benchmark report
airline marketing
OCT 2016 ISSUE
A monthly selection of the most innovative marketing campaigns launched by airlines around the world SimpliFlying Oct 2OI6
Issue 49
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.
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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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airline marketing
experiential
NYC fashion week
#AATeam
ETIHAD Etihad Airways is sponsoring Fashion Weeks around the world following the establishment of a par tnership with US talent agency William Morris Endeavour . As par t of this, the airline coordinated special events with world-famous shoe designer Jimmy Choo to celebrate the shoe designer’s 20th anniversary, during New York Fashion Week. Etihad suppor ted a VIP event hosted by international models associated with the designer at Skylight at Moynihan Station, with a special retrospective display of a selection of the designer’s pieces including the very first pair of Jimmy Choos. The with new shot
Jimmy Choo lounge was decorated imagery from the airline’s debut of couture cabin crew uniforms , as by photographer Norman Jean Roy.
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AMERICAN AIRLINES The airline also set up an Atelier at the main entrance of the lounge, where guests had their initials monogrammed on distinctive luggage tags. “Our aspiration is to become the airline of choice for the global fashion community, and our collaboration with Jimmy Choo serves as a natural extension of our fashion week alignment, par ticularly during New York Fashion Week,” says Patrick Pierce, Vice President of Sponsorships. The NYFW events extended to the big runway with an event at JFK International Airpor t at which model Amber Valletta unveiled a dedicated A380 with “NYFW: The Shows” livery . Etihad promoted New York Fashion Week events with the hashtag #RunwayToRunway .
American Airlines has debuted its first new uniforms in nearly 30 years, with the theme being the coming together of 70,000 American Airlines and former USAirways crew.
feed , which could be right out of the pages of a fashion magazine. American Airlines also put a collage of these fashion photos on its Facebook page and shared the videos there and on Twitter
Brady Byrnes, the company’s American director of global marketing, told USA Today : “It really shows us as one brand. And that was really the only thing that was still kind of lagging behind for customers— being able to see that come together. It’s a huge milestone for us.”
Finally, American released a new safety video which shows off the new uniforms alongside a new ‘making of’ video .
To promote the new image, the airline shared a ‘Behind the Scenes: American Airlines New Uniform Photo Shoot’ video on YouTube. Fitting with the fashion focus of the Photo Shoot, American also posted images of its new uniform collection on its Instagram
These various shares were unified on all channels with the #AATeam hashtag which the airline uses to mark messages about its people and the new unified brand. However, it is not all good news. At time of writing, American Airlines was facing a mini-PR crisis with some employees claiming that the new uniforms were causing them to have headaches and break out in hives , although American says it has received only 14 complaints out of 700,000 staff.
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roald dahl
#USAerLingus
NORWEGIAN To commemorate what would have been the beloved author’s 100th bir thday, Norwegian revealed new Roald Dahl ‘tail fin hero’ livery which recognises the writer’s lasting contributions to literature. The author now features on a Norwegian Boeing 737-800 plane. “Selecting our first ever British tail fin hero is not only a mark of our huge plans for UK expansion, it is also chance to recognise a truly heroic British figure. Roald Dahl has inspired generations of adults and children and as the world celebrates his centenary, it is a great honour to have this world-famous author adorn our aircraft,” says Thomas Ramdahl, Chief Commercial Officer. Norwegian has made “tail fin heroes” a distinctive element of its livery and its brand, and features a number of famous Scandinavian figures who influenced the ar ts and sciences, architecture, philosophy enter tainment and spor ts. The airline OCT 2016 ISSUE
AER LINGUS often ties-in the personality selected for commemoration with a dedicated route. Recently, the airline recognized Danish classical pianist and humorist Victor Borge who made a life for himself in New York and was extremely popular with American audiences. Borge features on the tail fin of one of Norwegian’s long-haul 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Roald Dahl--who was born in Cardiff and of Norwegian descent--is the first UK icon recognized by the airline, but not the first international author. Norwegian has also appealed to its Spanish market this year by dedicating a tail fin to Miguel de Cervantes who, though very much a symbol of all things Spanish, is also an international literary treasure. This year marks the 400th anniversary of his death with a number of special events in Spain celebrating his work.
Aer Lingus has tapped into two American classics to promote its flights between the UK and the U.S.: bagels and Marilyn Monroe. The airline placed food trucks painted with a New York skyline and the Statue of Liber ty in town centres at Manchester and Birmingham where it served fresh bagel sandwiches to visitors. Suzie Kennedy, an award-winning Marilyn Monroe look-alike, encouraged visitors to take a picture and share it on social media using the hashtag #USAerLingus for a chance to win tickets from the two cities to Aer Lingus destinations in the U.S.. The airline also shared a video of the events on YouTube. Food trucks are popular favorites and inspired by the philosophy that the fastest road to the hear t is through the stomach. Other airlines has likewise taken advantage of the Food Truck trend in the past:
Lufthansa’s LSG Sky Chefs showed off its regionally inspired menus served on Business and First class flights from the U.S. by touring six U.S. cities with a food truck and offering the public menu samples as par t of its #TasteofAmerica campaign (video) . Delta Air Lines offered New Yorkers winter weather favorites (hot chocolate and cookies) from its ‘Nonstop Hotstop’ food truck which promoted its non-stop flights from the city. Korean Air brought food trucks to Houston and shared samples of its signature in-flight meals to celebrate the launch of services from Houston to Seoul (video) . Finally, Air France delivered fine dining to New Yorkers on its ‘Gourmet Food Truck’ and won the praise of food writers at bon appétit .
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social
#CockpitKaraoke
casey neistat
AIR NEW ZEALAND If Air New Zealand (ANZ) has its way, TV host James Corden might just be taking his programme ‘The Late Late Show’ to dazzling new heights – 30,000 miles high, to be exact – very soon. Never one to shy away from a fun, cheeky promotion, the mad geniuses who put Hobbits, Spor ts Illustrated swimsuit models and mountain man Bear Grylls in their inflight safety videos recently challenged Corden to take wing with them for an inflight version of Carpool Karaoke they dubbed Cockpit Karaoke . Posting their video challenge on the Air New Zealand Facebook page , the official airline of Middle Ear th’s spot has already garnered a whopping 103,000 views and 1.4K likes. Playfully encouraging Corden to reach out to them on social media via Twitter, Snapchat and even a “message in a bottle” OCT 2016 ISSUE
EMIRATES if need be, Air New Zealand’s clip is already gaining a cult following online with the popular #cockpitkaraoke hashtag trending on Twitter and YouTube fans watching the video challenge almost 13K times since it went live just over a month ago. A reaction of sor ts to Corden’s comment (during a recent interview) that New Zealand was “a little bit boring,” the carrier’s suggestion that Corden join them inflight for a playful sing-along has been a PR boon to the airline.
Love him or hate him, self-described “brotastic” lifestyle vlogger Casey Neistat knows how to get people to watch his videos. And with upwards of 750K followers on Twitter, 1.6 million followers on Instagram and 4.9 million subscribers on YouTube, Emirates could not have picked a better social media booster for their luxurious First Class offerings than the crazy-enthusiastic Neistat.
Write ups about the campaign have appeared on such popular sites as the DailyMail.com , Traveller.com Australia and even AdWeek.com .
And though Neistat insists that he was not paid by Emirates to highlight the glories of their First Class cabin, the fact that Emirates bumped the YouTube superstar to First Class from Business on a recent flight from Dubai to New York has paid off handsomely for the carrier.
There’s been no word yet on whether Corden will take ANZ up on the offer, but with so many fans already “singing the carrier’s praises” online, it hardly matters.
Shooting video every step of the way during the flight, Neistat’s 9-minute YouTube clip just might be the best “ad” any airline never paid for.
Already viewed nearly 20 million times on YouTube alone, the clip features Neistat exploring every nook and cranny of the Emirates First Class suite, eating like a king from the customized menu, and even taking a five-minute shower in one of Emirate’s legendarily inflight bathrooms. Generating major buzz online over the past couple of weeks everywhere from the website for The Sun UK and AdWeek. com to popular, digital native news outlet, Quartz.com the clip is easily the best bang for the carrier’s buck in years. As far as brand awareness goes, the fact that Neistat’s video has instantly equated the Emirates name with world-class luxury for a generation of YouTube viewers, many of whom have probably never even heard of the carrier, is a win-win situation for all.
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iberia 70 years uniting spain and latin america
legend of safety
IBERIA Iberia celebrated the 70th anniversary of its launch of services to Latin America with a unique promotion offering tickets at auction in Pesetas. The bidding star ted at 7,250 pesetas (or 43 euros) which was the cost of a ticket between Madrid and Buenos Aires in 1946! Iberia took inspiration from its history to set a star ting price to various destinations in Latin America and Europe including México City, Milan, Miami, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Paris. Actual payment of the tickets was transacted in Euros. For the special promotion, the airline also decked-out its bidding site with a 1950s theme during the special promotion. Of course, in 1946 7,250 stretched much fur ther than 43 Euros do today. Iberia was the first airline to launch services between
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DELTA Europe and Latin America after the world war. Back in 1946, a trip across the Atlantic from Madrid-Barajas to Buenos Aires would take 36 hours and included several stop-overs. Passengers were weighed along with their luggage. The airline shared the story of these flights with followers of its blog (Spanish) . As par t of the 70th anniversary celebrations, Iberia also revealed a dedicated “Iberoamérica” A330 with commemorative livery, and promoted the various activities on social media with the hashtag #70AniversarioLATAMIberia .
Delta Air Lines has released a new safety video based on a video game interface and featuring avatars of many well-known athletes. The ‘Legend of Safety’ video , takes viewers through the required safety instructions as the players demonstrate the various safety procedures and tally points. Delta announced the new safety video on Twitter with the caption “Safety is not a game, but this new video is.” The airline has enjoyed success with its creative safety videos. The ‘Internetest Safety Video on the Internet’ went viral and had over 9 million views at last count . It has since (at time of writing) been pulled from the airline’s YouTube channel, as was a follow-up video. While we don’t yet know what drove Delta to make this decision, it bears asking
whether a video should be so focused on gaining internet fame that it risks obscuring the safety message . Perhaps that’s the point Delta makes with ‘Legend of Safety’. While it’s very energetic and heavy on visuals, the safety instructions are clear. Time will tell whether the video game effects will prove too much for Delta Studio viewers, but reception from some industry watchers has been positive . One thing is cer tain: Delta has in the past produced classics. “Deltalina”, the flight attendant who wags her finger at viewers has a loyal in a 2008 safety video fanbase. That video has over 3.6 million views and is still online. It is also engaging, but simple.
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tv, print, ooh
is [This] your city?
#GETOUTOFOFFICE
ICELANDAIR Icelandair has done a great job of promoting tourism to Iceland with its various stopover campaigns. But the airline has also found a clever and fun way to promote outbound tourism among Icelanders by inspiring them to travel with humorous mini-guides to help them find their ideal holiday destination on the airline’s network. Each video is entitled “Er [city] þín borg?” which roughly translates from Icelandic as “Is [this] your city?” The very shor t travel guides (around 40 seconds each) cover everything travellers might want to know when reviewing their travel prospects, as explained by locals: What’s there to see? What fun activities are available? What’s the food like? How do I say coffee? Fronted by different characters, the video series includes Kim’s scenic tour of “relaxed life in the city of Brussels” ; Vincent’s guide to “the greatest city on Ear th” OCT 2016 ISSUE
VIRGIN ATLANTIC Chicago ; Julie’s ultimate bicycle tour of Copenhagen ; Antto’s rough guide to design (and saunas) in Helsinki ; Bob’s tour of “the more amusing side of London” ; Michael’s guide to “the sweet life by the pool” in Orlando ; Coran’s ultimate food (and coffee) guide to the Big Apple (New York) ; and Suman’s guide to the architecture, culture and design of Toronto . This kind of informative lifestyle content mini-video series seems to be taking off with Hawaiian Airlines mini-cooking channel recently followed by a similar channel guide to the fine skills of Italian cooking by Alitalia and Copenhagen Airpor t’s make-up tips and travel-friendly fashion tips .
The out-of-office reply is something that anybody who has ever worked in a corporate office is sure to recognize, and that’s probably why Virgin Atlantic chose #GETOUTOFOFFICE as the title and associated hashtag for its latest television commercial . The 1.5 minute spot was made with the help of communications agency adam&eveDDB and made its debut September 5th… just as the school year began for students and most 9-5 workers said goodbye to the last days of summer holiday. The tongue-in-cheek commercial, which AdWeek.com called “hilariously deadpan”, reminds us that the workplace is no place to spend a holiday – and that work/life balance is critical. It does this by jokingly adver tising an office as a vacation destination (albeit a horrible one), while
also mimicking the style and format of an old British travel show called Wish you were here…? which aired on the UK’s ITV channel between 1974 and 2003. For this comedic spoof, Virgin Atlantic even managed to rope in the show’s original narrator Judith Chalmers, who regales viewers on the stunning views (roundabouts and brick walls), foodie delights (burnt coffee and vending machines) and fun activities (such as working late and falling asleep) that can be enjoyed during a holiday at the office. #GETOUTOFFICE ties in nicely with Virgin Atlantic’s recent “Let It Fly” campaign, and has been viewed nearly 900,000 times on YouTube and 24,000 times on Facebook. AdWeek.com repor ts that print, outdoor, digital and social campaigns stemming from this theme are soon to follow.
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#WannaGetAway
why not? EASYJET A new 40-second TV spot from the easyJet is encouraging British travellers to embrace a “Why Not?” attitude and explore Europe with courage. The commercial comes after a public admission form easyJet boss Dame Carolyn McCall’s that profits are down as Brits worry over a weak currency and possible new travel rules in the wake of Brexit. Peppered with symbolism and full of dazzling colours, the commercial rocks along to music from The Cult and features a young traveller taking the plunge into the unknown. After waterskiing down off an easyJet plane, our intrepid protagonist bursts through a wall of blossoms (which many will interpret as the perceived post-Brexit barrier between the UK and Europe) and into an easyJet hangar which transforms to a bizarre interpretation of Europe. ‘HangarEurope’ is filled with colourful tableaus and OCT 2016 ISSUE
SOUTHWEST choreographed oddity. Throughout the commercial, the star is star tled by things that look strange or frightening, but always discovers that it’s not so bad – enjoying herself in the end by throwing caution to the wind. The TV spot received more than 15,000 YouTube views .
They say that everything old is new again and Southwest’s latest ‘throwback’ adver tising campaign is making waves and getting laughs, just like it did back in 1998 when the airline’s first “Wanna get away” commercials made its debut on American TV sets.
Two weeks earlier, ‘Why Not?’ hit the Swiss streets with an experiential stunt that rewarded spontaneous travellers with free weekend getaways.
The original TV campaign ran for about ten years and featured dozens of 30 second adverts showing everyday people who found themselves in highly embarrassing situations. At the end of the video a voice would ask “Wanna get away? Now you can,” and a low Southwest fare was displayed on the screen. They were simple, funny and effective.
“With ‘Why not?’ we have a brand campaign which not only reminds and inspires people of the reasons why it’s great to travel, but it also underlines how easy and affordable it continues to be to fly with easyJet,” said easyJet’s Peter Duffy. TheDrum.com reports that the campaign will also run across print, social, experiential and digital OOH.
Southwest’s latest #WannaGetAway clip has nearly 24,000 YouTube views and is not even “listed”. It retains the classic formula of humility, comedy and the possibility of escape via affordable airfare. Times have changed though, so this time
#WannaGetAway is accompanied by a hashtag, a dedicated website and social media contest where five winners will get to experience the all-inclusive vacation of a lifetime on #WannaGetAway Island (not the island’s real name) in Belize. To enter this contest (held in association with HomeAway.com) people just need to tweet their most embarrassing moment with #WannaGetAway and #Contest by the 6th of October. Southwest apparently dusted off its old rolodex when planning this campaign, bringing back many of the creative minds and par tners involved in the first volume of ads. This write-up by AdWeek.com reveals the campaign also has a CBS Spor ts tie-in, with the network highlighting “Wanna Get Away Football Moments” from fans during the NFL season.
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KLM: it’s an airline
let the music move you
KLM Upon learning that many Americans questioned in a poll thought KLM was a type of milk or a radio station, marketing teams at Holland’s flagship carrier devised a simple, odd, yet undeniably brilliant way to tell the US population just what it really is. And thus, the “It’s an Airline” campaign was born. “We hit on a boldly unambitious idea that got us really excited: What if we just say it’s an airline?” explained John Limotte, CEO of Mustache, the creative agency KLM collaborated with. “We talked about reading dictionary definitions of airline terminology. And from there, it evolved into the idea of a spokesperson sharing information about an airline that really doesn’t require sharing.” “It’s an Airline” is the first in a series of four television commercials filmed for this campaign. OCT 2016 ISSUE
JET BLUE In the second adver t, “It’s a Flight Attendant” , the protagonist Marino talks about a lovely girl he met on a plane, who asked him what kind of wine he likes and didn’t seem phased by the fact that he “has a lot of baggage to deal with”. Funny ads numbers three and four are similarly titled “It’s a Flier” and “It’s an Airport” . The four ads have amassed roughly 295,000 views on KLM’s Youtube channel and the airline has also built a dedicated and interactive website for the campaign. Adver tising specialist publications like AdWeek.com and PRweek have repor ted on the campaign, which also features social media components and will repor tedly include some kind of Pop-Up activation in San Francisco.
Few airlines are as distinctively New York as NYC-based JetBlue. And now, thanks to a unique promotional par tnership with VH1’s Save the Music Foundation , JetBlue celebrated another only-in-New-York institution recently, the venerable street musician, or busker, with their very cool Let Music Move You campaign .
expenses for struggling musicians, the cost of air travel. Gifted to the buskers by JetBlue team members and young music students from NYC’s P.S. 48X – which is a VHI Save The Music grant recipient school – the hear tfelt spots have a very sweet, emotional pull that has made them wildly popular online.
Encouraging busy commuters to take off their headphones and actually listen to the music of these talented street musicians instead of just walking past them on the teaming sidewalks, subway platforms, and parks where they perform, the TV spots highlighted the talents of three of the city’s finest buskers as they got the surprise of their lives: the gift of travel.
Emphasizing JetBlue’s dedication to preserving the singular, soulful soundtrack of their hometown, as well as VH1’s Save The Music’s role in promoting music and music education, the spots have been written up on AdWeek.com and the global media marketing platform TheDrum.com and the very touching TV spot has already garnered more than 7,000 hits on YouTube alone.
Gifting the buskers with JetBlue flight vouchers good for one year of unlimited travel anywhere JetBlue flies, the campaign hoped to eliminate one of the largest
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here, there, everywhere MALAYSIA AIRLINES Recently new Malaysia Airlines CEO Peter Bellow claimed that the airline was about to undergo “aviation’s greatest turnaround.” Par t of that includes a more aggressive marketing push . In July, the airline ran a campaign targeted at members of its ‘Enrich’ frequent flyer programme called “Wo Ai Ni” , which offered 50% off flights to China. More recently however, Malaysia Airlines pushed out a two-day promotion aimed at everyone called “Here, There, Everywhere” on seats to selected destinations, including London, Hong Kong and Perth . The promotion is a fairly straight-forward and tried and tested tactic, namely a flash sale. This is used by airlines worldwide with
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notable examples being JetBlue Southwest Airlines and Norwegian
,
However often when star ting out again after a period of inactivity it is impor tant to get the basics right, and the very fact that Malaysia Airlines is running marketing campaigns is getting attention as a statement of intent. For example, Here, there and everywhere got significant amounts of media coverage in the Malaysian press including in the Malay Mail , The Star and The New Straits Times . What counts off course are the results, and the airline claims that its renewed marketing push is already seeing a significant 10-20x return on its investment .
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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.
OCT 2016 ISSUE
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