Virgin Australia - Sir Richard Branson's Innovation Challenge

Virgin Australia - Sir Richard Branson's Innovation Challenge

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 participation.

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 efforts.

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 covert Facebook followers to followers on LinkedIn, which is expected to gain traction after news of its acquisition by Microsoft .