benchmark report
airline marketing social
sir richard branson’s innovation challenge
books on board CONDOR Not sure what books to take with you on holiday? If you are flying with German leisure airline Condor , you can take a mini library! This is all thanks to a campaign that Condor has launched with the German book-sellers’ association called “Buch an Bord” (Books on Board) giving passengers an extra 1kg of luggage to take with them in the form of books . “Buch an Bord” in turn suppor ts a national initiative by German booksellers called “Vorsicht Buch” (Careful - Book) where the message is that a holiday simply isn’t a holiday without books. To get their free kilo of checked in luggage, passengers need to buy books from par ticipating retailers, who will then issue them with a special sticker to place on their suitcases and bags. German bookstores have been given window decals and point of sale material to promote the initiative. Social media fans who go to a dedicated “Vorsicht Buch” AUG 2016 ISSUE
VIRGIN AUSTRALIA Facebook page are also given the chance to win flights to Ibiza. Travel these days is commonly associated with people loading up their tablets or smar tphones with games, videos and e-books. This is a campaign that turns that on its head by asking travellers to rediscover the pleasure of reading via a physical book. By working with the German booksellers’ industry Condor both positions itself as an airline that fosters a social good and gets literally thousands of oppor tunities to see via individual retailers on the German High Street. According to Alexander Skipis, Managing Director of the German Booksellers and Publishers Association, “Each year more than seven million people travel with Condor to Asia, Africa, America and beautiful holiday destinations all over Europe. Your bookseller knows which books are the right fit for you and your holiday destination. It’s wor th it to take an extra kilo of books in your luggage.”
This month we observed Air Canada’s use of crowdfunding (see page seven) to help people buy more plane tickets. With his Innovation Challenge (on behalf of Virgin Australia) Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson is also “crowdfunding” in a sense – only he’s appealing to the masses for ideas to shape the future of air travel. On July 19th Virgin Australia posted to YouTube a 42-second video of Branson speaking directly to the camera. In the clip, he asks the public to share their thoughts on how air travel might change ten years from now, by simply writing them in the comments “below”. Sharp-eyed viewers hopefully read the description under the YouTube video stating that a proper contest entry (a $500 travel voucher was offered for the best comment) actually required comments to be made below the video embedded in the airline’s LinkedIn page . A Facebook
post by Virgin Australia similarly guided contestants to LinkedIn for par ticipation. By using several social networks to promote this contest, but guiding people to a single network for submission, Virgin Australia was able to reduce some of the complexity that can accompany broader social media effor ts. It’s interesting to note that although Virgin Australia has significant Twitter and Instagram followings, it didn’t use these platforms to promote the Innovation Challenge. This could be another simplicity tactic, or could indicate that the true aim of this campaign was to directly cover t Facebook followers to followers on LinkedIn, which is expected to gain traction after news of its acquisition by Microsoft .
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
