benchmark report
airline marketing
WOW air 24 hour surf challenge
passengers from hell SCOOT Airline passengers the world over can relate to that sinking feeling when you realise that you are going to be spending hours next to a so-called passenger from hell. Indeed with close to half a million followers, there is a whole Instagram account dedicated to ‘Passenger Shaming’ . Singaporebased low fares airline Scoot has built a whole campaign around this idea. Scoot’s ‘Passengers from Hell’ initiative was used to promote the fact that you can “max your space” by buying up to two empty seats next to you, thereby avoiding the prospect of spending hours in close proximity to a nightmare seat-mate. The campaign featured a video where unsuspecting travellers were subjected to the presence of characters ranging from “Bad B.O Bob” to “The Crying Baby”. The passengers were secretly filmed to see if they could get through twenty minutes without reaching their ‘boiling point’ where they get up and try and move seats. Scoot’s DEC 2016 ISSUE
WOW AIR own social media fans were invited to take par t by coming up with their own names for ‘passengers from hell’ , where travel vouchers were out for the best suggestions. Names submitted included ‘Fidgeting’ Bridget and ‘Snoozer’ Sid. Scoot’s campaign isn’t risk-free and it’s not something every airline could do. Arguably it actually draws attention to a lack of personal space on flights, and the fact that you might as a result be closer to someone you’d really rather not get to know so well. However this comes from the airline that recently produced a video showing off a “Velcro Suit 2000”, as a way to get around luggage restrictions . As a result, while promoting a real product, the video itself is fun and not to be taken too seriously. Indeed, a suggestion from one Facebook user that the passengers in the films are really paid actors, rather than bona fide members of the public simply elicited a winking smiley face from the airline in response .
According to the International Surfing Association there are over 20 million surfers worldwide . Over three million are located in the USA and over a third of those are in California . In addition to being a major surfing centre, California is also where Icelandic low fares airline WOW Air launched two new routes in 2016, connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco with Reykjavik and from there the UK and continental Europe . To promote its new California routes, WOW air teamed up with professional surfer Anastasia Ashley, giving her the challenge of surfing in both California and Iceland in 24 hours . A shor t three minute video shows Anastasia star ting off in Zuma Beach, Malibu, before heading over to LAX for her WOW Air flight to Iceland. She was then taken to Vik, the southernmost village in Iceland , where her guide remarked that
the weather conditions were some of the harshest that he’d seen. Despite all this, Anastasia completed the challenge with over 15 minutes to spare. This tactic really works for a number of reasons. First of all, as we’ve already said there is a clear link in the popular imagination between California and surfing. Secondly, the spor t has a ‘cool factor’ that reaches out to a far wider audience than the c.20 million who actively take par t. That audience in turn is largely affluent and young - exactly the kind of demographic WOW air is trying to attract. Finally, as a professional surfer Anastasia Ashley has credibility. And with over two million fans her own Facebook page (where she shared WOW air’s video) has a bigger reach than many mainstream media outlets. In addition to having been shared on Anastasia Ashley’s own social media feeds, the video has so far gained over 300k views on WOW air’s Facebook page and 30k views on its YouTube channel .
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EXPERIENTIAL SOCIAL DIGITAL TV, PRINT, OOH
