as “Where did you meet your loved one?” and “Have you ever travelled long distances for love?” They then engaged with respondents who tweeted replies using the hashtag #loveisintheair, and even turned some of the best responses into memes. According to Virgin, the initiative was inspired by founder Sir Richard Branson,
who hired a plane after being bumped from a flight on the way to see his future – thus beginning the airline! wife Alternately, in an experiential Valentine’s day salute, Scoot Airlines opted to surprise a plane full of passengers with a musical delight and surprise photo-op. In the middle of a Melbourne to Singapore flight on February 14, cabin crew switched on bright rainbow cabin lights and began to play the song Lovefool by the Cardigans. Flight attendants then went around the plane with tons of fun love props and took photos of all the Valentine’s couples onboard. Scoot’s random inflight fun caught the attention of both masahble.com and the Daily Mail among others. Both Valentine’s Day projects show that you don’t need a huge budget to have fun with customers.
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dreamliner love
little jetstars JETSTAR AUSTRALIA
DREAMLINER Thomson Airways, par t of Thomson Holidays, is an airline truly happy with and dedicated to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It was the first UK airline to operate the aircraft, and has been flying it on long haul routes to holiday destinations since July 2013. By June 2016, the airline expects to be operating 13 of the aircraft in total. When Thomson learned it would take delivery of its eighth and ninth Dreamliners at the same time, and just in time for Valentines’s day, the airline decided to launch a naming contest of romantic propor tions. The naming contest was kept strictly to Facebook, and was a great success. On January 25th a cute animated video was uploaded to the Thomson Holidays Facebook page depicting two Dreamliners meeting and falling in love. Alongside the video, Thomson wrote: Do you and your par tner have a love story MAR 2016 ISSUE
wor th sharing? Tell us in the comments for below and use #DreamlinerLove the chance to have your surname on two of our newest 787 Dreamliners.
Jetstar and Little Athletics Australia have teamed up with Olympic athlete Melissa Breen to launch Australia’s a new “Little Jetstars” campaign and competition.
Nearly 800 comments were written in the weeks to follow, as couples all over the UK told their love story in the hopes of having the two jets officially named after them. As an added bonus, Thomson also promised a £1000 travel voucher to the happy winners, who turned out to Mr. and Mrs. Patmore of Kent.
The campaign is an extension of Jetstar’s existing partnership with “Little Athletics”, , which involves 100,000 young Australians. Little Athletics organises track and field events, aimed at encouraging children to develop skills they can apply to other sports, with specific activities designed to suit each child’s age and ability.
Overall, the video was viewed over 600,000 times and the original Facebook post was shared 158 times. Stories about the contest appeared on itv.com and in UK newspapers among others.
The campaign ties into Australians’ love for sports, highlights the airline’s role as a good corporate citizen, and targets the all important family audience. The campaign’s “Little Jetstars” name plays off the athletic group’s nationally recognized label. Breen found her passion for sports through “Little Athletics” activities.
“I’m proud to continue to be involved in Little Athletics Australia and support up and coming superstars,” she said to the media when launching the programme. “I can’t wait to meet the future famous faces in athletics and hit the track with the winning Little Jetstar.” The contest encourages those nominating candidates (parents, friends, or program volunteers) to upload a photo of their own “Little Jetstar” in action and describe how the junior athlete demonstrates dedication and great sportsmanship. The grand prize is a dedicated training session with a pro athlete and Jetstar is giving out monthly prizes of $200 in travel vouchers. Entries are open until March 31. To promote and coordinate the competition, Jetstar Australia set up a dedicated Facebook Page App .
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benchmark report
airline marketing
digital
fuelled by love
passport to asia
BRITISH AIRWAYS In a classic case of ar t imitating life, British Airways has based a new promotional video on the true-life story of a flight attendant who, on her very first working flight to India, befriended an elderly passenger on the plane. The six-minute shor t film begins with a young British Airways crew member who is nervous about her new role flying Indian routes for the carrier. She is concerned about the differences in culture, food and language. However, in helping a similarly anxious Indian lady on the plane, she quickly finds a friend in the country. At the end of the flight, the elderly Indian lady insists that Helena (the flight attendant) visit her home and meets her family. Helena eventually concedes and spends a special time with the woman’s family -- making friends, learning the culture and even getting an authentic Indian MAR 2016 ISSUE
CATHAY PACIFIC USA cooking lesson. In just 20 days, “Fuelled by Love” was viewed 1.5 million times on YouTube, proving that viewers are not necessarily tuned off by longer videos, provided the storyline is compelling. British Airways has similarly produced numerous online videos similar to Fuelled by Love (such as Wings to a Dream and A Ticket to Visit Mum ), aimed at winning the loyalty of familyoriented Indian customers and reminding everyone of the close ties between the UK and India. Consumer media across the world have repor ted on the remarkable online success of this hear t-warming video and the power of the story it tells. For example, the video was featured in the Wall Street Journal hindustantimes.com and campaignsoftheworld.com .
Cathay Pacific USA par tnered with travel community Passion Passport to send nine of its community members on a journey to explore Southeast Asia from 16 to 25 February 2016, with the aim of encouraging travel. The nine individuals selected have been sharing their adventures as they par ticipate in tailored workshops, excursions and cultural experiences with a unique “Passport to Asia” adventure. Par ticipants were selected through a competitive application process, and arrived in Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific flights from cities around the world, including New York, Sydney and London. They were joined by creative professionals and Instagram influencers Pei Ketron and Neil Shea who served as mentors and guides throughout the trip. The group spent five days exploring Hong Kong, familiarising themselves with the local
culture, and sharing creative inspiration at mentor-led workshops. They later broke up into smaller groups, and flew to Siem Reap, Yangon, Bangkok and Delhi with Cathay Pacific Airways and sister airline Dragonair. Each group was responsible for designing their own itinerary for each location, following their own interests to discover the unique cultural and natural facets of the place. They showcased the variety and textures of life in each community on the Passion Passport site . The campaign is ‘on brand’ and links in with Cathay’s prime “Life Well Travelled” campaign. It also connects the airline to build links with an active and influential travel community online. Cathay Pacific tied the campaign together on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with the hashtag #Passpor t to Asia.
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zero gravity video
big metal bird UNITED United’s new web series called Big Metal Bird is the centrepiece of a well-rounded digital campaign. The show itself is designed to be fun, smart and entertaining, while giving viewers an inside perspective on different areas of United’s massive global operations. Examples include how United chooses new routes, and a look at the airline’s catering operations. “Plane and Simple!” is the motto of Big Metall Bird, which is hosted by likeable American sports presenter Katie Nolan. Each episode is kept short and sweet while animations,, simple language, and comedy are used to keep the fun-button pressed at all times. When an episode is released, it is promoted across all United’s social channels with the hashtag #bigmetalbird. A microsite showcases the episodes. It is visually appealing, user friendly and literally crawling with opportunities for social media MAR 2016 ISSUE
S7 sharing. In addition to being a home for the show’s episodes, the site features other, shorter bits of video and online editorial content that support the main content of each show. The hashtag has done very well on Twitter , and though brand content can turn some consumers off, this show seems to be winning praise from the public. One skeptical Twitter user even commented on the quality of the show, despite his typical dislike of branded content. Even the seasoned airline critics on FlyerTalk. com seem to approve of the show, as evidenced by this thread. Each of the four current episodes have been viewed more than 100,000 times on Youtube, with episode two having been viewed over 600,000 times
Chicago-based band “OK Go” has built a reputation for quirky music videos which involve complicated stunts promoted online through YouTube. Their latest video “Upside Down and Inside Out” was far more complicated . The band teamed up with the Russian airline S7 to f ilm the video onboard one of their aircraft in a zero-gravity environment -- accompanied by S7 stewardesses, both trained acrobats. The video helped raise awareness of the S7 brand, with over 48 million viewers around the world watching the videos (at the time of this repor t). S7 was also mentioned ex tensively in press ar ticles about OK Go’s new video, for example in Dezeen , The Wall Street Journal , Rolling Stone , The Telegraph and Wired .
S7 included a full interview with the OK Go band in its in-f light magazine , and promoted the collaboration on social media on Facebook , Instagram and on its YouTube channel . Though OK Go launched their careers on YouTube, this latest video was released on Facebook f irst (as well as on the Russian social network vKontakte). This project was ideally suited to the S7 brand. The airline has a track record of unique campaigns. For example, S7 followed up its 2015 travel-inspiration ad “Imagine” by developing an “Imagination Machine” , which let par ticipants guide vir tual f lights around the globe with their mind.
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benchmark report
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tv, print, ooh
unimpossible missions
tell the world
GE A solid content marketing strategy is an excellent way to engage potential customers and shape general perception of a corporate brand. Video is one of the best ways to do this. Take General Electric (GE), for example. GE is, of course, not an airline, but it is a legacy organization suppor ting the aviation industry. Like many similar organisations, GE is keen to shake an “old school” image as a huge, inaccessible conglomerate. As a result, GE produced three exciting videos under the common tagline “Unimpossible Missions”. The videos depict GE scientists doing seemingly impossible things, like keeping a snowball frozen in 2000 degree temperatures , capturing lightning in a bottle and telling a story through the Berlin Wall . Aimed at a millennial audience, the clips MAR 2016 ISSUE
DELTA celebrate def iance of commonly held beliefs and the spirit of invention. At the same time, they provide glimpse into how GE scientists test the limits of science each day. According to a feature at adweek. com , the video series launched under the banner of GE Theater, in “a broad push by the company to deliver meaningful content that people actually want to read, listen to, watch and consume”. The videos naturally get prominence on GE’s social proper ties. They have garnered more than 500,000 YouTube views and GE execs also believe this type of content can be an impor tant tool for recruitment. An example of this strategy as employed by a carrier is the “Behind the Scenes” series of videos by American Airlines, showing how the airline does things like designing cabins and painting aircraft liveries.
Delta showcased a new TV ad during the Grammy Awards, of which it is a sponsor, which tries to connect with the soul and desire of the people who travel every day, in large ways and small. “Tell the World” star ts with the image of a jet engine. Set to the sound of the engine powering up, the 60-second spot flashes images quickly from rainy street scenes to explorers on a boat under drizzly skies to a skier on a snowy misty mountain top, to a white shark jumping out of the water. “There’s just one direction: forward. One time: now. And just one sound: you and us together…with a mighty roar that tells the world, ‘we’re coming for you.’,” says actor Donald Sutherland, who provided the voice over for the ad. The message is clear: life can be blurry, cold,
even scary, but victory belongs to the bold and Delta helps passengers realize their dreams . “Tell the World” celebrates life’s defining moments – when there’s no turning back, that moment on the cusp of something magical, that culminates a lifetime of preparation, that stays with you forever. The spot tells the story of how Delta enables these moments for customers around the world – in business, adventure or romance,” Tim Mapes, Delta’s Senior Vice President - Marketing, said of the ad at the time of its debut. “Tell the World” follows an ad introduced last year “Take Off: Why We Go” , also narrated by Donald Sutherland. The two combined clearly set up a dramatic theme which adapts itself to be continued in future brand campaigns.
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all i do is win SOUTHWEST Southwest Airlines puts a fresh spin on its ongoing Transfarency campaign by “dropping the mike” on hidden airline fees, in a new TV ad spot which calls attention to the over $37 million in checked bags and other fees the airline has saved Atlanta’s air travellers. The humorous and hip ad (video) debuted during the Grammy Awards and featured the DJ Khaled Song “All I do is Win” in its soundtrack. “It is super catchy and well done if you ask me. I even rewinded it to watch it again because the song and dancing was so enter taining,” The Weekly Flyer wrote on travel-site Boarding Area . “This adver tisement Rocks!! Its fun hip and speaks to the city! It caught me by surprise in a pleasant way. Way to GO!!!” said a commenter on YouTube. MAR 2016 ISSUE
While the video is fun, the message is serious. The savings the airline claims in the ad were compared to other airlines’ average fees as repor ted by U.S. Depar tment of Transpor tation data from July 2014 through June 2015. Southwest has differentiated its brand from competitors -- both legacy flagship carriers and ultra-low-sost airlines -- by pointing out its more advantageous baggage and fee policies through the Transfarency campaign. Transfarency was conceived by agency GSD&M who were also responsible for the “All I do is win” ad. Since the introduction of the Transfarency campaign in October of last year, the airline has actively used the #transfarency hashtag to tie-in promotions on social media both for customer communications on Twitter and to encourage brand loyalty with experiential sharing on Instagram .
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about us.
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.
MAR 2016 ISSUE
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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