Qantas - Australia Day

Qantas - Australia Day

Airlines are increasingly using Pop-Up installations and stunts as part of their marketing arsenal.

In this report alone we’ve got examples from SWISS and KLM, while Norwegian has in the past made extensive use of popups to promote new routes (for example, the airline’s ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ installation last year to highlight flights to Oakland).

The important thing of course is to make sure that any pop-up installation ties in with the brand, and that as a visual experience it is immediately obvious.

So while it made perfect sense for SWISS to create a pop-up snowball-game experience, it’s also natural for Qantas to have built a pop-up beach at London’s Heathrow Airport.

The ‘beach’ was built both to coincide with Australia Day on January 26th as well as to form part of the airport’s on-going 70th birthday celebration campaign . Qantas has been working with Heathrow since last year in the birthday campaign, with passengers submitting their favourite Heathrow memory for a chance to win one of 35 pairs of return flights to Sydney.

Travellers visiting the beach outside Terminal Three experienced a taste of Australia, including sweet treats and entertainment by a live acoustic band playing classics from INXS and Kylie Minogue.

Markus Svensson, regional general manager UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Qantas, said, “Australia Day is all about celebrating the best of Australia, no matter where you are in the world. When London to Perth flights launch next year, UK travellers will be able to experience Australia firsthand with our non-stop services. But today, Qantas and Heathrow are bringing the Aussie summer to them.”

In Australia itself, frequent fliers were able to take advantage of special Australia Day discounts at the airline’s ‘Qantas epiQure online wine store.

An interesting brand extension by Qantas, Qantas epiQure allows members of the airline’s loyalty programme to purchase wines served in first and business class and have them delivered to their homes in Australia.

Wine and food purchases on the website count towards frequent flyer points, while at the same time allowing Qantas to ‘own’ the concept of Australia as a wineproducing centre of excellence.