benchmark report
airline marketing
JULY 2016 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying July 2OI6
Issue 46
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.
JULY 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
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experiential
the invictus games
coffee university
VIRGIN ATLANTIC The Invictus Games , founded by Britain’s Prince Harry (himself a military man), is an annual spor ting event designed to suppor t rehabilitation and a wider understanding and respect for wounded, injured and sick Servicemen and women. The games and the stories of the athletes that par ticipate have garnered increasing notoriety since the inaugural event in 2014. As the official carrier for the UK team, Virgin Atlantic set about the task of ferrying the whole group and multitudes of carefully-packed, specialized equipment over to Orlando on a series of flights from various UK airpor ts. At a time when many airlines are under scrutiny for lack of PRM services (Passengers with Reduced Mobility), Virgin Atlantic saw the Invictus team transpor t operation as an oppor tunity to highlight its commitment to creating great flying experiences for CRMs at all times. JULY 2016 ISSUE
UNITED “We have dedicated teams who really want to assist our customers with disabilities – it’s a vocation rather than a job,” Gerladine Lundy, Virgin’s passenger accessibility manager told Runway Girl Network in a dedicated story . “… We can offer a bespoke service tailored to the individual. Also we’ve spent a lot of time in training relaying the message of what it feels like to travel when you have additional requirements.” Virgin made two touching videos about the effor t posted to YouTube on May 5th and May 12th . Both show just how carefully the airline planned these journeys and the care that went into every encounter. Repor ters were invited onto the tarmac to document the excitement of the farewells, by and this May 7th Facebook post Virgin Atlantic elicited over 200 reactions.
Like lost luggage and overly chatty seat mates, lousy inflight coffee has been a given among many frequent fliers. And though a handful of carriers have tried to perk up their caffeinated offerings by par tnering with high-end, gourmet coffee brands over the years, for the most par t the industry’s approach to inflight coffee seemed to echo the sentiments if worldrenowned coffee addict David Lynch who once said: “Even bad coffee is better than no coffee.” So when United’s merger with Continental heralded the end of United’s hugelysuccessful par tnership with premium coffee purveyor Starbucks, coffee aficionados the world over were understandably concerned. And though the coffee United offered in the interim was rumored to be almost worse than no coffee at all, the good news
for so-called “java junkies” is that United took action in the form of a clever “Coffee University” promotion with Italian coffee roasting powerhouse Illy. As par t of this campaign, United sent key management staff to Illy’s Coffee University at the legendary Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California to learn better tasting cup of coffee inflight. They also flew dozens of journalists to Illy headquar ters in Trieste, Italy in May for a chance to witness Illy coffee-making magic for themselves. This hands-on activation has cer tainly succeeded in brewing up some great PR. A number of popular aviation sites, like Harriet Baskas’s popular Stuck at the Airport blog and the award-winning Runway Girl Network , published stories about United’s deep-roasted partnership with Illy .
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social
alcatraz escape rooms
test drive canada
NORWEGIAN Fans of classic, prison escape movies like The Great Escape and Escape From Alcatraz will surely appreciate Norwegian Airlines’ latest innovative, outside-the-box promotional event at London’s Westfield Shopping Mall. Celebrating the carrier’s new non-stop service from London Gatwick to Oakland International Airpor t near San Francisco, Norwegian’s “Escape From Being Alcatrapped” experience consisted of an elaborate, Alcatraz-themed “escape room” complete with a fully decked-out prison cell and a stern-faced prison security guard who never broke character. Between June 24th and 26th, shoppers who were able to decipher and decode a selection of San Francisco-themed clues and break out of their cell in 15 minutes or less had their names placed in a draw to
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AIR CANADA win a round trip flight to the iconic “city by the bay” and free tickets to visit San Francisco’s historic Alcatraz island . Norwegian’s escape room also highlighted the joys of escaping the daily grind of big city life for the chance to explore the wonders of a more sunny and scenic place. Having proven itself to be a hit with crowds in London, Norwegian’s ingenious concept also generated loads of free publicity for the carrier online where it has been written up by everyone from mainstream travel blogs like TimeOut London to underground, escape room fanboy websites like Escape . And with the hashtag Roomer #Alcatrapped still generating some serious buzz on Twitter , we can expect to hear much more about Norwegian’s latest “break-out” hit in the weeks to come.
Ever since it began looking like Donald Trump would become the official Republican presidential candidate in the U.S., there has been a sharp uptick in American citizens searching terms like “How can I move to Canada?” on the internet. In a social media campaign from agency J. Walter Thompson , Air Canada plays on this and suggests that Americans “Test Drive Canada” by flying up for a weekend or holiday visit before deciding to stay for good. This cross-discipline campaign takes advantage of digital video and social media together in real time. Air Canada and its strategy par tners set up a film studio to look like an airline ticket desk with a large TV monitor behind it. They installed an actress to play the role of a customer service rep, and began shooting shor t and humorous video responses to real American
tweets about moving to Canada, as well as the “move to Canada” internet search trend in general. Then they circulated the videos using social media and the hashtag #TestDriveCanada. Some videos were filmed in direct response to user tweets or celebrity tweets, while some seemed designed to highlight lesserknown destinations like Prince Edward Island . Other videos, like this one posted to YouTube, were more general and meant to amuse everybody. Twitter users really went crazy for this campaign and the hashtag is still active. AdWeek selected the campaign as Ad of The Day on June 10th and that ar ticle was shared about 2500 times on social media. Canada’s largest news agency, CBC Business , also covered the story with that ar ticle being shared over 300 times.
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digital
iceland in the euros
how to cook like a local
WOW AIR / ICELANDAIR Icelandair and WOW Air have been harnessing the excitement of Iceland’s first par ticipation in the 2016 EURO Cup football tournament to heighten brand awareness though social media interaction with fans. The social activity kicked off well before the Euros, but when Iceland (a team whose coach is actually a dentist) upset England and eliminated them from the tournament, WOW Air reacted swiftly to that win on Twitter and soon afterward shared the team’s celebratory dance Facebook. Meanwhile the airline’s official “Snapchatter” that they had sent to explore Montreal was also watching the game live and — of course — sharing snaps . About a week later, right before Iceland faced France in the semi-final knockout game, Icelandair held a simple Facebook contest asking followers to share their Icelandic name by adding “sson” (for men) JULY 2016 ISSUE
HAWAIIAN AIRLINES or “sdóttir“ (for ladies) to their father‘s first name, for the chance to win an Iceland football jersey with their Icelandic name on the back. This Facebook post garnered over 3000 shares and about 30,000 comments. On Twitter, the same challenge registered 112 shares and 178 likes in about 24 hours.
They say the fastest path to the hear t is through the stomach, and with foodie travel being an ever growing sector, it makes sense for airlines to promote their brands by featuring in-flight dining, and promoting local food tourism. Hawaiian Airlines has taken this idea even one step fur ther, balancing between the need to eat and the desire to escape the kitchen and enjoy the surf on a beautiful island beach .
Then on June 3, the morning of the Iceland v. France quar ter final match, WOW Air (Iceland’s low-cost carrier) again displayed its social media agility using Snapchat to broadcast a rowdy flight full of Iceland football suppor ters flying to France for the game. On Twitter , the video saw 66 retweets and 98 likes and on Instagram it was watched by almost 8000 people in a single day.
Its new YouTube cooking series ‘How to Cook Like a Local’ consists of a series of shorts , each featuring the recipes of a local island chef. As par t of the video series, Hawaiian Airlines presents quick, easy to follow, homestyle recipes for traditional island dishes.
Read more about the difference between the two airline’s techniques at simplifying. com .
The videos run under a minute—most around 40 seconds—but all are long enough to convey the basic cooking
instructions and develop an appetite. Each video is also accompanied by a detailed recipe in the description which cooks can use for reference. The shor t clips follow the tried and true formula of all cooking shows, while reducing them to their essence, and keeping the production as simple as the dishes themselves. Hawaiian Airlines’ cooking shor ts also incorporate the new trend in mobile cooking apps and recipe sites which offer shor t instructional videos, designed for cooks preparing dishes while reviewing the recipe on a smar tphone or tablet. They’re easy. They’re tasty. They’re smar t. After all, no one has time to waste in the kitchen making dinner when there’s a perfectly good sunset to revel in on Maui!
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map my personality
360° cabin walk throughs
EVA AIR
HONG KONG AIRLINES Hong Kong Airlines has become the first airline to try a new immersive 360-degree mobile ad format , to promote its premium cabins. While other airlines have offered tours of their cabins and lounges, the new ad format, developed by Kiosked , delivers the same interactive experience to ad placements, without requiring viewers to click out to a different site. On mobile devices, visitors can view the ad, expand the image, and tilt the phone to explore the cabin and imagine themselves enjoying a premium flight experience . Ming Chan, General Manager, Brand Centre at Hong Kong Airlines said, “This innovation allows us to scale our campaign and deliver a stunning experience directly to the mobile screen of our desired audience.”
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Antony Yiu, head of digital at MEC, the global media agency behind the campaign, said, “Given the sheer volume of online ads audiences are exposed to, being able to deliver an engaging, interactive experience through the innovative 360° ad unit in addition to Facebook and YouTube is critical.”” The new ad format claims to be 35 times more effective than traditional display adver tising with a 4.51% click-through-rate (CTR) to the target site, and repor ts viewers spending nine times longer exploring the content than traditional display. According to initial reports , Hong Kong Airlines has recorded immediate direct bookings from the ads, with high engagement rates.
EVA Air has been running a unique digital campaign designed to better inform customers of its cabins, services, and route network, while gathering useful insights to its passengers’ traveller preferences. Developed with KRDS Digital Singapore, the month-long ‘Map My Personality’ project offered par ticipants the chance to win roundtrip tickets to Eva Air destinations. The top prize was a trip for two to Nor th America, and the airline also gave away two elite class tickets to Taipei every for tnight. Par ticipants answered a few quiz questions, then were directed to watch videos related to their personality test results; each video featured an element of the EVA Airways flying experience.
towards the big prize (infographic) . Those who encouraged friends on Social Media to take the quiz could earn even more points by answering a bonus question. “Through ‘Map My Personality’, Eva Air will be able to engage with its core online audience; to continuously understand both our business and leisure travellers’ lifestyle preferences and create experiences according to their changing needs, said Chia Sy Yuan, marketing supervisor, Eva Air. This was the airline’s first digital campaign of the year and was timed to compliment the launch of the airline’s new direct flights from Taipei to New York, star ting July 7 and to Chicago star ting on November 2.
Par ticipants could visit the site daily to answer more questions, earning points
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well packed
POP to india
CATHAY PACIFIC
POP
Many airlines around the world are looking to tap into a lucrative consumer demographic characterised by successful, mindful and driven young professionals who break with tradition to char t their own course through life and business.
mindful traveller. The content offered here is a mix of ar ticles and beautifully-captured videos; featuring Cathay Pacific branding or influence, highlighting real people and places, plus giving exper t tips on how to integrate wellness with world travel.
This group is sometimes referred to as the Creative Class or even Young Urban Creatives (Yuccies) They are highachievers who travel frequently for work, but never theless desire authenticity and wellness in each travel experience.
So far the hub features an introductory video , which follows three young entrepreneurs as they seek inspiration for their creative businesses while keeping fit in the Far East, interviews with the same characters, an ar ticle called “The Jet Lag Bible” and skincare advice from Cathay Pacific flight attendants.
Reaching out to this group, Cathay Pacific has par tnered with a digital magazine called Furthermore to create a content hub called Well-Packed . The WellPacked content hub is “presented by Cathay Pacific” and lives in its own subsection of the Fur thermore website, which is already popular with this target group. It is designed to guide and inspire the contemporary and JULY 2016 ISSUE
According to a press release announcing Well-Packed, more inspiring content will follow throughout the year, including the training regimens of Shaolin monks, an extreme travel guide and ‘bleisure’ (business meets leisure) trip itineraries.
UK-based star t-up airline People Over Profit (POP) is trying raise £8.9 million to operate flights to India. In a highly unor thodox marketing and fundraising tactic, the airline is making some exciting promises in a bid to attract up-front launch investment from Indian communities in a crowd-funding campaign.. POP executives told aviation news outlet Runway Girl Network that they aim to wet lease a twin-aisle aircraft and begin operating daily direct flights between London’s Stansted Airpor t and the Indian cities of Gujarat and Amritsar in the nor thern state of Punjab. There is currently no direct link between these airpor ts and the UK (which has a large Indian diaspora), so the airline thinks it can drum up plenty of suppor t from folks looking to visit dearly missed family and friends.
To help get the crowd-funding it needs to star t operations, POP made a brief television commercial of simple animation which touts the benefits of the membership-like “Gold Pass” , a crowdfunding offer providing exclusive benefits like a free return flight to India, meals, priority boarding, a free checked 23kg bag for five years and more. If 10,000 of these Gold Passes are purchased at £500 each, the airline says will begin service. The Gold Pass T.V. spot has been airing on Gujarati channel in India and Sikh Channel in Birmingham (5,000,000 viewers and 1,000,000 Facebook followers ). Another way the airline has been getting attention, as repor ted by Conde Nast Traveler and other outlets is its claim that it will donate 50% of any future profits to selection of UK and Indian charities .
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tv, print, ooh
the big takeoff
SpiceMax
EMIRATES
SPICEJET
After naming Jennifer Aniston its brand ambassador, Emirates has called on more U.S. star-power for its latest promotion. This time, Emirates par tnered with popular comedienne and television talk show host, Ellen DeGeneres, to encourage more Americans to get out and see the world.
Americans are notorious for not taking enough time off from work—41% of them never take any vacation. Leading on from the ‘Ellen’ promotion, Emirates launched the Big Take off with the aim of giving U.S. workaholics an incentive to spend some days away from the desk.
During The Ellen Show , two members of the audience were invited to take par t in a quiz, competing to win a luxury trip to Cape Town with a stopover in Dubai and $2,000 spending money. Emirates later revealed that every member of the audience (150 people) had won free roundtrip tickets to Dubai.
Two lucky winners of the Big Take Off’s official contest will get a five day luxury vacation in Dubai, including a stay at the One&Only The Palm resor t and a Dune Dinner Safari. Their colleagues will be treated to a very special day at the office cour tesy of Emirates, with chef-prepared meals, afterwork cocktails, and a special screening of a film from Emirates’ inflight enter tainment catalogue.
The video of Emirates’ promotion, posted by the Ellen DeGeneres show on Facebook , has had over 1.6 million views, received 41,000 likes, and was shared by nearly 18,000 people. On YouTube, the video has had over half-a-million views on The Ellen Show channel. JULY 2016 ISSUE
Emirates also ran a two-for-one sale of its destinations from major U.S. hubs in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Spice Jet India has launched its first ever TV campaign. In a series of four TV spots, the airline gets ‘close and personal’ with customers with each ad showing off a different unique selling point of its premium ‘SpiceMax’ offering. Conceived and created by ad agency Publicis Capital and Fingerprint films, the spots are directed by Karan Shetty. Using humour the spots show off situations where people will happily make compromises or put up with discomfor t, before linking back to the SpiceJet experience. For example, in one ad a man is squashed in an elevator with a bunch of beauty contestants with the voiceover, “sometimes it ’s ok to be cramped for space.”
The ad then shows the same man stretching his legs on a SpiceJet flight, with the voiceover explaining, “but never when you are flying” before running through the benefits you get with SpiceMax. According to Publicis Capital Creative Director Joy Mohanty “The life truth was that there are times when you willingly compromise and eat a cold meal, be cramped for space, and even stand in a queue. But you never need to compromise when you’re flying, thanks to SpiceJet.” SpiceJet was amongst the first low cost airlines in the region to offer hot meals for sale on board and the first to offer dedicated extra legroom seats in a specially configured cabin.
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meanwhile in new zealand
fronteras AEROMEXICO A new ad produced for Aeromexico by agency Ogilvy & Mather México, ‘Fronteras’ or Borders, takes a hard stand against bigotry, abuse, and discrimination while indirectly addressing Donald Trump’s antiimmigration threats. It’s a gritty commercial (video) , filmed mostly in black and white, and featuring a voice-over in Spanish which draws attention to the many borders people put up against those who are different. “Borders. Has anything good ever come of them?” The voice actor asks. “Separation? Limits? I’ve seen as many as mankind has been able to create.” After a review of conflicts between people which create literal or figurative fences, the ad shifts to full colour and focuses on the skies where an Aeromexico aircraft flies over a green landscape. JULY 2016 ISSUE
AIR NEW ZEALAND “Borders. On land they can maintain distances. But in the sky … we show you it’s different,” the voice actor says. The ad is a useful model for how to creatively dovetail political and social messaging, without becoming mired in rhetoric. The ad as been lauded by media publications like AdWeek and Creativity as well in its home market . It’s not the first bold ad move by Aeromexico. The airline has previously tackled stereotypes with its “We Prove It Different” campaign , also by Ogilvy and Mather Mexico, which we repor ted on in April.
Air New Zealand’s popular ‘Meanwhile in New Zealand’ campaign has returned with a tempting tasty treat enticing Australian neighbours to enjoy local flavours. The on-going series of ‘Meanwhile in New Zealand’ videos focus on attracting Australian holiday makers promoting features of the activities tourists can enjoy outdoors. For example, a clever retelling of the fable of “The Tor toise and the Hare” (video) features two very different mountain bikers, and breathtaking views of New Zealand’s natural beauty from mountain peaks. Meanwhile at Christmas, Air New Zealand — who had surprised a little boy recently returned with his family from Sydney to live in a remote town—with a visit from Santa (video) .
In the latest instalment, Christchurch ice cream makers George and Raewyn Taylor take their ar tisanal ice cream on the road to the New Zealand’s snowfields with a snow track machine carrying their signature ice cream van. In a two-minute video Air New Zealand features the couple making ice cream at home, for happy kiddies dressed in their winter gear. The custom snow-track ice cream truck will help carry ice cream to Mt Hutt, in time to serve visitors during Australia’s mid-year school holidays. Special ice creams flavours, sure to please the Australian palette, and fitting the Winter season , were developed in collaboration with Australian food maven Sian Redgrave . Air New Zealand says a follow-up video will reveal more of this flavourful adventure.
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the great origami adventurey QATAR AIRWAYS Qatar Airways went retro for its newest campaign, using paper planes to promote its A350 service to Singapore.
which likewise is encouraging visitors to build paper planes and enter the contest on-site.
The airline ran a centre spread adver tisement in Singapore’s ‘The Sunday Times’ with water-colour illustrations of international destinations it serves from Singapore and a 3-D origami cut-out of its new A350 plane for readers to assemble.
‘The Qatar Airways Great Origami Adventure’ drew over 1,000 entires, with two winners announced on June 26th— both of whom had picked London as their destination.
The ad promoted ‘The Qatar Airways Great Origami Adventure’ (video) which offered ‘The Sunday Times’ readers a chance to win tickets by building their 3-D origami plane, by snapping a picture of it against any item representing the city they wanted to visit and submitting that picture to a dedicated email address. The contest was also par t of Qatar Airways’ par tnership with Singapore’s indoor entertainment park, Kidzania JULY 2016 ISSUE
Ten par ticipants won runner-up prizes of four tickets to KidZania. The campaign, coordinated directly with SPH Marketing, gave the newspaper an oppor tunity to prove the unique creative potential of print ads to promote brands. As Elsie Chua, who heads SPH’s marketing division, said: “We wanted to show that newspaper ads can be an interactive medium, and that they can come to life and interact with readers too.”
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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.
JULY 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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