benchmark report
airline marketing
experiential
easyJet brings holland to london
mannequin challenge
EASYJET In a previous repor t we highlighted easyJet’s ‘Why Not’ marketing campaign. Conceived in par t as a response to Brexit, the campaign seeks to get travellers to embrace spontaneity and travel to Europe . One spin-off from this campaign involved a pop-up installation appearing in London’s Shoreditch district. Created as a collaboration between easyJet, Schiphol Airpor t and the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, the pop-up involved an aircraft door appearing in a building in place of a doorway . Once inside, Londoners were taken on an immersive tour of Holland with five actors leading the way. Experiences included the ‘canals of Holland’ on a barge, an ar t gallery tour and a bicycle tour. Obviously only a limited number of people were ever actually going to pass by the DEC 2016 ISSUE
VARIOUS easyJet installation in Shoreditch, which is why agency VCCP produced a 360 video to bing it to a wider audience. The installation received considerable media exposure in London, including coverage in Metro, a free newspaper ready by 700,000 London commuters every morning , the vast majority of who are under 45 and so are par t of what the airline calls ‘Generation easyJet.’ According to Ian Cairns, Head of Brand and Marketing Services “Generation easyJet are adventure-seekers and this bespoke, immersive activation totally reflects the fun, energy, exuberance and inclusivity of our brand. We, along with our par tners the Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions, wanted to bring something special to Londoners and show them firsthand what Holland has to offer to inspire them to travel” .
By now everyone has heard of the Mannequin Challenge. A little over a month ago it kicked off when a group of Florida teenagers filmed themselves standing still like statues and it spread from there on social media. Following that, everyone from Sprite to Hillary Clinton got involved , and needless to say airlines haven’t been immune to the trend either.
several are worth noting. Denver managed to showcase the whole airport from check-in to departures . Air Asia filmed its mannequin challenge at its corporate HQ, where even boss Tony Fernandes took part , while Singapore Airlines stands out for producing a film at Madame Tussauds Singapore - make sure to watch it all the way to the end .
Here is a selection of airlines that took part:
When a craze like this comes along the question is of course should you do this, especially when the amount of noise makes it difficult to get any cut-through. On balance the answer is: If you can, yes. It humanises you as a brand and shows you to be a ‘good sport’. It gets staff and passengers involved. It allows people to come across your video when doing general searches around the trend. It shows you are current and on the ball. You’ll get PR value from it, as journalists write articles on the trend. And if you can think of a way of doing it a little bit differently like Singapore Airlines did, so much the better!
Virgin Atlantic had a crew and passengers ‘frozen’ in mid flight, take a look at the ‘mile high’ couple emerging from the bathroom , Etihad used actual mannequins , while Emirates did their challenge around an A380 in a hangar, the video of which has been viewed 145,000 times . Ryanair turned passengers in a Dublin departure gate into mannequins , Scoot filmed a Qingdao to Singapore flight while Garuda got a whole business class cabin involved. A nice touch here was that passengers and crew were filmed before the challenge as well as during it . However among the many aviation industry efforts,
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH