Westjet-#WestjetVegasSurprise

WESTJET - #WESTJETVEGASSURPRISE

Passengers checking into WestJet Flight 1118 from Toronto to Las Vegas on May 9th had no idea that in several hours they would be part of not one, but two, Guinness World Records.

As they started their evening descent into Las Vegas, the cabin crew announced to passengers that they were to look out the left hand side of the aircraft.

Doing so revealed a giant prize wheel, lit up with lights, so it was visible from the air. The wheel then spun, going through various seat numbers, before settling on 4A, with the winner being awarded a special Las Vegas prize that ranged from a $2,500 shopping spree at The Forum Shops at Caesars, to a two night stay at the Venetian Resort.

The whole stunt had been developed six months earlier when WestJet and marketing agency Rethink decided to create a giant installation in the Mojave desert as a way of celebrating the airline’s 21st anniversary.

By doing so, WestJet ended up breaking the world record for both the ‘greatest light output in a projected image’ as well as the one for the ‘largest circular projection. An adjucator from Guinness Book of World Records was present, to verify the activity.

The tactic itself was promoted in a number of different ways. In PR terms, the story made a number of Canadian newspapers such as the Edmonton Journal.

The post event video was posted on YouTube and Facebook, which at time of writing has generated over a million views.

Meanwhile there was a ‘behind the scenes’ video showing how the whole project came to fruition over the course of the six months.

The whole project clearly took up a lot of time and effort and though trade title Ad Week called it “an impressive bit of production” it also questioned “whether it was worth the time and energy for such a short payoff.”

However, this was very much in tune with previous marketing campaigns all of which have a common theme of surprising passengers with an unexpected prize, upgrade or activity.

For example, in 2015 Las Vegas comedian “Carrot Top” met WestJet passengers coming off a Toronto flight and asked them to choose either the red carpet or the blue carpet on arrival. Choosing the latter meant being taken to a special performance with Las Vegas entertainers and being given Las Vegas upgrades.

Similarly, WestJet has made a name for its annual “Christmas Miracle” campaigns. Last year’s Christmas Miracle saw airline staff put on a Christmas celebration for the residents of Fort McMurray, Alberta, who had to evacuate their home town in the Summer as a result of forest fires.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

As Ad Week implied, if you are going to be staging something as intricate as WestJet’s “Vegas Surprise”, you need to make sure you get the right amount of exposure from it. Both the Facebook and YouTube videos have generated an impressive number of views, and WestJet is starting to get additional press coverage from the activity.

However, the tactic will have sense to the casual viewer. WestJet’s 800k+ Facebook fans wouldn’t have been left wondering “why is the airline doing this?”, it had the same tone and flavour as previous projects. It also of course promoted a key destination for the airline with WestJet flying nearly one-third of all international passengers to McCarran International Airport.