benchmark report
airline marketing
Pacific’s iconic brushwing brand identity . Finally the world map fades away leaving only the destination points and connecting brush strokes on a white canvas. At the bottom left corner of the ar twork, the member’s name will appear, as well as the date of creation.
art map project CATHAY PACIFIC Cathay Pacific has launched a new Ar t Map project which has been described by the airline as an “innovative marriage of travel data and bespoke ar t”. In this creative and original customer appreciation campaign, the airline uses route data collected from the flights of Marco Polo Club members to create for them a bespoke bir thday gift: a beautiful visual representation of their year of journeys with Cathay Pacific and/or Cathay Dragon. Optimizing passenger data to truly personalize the travel journey and display intimate understanding of personal preference has long been a goal of airlines and other travel-related businesses. While the industry is getting better at knowing passengers, predicting behaviour and presenting well-tailored offers and services, many of these initiatives have fallen shor t on expectation.
FEB 2017 ISSUE
”Rather than send a mass-produced impersonal bir thday greeting, the company wanted to make a more meaningful connection with its members,” said Elaine Lee, manager of loyalty marketing at Cathay Pacific. “Ar tmap creates some real emotional value for our members. Each ar tmap is hosted on a mini-site, where members witness their piece painting itself before their eyes, elegantly illustrating their year of travel. If they choose, members can then print a hi-resolution copy of their bir thday ar twork for framing. But the Ar t Map is simple in execution (using only passenger route information, bir th date and email), non-intrusive, beautiful and touching. Most impor tantly though, this digital ar twork is easy to share on social media, through a selection of clickable icons.
On their bir thday, Marco Polo Club members are invited to visit a micro-site where they are greeted with a happy bir thday message and some information about the ar t they are about to witness. They then watch as their year of journeys are plotted onto a world map, then traced with brushstrokes that are inspired by contemporary Chinese ar t, and intentionally reminiscent of Cathay
Cathay Pacific worked closely with McCann Worldgroup , loyalty exper ts ICLP and Hong Kong artist Henry Chu on this campaign, which has been widely praised by marketing and creative branding publications such as Marketing Interactive , Creativity Online , Campaign Brief Asia and many more.
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