Lufthansa-More Indian than you Think

LUFTHANSA - MORE INDIAN THAN YOU THINK

Three years ago Lufthansa launched an India-focused ad campaign under the strap-line ‘More Indian than you think.’

The ad, which was viewed almost two million times on YouTube, featured an Indian grandfather telling his grandson about the serious Germans and strange German food. They then both get on a Lufthansa plane where they are served Indian food, which prompts the grandson to exclaim that they must be on the wrong plane.

Lufthansa has kept the ‘More Indian than you think’ theme going over the past few years, which has included a microsite in English, as well as Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada and Telugu, promoting the airline to Indian long-haul travellers.

The latest incarnation of the campaign is a new ad, which draws on Indians’ love of cricket. According to Lufthansa it’s also a “light-hearted celebration of India’s growing influence in the world.”

The video shows an English cricket team being told by their coach that to beat the Indians they have to think like the Indians, before eating Indian food, doing yoga, and even trying Indian-style dancing.

The team then gets on board a Lufthansa flight to India where one of the players asks, ‘Coach, shouldn’t we also fly like Indians?’ after which they are greeted by Indian cabin crew, served Indian food and watch Bollywood movies on their seatback TVs.

Launched on March 24th, Lufthansa rolled out a series of teaser films on its India Facebook page, which included a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the filming, with short clips asking (e.g) why a cricket team was doing yoga.

In only a few days, Lufthansa’s cricket video notched up almost 300,000 views on Facebook and 27,000 likes or reactions - which were overwhelmingly positive.

Lufthansa isn’t the only European airline producing campaigns specifically for the Indian marketplace, British Airways has taken a similar approach, for example the ‘A ticket to visit mum’ campaign received worldwide acclaim when it was released several years ago.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

India is both a growing market and one where consumers have plenty of choice when wanting to fly longhaul. That includes their own carriers, the Gulf airlines and European brands such as Lufthansa.

As a result, Lufthansa’s strategy of creating something bespoke for the Indian marketplace makes sense. The use of humour gives the ads an extra edge, while ultimately the approach is paying off commercially. According to Lufthansa, previous ‘More Indian than you think’ campaigns caused bookings to increase by 13%.