benchmark report
airline marketing
social
ultimate football fan competition
election hangover cure
QATAR AIRWAYS Few events can draw more viewers and cause more excitement than a match-up between two of the world’s top football clubs. Cleverly riding the hype surrounding the upcoming “Champions in Doha” match between FC Barcelona (one of the most successful football clubs in history) and AlAhli SC (one of the most followed clubs in the Middle East) scheduled for December 13th in Doha, Qatar Airways gave spor ty fans on social media the chance to win round trip airfare, accommodations and tickets to the match. To spread the word, Qatar Airways (the official airline of both teams) provided a link to the contest details through it’s official Twitter account and to Facebook, where it was watched almost two million times. Folks were asked to visit the link for more details on the promotion, watch a DEC 2016 ISSUE
AIR NEW ZEALAND shor t video, and check out the terms and conditions. Middle Eastern and African press outlets like Information Nigeria , and Albawaba Business also helped spread the word to football fans by sharing the story. The contest rules were very simple: make a video to show off your best freestyle footie skills, upload it somewhere online, share it with the hashtags #QatarAirways and/ or #QatarAirwaysCup, and finally submit name, age, city and country of residence, and a direct link to their video. In all, six grand prize winners were selected by a panel who judged entries on creativity and originality of submission. One of the six might also get to freestyle in front of a packed and roaring stadium on game day – no pressure!!
In the aftermath of the US Presidential election, which saw Donald Trump beat Hilary Clinton, New Zealand came up as a popular ‘escape’ for Americans unhappy with result. Air New Zealand reacted by producing a video entitled ‘election hangover cure.’ Rather than being originally produced content, the video ties together existing clips of the airline along with post election news headlines and social media screen grabs of Americans saying they want to leave for New Zealand. These are then interspersed with scenes from New Zealand, showing travellers what they could be doing to forget the result, from mountain biking to wine tasting. By using existing footage and screen grabs, Air New Zealand was able to act fast. This video was produced and published on Facebook less than 48 hours after the US polls closed .
It has subsequently gained over half a million video views on Facebook and over 4000 social media shares, which is almost cer tainly an excellent return on the airline’s original investment. In addition to being topical, the video itself ties into the airline’s brand ethos of being slightly cheeky but also friendly and accessible. It is ‘on brand’ and the sor t of thing you could naturally imagine Air New Zealand doing. As well as making a big impact on social media, Air New Zealand’s video gained extensive media coverage for example in the New Zealand Herald , News Talk New Zealand and Stuff . According to New Zealand’s immigration authority, more than 1500 Americans enquired about visas in the aftermath of the election, while there was a spike in Google searches on how to move to New Zealand .
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
