Airline marketing benchmark Report July 2017 and Issue 58
The Dating Wall by Delta
How Ridiculous
by Turkish Airlines
Stand up to Cancer
by American Airlines
Welcome Published by aviation marketing strategy consulting firm SimpliFlying, the Airline Marketing Benchmark Report contains a wide range of airline marketing case studies each month, providing you with the latest and most innovative social, digital, experiential and traditional airline marketing campaigns recently launched by airlines around the world. Whether you’re looking for inspiration or are eager to help your airline move into the next stage of engagement, while also understanding how your airline marketing initiatives compare to campaigns from competitors in general, these repor ts are indispensable for airline professionals working in the field of marketing and corporate communications. The monthly reports also help agencies that work with airlines stay on top of the latest innovative airline marketing initiatives. For any questions about the report, please contact Dirk Singer at dirk@simpliflying.com.
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Inside This issue features: 1. Air Asia, El Al, Nok Air Britney Spears ‘Toxic’ 2. Air Canada - See Canada 3. American Airlines Stand up to Cancer 4. Delta - The Dating Wall 5. easyJet - Private Jet Experience 6. Icelandair - Your adventure is waiting 7. Malaysia Airlines - Raya Around the World 8. Qatar Airways #NoBorders 9. Qantas - Dr Seuss Credit Card 10. Turkish Airlines How Ridiculous
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Air Asia, NOK Air and El Al Britney Spears Toxic
One of American pop star Britney Spears’ biggest hits has been ‘Toxic.’ The main feature of the music video accompanying the song is of course that Spears plays a flight attendant.
Air Asia boss Tony Fernandes reposted the clip on his own Instagram page where it notched up another 300k views , lauding Nasir’s talent and the fact that “staff can just have fun and be themselves.”
This has spurred a range of tribute videos in response, with one recent example involving Air Asia flight attendant Assraf Nasir, lip-syncing and showing off some awesome moves in tandem with the song.
Nasir’s efforts were subsequently covered in media worldwide, such as Mashable and the Daily Mail.
Assraf Nasir hasn’t been the only flight attendant to do his own version of ‘Toxic’, Nasir’s original YouTube video quickly a number of airlines have been jumping went viral and made its way to Facebook, on the bandwagon to celebrate Spears’ current world tour. where it was seen nine million times.
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One of those stops is Tel Aviv, and so at the end of June flight attendants from Israeli airline EL AL created a video, which the airline then posted onto its Facebook page, where it’s so far been viewed 164k times.
marketing strategy to lure passengers who have been deserting the national airline for Turkish Airlines: “Why pay through the teeth for in-flight bagels and a mini-can of Coke with Hebrew lettering when you can change planes in Istanbul for half the price?”.
This was then widely picked up by the Israeli media including the Jerusalem Finally, four flight attendants from Thai Post and the Times of Israel. LCC Nok Air performed a ‘Toxic’ video in an empty plane, to honour the pop star’s Interestingly Variety claims that the Bangkok visit. So far, the Nok Air version Britney Spears tribute video is part of a has notched up over 300k views. 5
It’s not clear whether Nok Air’s video was spontaneous or whether it was planned by the marketing department. However, Pinyot Pibulsongkram, Nok Air’s vice president of marketing told CNN, “We are really excited to see our crew’s initiatives to make this incredible video. Not only that they are excited about Britney landing in Bangkok and love the song Toxic, but they also had a lot of fun representing our brand.”
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Key take-away Flight attendant music videos aren’t new - check out our article on the dancing Cebu Pacific flight attendants from as far back as 2010. However they work. They tap into popular culture and humanise the brand by showcasing the people behind the airline. Out of the three videos we’ve covered, a special mention goes to Air Asia. The Air Asia video was spontaneous, and Tony Fernandes’ reaction in applauding it says a lot about the company’s culture and style.
Air Canada - See Canada
In February we talked about Air Canada adopting a redesigned livery and uniforms to celebrate the country’s 150th birthday.
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This was supplemented by Air Canada’s vacation arm putting together 150 “close to home but far from ordinary” travel packages spanning urban Getaways, Guided Tours, the newly curated Wildlife Adventures, Fly & Drive Vacations, Fly & Rail Vacations, Ski Vacations, and Golf Vacations.
minimal, but they are a great way to get user generated content that you can then re-use - with much of the content being as good or better than what you would get from a professional photographer.
Currently, the latest element in Air Canada’s Canada birthday celebrations has been a “See: Canada / #Canada150” In March, Air Canada then ran a photo promotion running across Facebook, contest in its ‘En Route’ in-flight Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. magazine, where photos tagged #Canada150 had the chance to be In March the prize was reasonably modest. featured in the publication, with one This time Air Canada has drastically lucky winner receiving round trip tickets. increased it to giving away 150 pairs of tickets anywhere within Canada. The cost of photo contests like this are
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What do you have to do to get those tickets? Using the hashtag #Canada150 you have to post a video or photo of your favourite spot in Canada that you think others should discover. Arguably the use of the #Canada150 hashtag cuts both ways. A lot of Canadians are obviously using it to celebrate the country’s birthday, and so it’s popular. For example, at time of writing there were 900k Instagram posts using the hashtag. However this also means the Air Canada competition images get lost. Though entrants also had to tag @aircanada, it is still difficult for the casual user to spot the competition entries among the mass of general Instagram posts using that hashtag. Even worse, when we looked the number one post (according to Instagram) with the #Canada150 hashtag was a crew picture from competitor WestJet! The other thing Air Canada could maybe have added was a rotating gallery of the best competition entries on its 150th birthday page, possibly by integrating a curation tool such as Olapic or Candid.
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Key take-away Air Canada’s Canadian birthday celebrations have been consistent with different elements, tactics and promotions rolled out during the year. The other important element is that Air Canada is obviously promoting its own domestic route network through these tactics, which in turn encourage fans to show off the things they love most about their home country. The link is clear and obvious. The one possible missed trick is that a bespoke hashtag could have been used, and more use could have been made of the photo and video led competition entries.
American Airlines - Stand up to Cancer
All major brands, airlines included, now have a range of good causes that they support. However while CSR projects are commonplace, what sets brands apart is how they support them, and how genuine that support seems.
The latest phase of this collaboration involved a well publicised initiative in June, supported by advertising with the goal of raising $1 million for the charity.
The $1 million goal was in fact raised in just over a week, with the mechanic being Last year, American Airlines launched fairly simple - the airline donated $1 for a multi-year, multi-million-dollar every flight booked on aa.com. collaboration with Stand Up To Cancer, an organisation dedicated to funding What sets the initiative apart from a run research to combat this often life of the mill fundraising project was the advertising produced by ad agency CPB threatening disease. on the airline’s behalf.
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Key Take-away In it, Stand up to Cancer ambassador, actor Bradley Cooper fronted a campaign supporting the fundraising effort. This included digital ads and a 60-second television spot featuring nearly 60 cancer-fighting and cancer-surviving American Airlines employees. Digital ads featured the entire group of nearly 60 AA employees and Bradley Cooper arrayed in front of an AA plane. The initiative was picked up by major media outlets in areas where American Airlines has hubs, for example in Dallas Fort-worth and Los Angeles.
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In an age of public cynicism about brand motives, it’s important that any CSR project is shown to be real and not just something that ticks a corporate governance box. American Airlines did this by first of all putting its money where its mouth is. Not only did this mean that flights booked in early June directly benefitted cancer research, the airline also funded an ad campaign to publicise it. Finally, the involvement of AA staff who had been affected by cancer and their individual stories, gave this very worthwhile project a sense of realness and authenticity.
delta The Delta Dating Wall
Did you know that looking like a ‘World Traveller’ is more likely to get you noticed on dating sites? This is according to match.com’s ‘Singles in America study’ carried out in March.
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According to the research, 62% of men and 74% of women want a partner with an interest in travel, while half of all singles say going to a new city for a date would be exciting.
created in association with mobile dating app ‘Tinder’.
The wall celebrates fact that Delta flies to more international destinations from JFK than any other airline, and gives anyone That insight in turn formed the basis of passing by the chance to have a photo a fantastic campaign by Delta, conceived done with a chosen destination in the by advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy. background that they can then use for their Tinder profile picture. Images and scenes from nine destinations (Honolulu, Paris, Los Angeles, Pisa, The wall is going to be in place all Summer, London, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and this was supplemented by an event Moscow, and Zurich) were painted onto on 17 June, where singles were able to a Brooklyn, New York, wall by well known come along and have a Tinder profile shot illustrator and graphic novelist Andrew taken by a professional photographer. Rae. In the past, one issue we’ve had with This then became the #DeltaDatingWall, experiential events is that their reach is
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limited. You only get to the people walking Hilton (who described it as ‘The Most past, or walking into your installation. Extra Thing Ever’). This isn’t the case with the dating wall. First of all there is the tie-up with Tinder, which gives the whole project an extra push. Secondly, the whole concept is fun and lends itself to ‘talkability.’ You could see someone reading about the campaign and deciding to actually change their profile picture on the back of it. Most importantly however, this idea was different and original enough to make it into websites read by millennials worldwide, including Mashable and Perez
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The Dating Wall isn’t the only piece of wall art Delta has commissioned in New York. Another wall has appeared in the middle of the Brooklyn ‘Smorgasburg’ event. This time, the illustration was developed by graphic design studio ‘Hide your Toys’, with the theme being “Go Where Your Food is From.”
Key Take-away This campaign was a success for four key reasons. It combined an insight (every single wants greater dating success), a creative execution that was really different (the dating wall), a commercial partnership with a big brand among the target audience (Tinder) and a commercial message (more destinations from JFK) that didn’t seem false and contrived. So many marketing campaigns are basically variations of something that has been done before. Well done Delta on coming up with something different and original, and for making the cover of our magazine this month.
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easyJet - Private Jet experience
In June, one airline introduced a ‘private jet’ style experience where you can check in at a private terminal, relax in a luxury lounge and then get driven to the plane in a limousine.
A word on Luton for non British readers: In the British popular imagination, Luton Airport is best known for cheap charters and budget flights.
This is in part thanks to the enduring appeal Was it Qatar Airways? Etihad? No - this of an iconic 1979 Campari TV ad starring £475 (€539 / $600) service is being actress Lorraine Chase, where she’s asked, offered by British LCC easyJet at London “were you truly wafted here from paradise” and she replies in a full Cockney accent, Luton Airport.
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“Nah! Luton Airport.” This then became a popular catchphrase (that is still used today) and a song by girl band ‘Cats UK.’ The reality in 2017 is somewhat different, as Luton Airport is Britain’s busiest airport for private jets, being used by celebrities such as Lewis Hamilton and John Travolta. This became the basis for easyJet’s new product offering. You might only have paid £20 to go to Faro or Malaga, but you can still be treated like a celebrity and waited on hand and foot….before you get driven up to your easyJet plane and take your Even though easyJet says it can see people seat in the same cabin as 190 other people. using the service for special occasions such as weddings and anniversaries, our In the Public Relations industry, it’s suspicion is that a little bit of the same kind well known tactic to push out product of thinking is at play here. announcements that you know will never be used, but will still get you acres of And it worked, with coverage being coverage. generated across the UK press, including Britain’s two biggest popular newspapers, This writer for example once created a “new the Mail (also one of the world’s biggest car smell” perfume for a chain of second news websites) and Sun. hand car dealerships, with the express aim of (successfully) getting media attention It also made the quality press including the off the back of it. Guardian, Independent and Telegraph.
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Key take-away easyJet knows its market. It’s a popular mass market brand that along with Ryanair, has made flying accessible to millions of Brits. Few of them will ever take advantage of this new £475 service, but you can bet that quite a lot of people read about it and ended up talking about it in the pub after work. As the saying goes - If you want a conversation, say something interesting. And as the media pick-up shows, people found it interesting and it got them talking.
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Icelandair - Your Adventure is Waiting
The Nordic states have acquired a reputation over the past decade as a welcoming place for same sex couples to visit.
of the ads are unremarkable - they talk about the fact that you can combine points and money to buy flights and holidays.
This includes Iceland, where same sex marriage was legalised in 2010, and which stages a large annual Reykjavik Pride event.
However, the two protagonists of the ads are a middle-aged male couple, shown enjoying the sights and adventures of Iceland.
National airline Icelandair has celebrated “This ad portrays a cultural trip to Iceland this commitment to diversity in its new and the group it’s aimed at is people who ad campaign. In themselves, the subject travel to enjoy what life has to offer with
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their loved ones.
Despite this, the campaign has obviously received extensive coverage in websites “So it was an obvious choice to use a aimed at the gay media with Out Magazine loving middle-aged couple for such an lauding Iceland’s “excellent track record ad; it’s worked well for us in the past. But of LGBTQ friendly culture.” this time we thought: why not add to the diversity and make this loving, middle- The One Mile at a Time blog calls aged couple a same-sex couple?” Jón Icelandair’s ad, “the gayest, I’ve seen from Skafti Kristjánsson, Icelandair brand told an airline.” website Gay Iceland. Why? Because while other airlines do Crucially, Kristjánsson made the point that use gay characters in their campaigns, this wasn’t an LGBT campaign as such, it its often either subtle (for example, there was simply a campaign that happened to is a same sex couple on the Air Canada feature a couple of the same sex, doing safety video) or directly aimed at the the kinds of things all travellers (whatever LGBT community. their sexual orientation) do when they come to Iceland. Here however, the couple is being ‘touchy feely’, though as the blogger points out,
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Key take-away we “wouldn’t bat an eyelid if this were a straight couple.” Other airlines that highlight the fact that they are LGBT friendly are American Airline and Delta, which have been involved in US Pride events. Possibly the most high profile openly gay airline executive is Qantas Chairman Alan Joyce. In May, Joyce was hit by a pie thrown by a farmer who was opposed to same sex marriage and the airline’s stance on the issue.
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Icelandair didn’t make an ad targeting the LGBT community, and which would only be seen by them. It made a mainstream ad that happened to feature gay characters. As a result, gay websites and media have lauded the airline for having a gay couple in a ‘normal’ setting. This is likely to be a win all around for the airline. Even though the airline says it wasn’t the aim, the campaign will have the effect of making Iceland more attractive for gay travellers. Meanwhile, heterosexual visitors coming to Iceland are more likely to be socially liberal anyway and would either see this initiative positively or in a neutral light.
Malaysia Airlines - Raya Around the World
Malaysia is one of the world’s largest Muslim-majority countries, and so Raya (called Eid in other countries), which marks the end of Ramadan is of course a big occasion.
not majority) Muslim communities, while Japan is not a country usually associated with Islam.
The message behind the ad was a standard one for an airline: that travel To mark the event, Malaysia Airlines’ broadens the mind and showcasing the advertising agency MC Saatchi produced variety of different cultures and how they a short film on how different cultures celebrate a common religious holiday. around the world celebrate Raya / Eid. The ad itself did not feature actors, the Mirroring key Malaysia Airlines scenes and people filmed were real, destinations and its route network, the while the pilot who stars in the video, video was filmed in the airline’s home Capt. Zakir Ibrahim, works for Malaysia country of Malaysia as well as India, China Airlines. Capt Ibrahim in fact provides the narration for the ad, and at the end and Japan. he is shown celebrating Hari Raya with That in itself is an interesting selection his own son. as India and China have minority (but
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The whole campaign is underpinned by an interactive microsite, which invites users to ‘explore Eid.’ Clicking on a landmark on the map brings up a series of images and explanations on how the Muslim community in each country marks the occasion. Though the map clearly is designed to showcase Malaysia Airlines destinations, one unintended consequence of displaying it as an interactive globe is that it also shows all the places Malaysia Airlines does not serve.
despite having numerous majorityMuslim countries, the same with North and South America and Europe outside the UK. Meanwhile in the Middle East only Saudi Arabia has an icon. In retrospect it might have been better to design the map in a different way. The fact remains though, the ad is beautifully shot and narrated and it brings to life an important religious festival celebrated by a billion people worldwide.
So far, the campaign has received For example, Africa is completely blank extensive coverage in the Malaysian press.
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Key take-away The message that travel is a good thing is an obvious one for an airline, it is its whole raison d’être after all. However, while the idea isn’t new, the execution of the ad is done very well. Two things in particular stand out. First of all, the airline chose countries you wouldn’t really immediately associate with Eid (e.g, it could have chosen Saudi Arabia but selected Japan instead). Secondly, the use of staff and ‘real people’ always resonates. It gives the campaign a degree of credibility and authenticity.
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Qatar Airways - #NoBorders
On June 5th, a dispute between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on one hand and Qatar on the other, directly affected Qatar Airways. Flights between Qatar and the three neighbouring countries (and Egypt) were stopped. This came as Qatar Airways had only recently added a ninth destination in Saudi Arabia, Yanbu.
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The voiceover then explains that “travel goes beyond borders and prejudice, teaches compassion and is a necessity for all.” In doing so, the Qatar Airways posts and ads resemble the ‘Fronteras’ campaign rolled out by Aero Mexico last year in response to the calls by (then Presidential candidate, now US President) Donald Trump. Aero Mexico’s ad, created by Ogilvy, led with the message “Borders. On land they can maintain distances. But in the sky … we show you it’s different.”.
In addition, with much of the surrounding airspace closed, Qatar Airways has now had to take costly and time-consuming detours to reach its Doha hub. Qatar Airways’ response has been to post a series of social media ads and posts using the hashtag #NoBorders. A short one minute video uploaded on 18 June, had the strap-line, “travel makes us human. Qatar Airways believes that the sky is better without borders. And that the entire world is all of ours to explore.”
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While Qatar Airways has pushed out proactive marketing messages in response to the crisis, it’s obviously crucial to in the first instance take care of the basics and let passengers know what is happening, when, why and what is going to be done about it. This was the subject of Episode 53 of the SimpliFlying Live Show, where CEO Shashank Nigam pointed out that Qatar Airways had struggled to provide passengers with timely information on flight cancellations and delays.
Shashank’s conclusion was that the problems faced by Qatar Airways, as well as the earlier crisis faced by British Airways when its IT system shut down, shows the need for every major airline to have a social media command centre. The reasons are three-fold. First of all, you need to listen to what’s being said and correct any rumours if necessary. Second you need to be able to escalate and take action fast, something that doesn’t happen if the social media team works in isolation. Third, there needs to be integration with other teams, in particular operations. In the broadcast, Shashank cites a number of airlines that have done this and done it well, including KLM, American Airlines and SouthWest.
Key take-away Doing something proactive around the crisis made sense for Qatar Airways, especially as the airline itself was not as fault and most passengers will have understood this. At the same time, as Shashank Nigam points out in his broadcast, what happened to Qatar Airways shows why airlines have to have their social media response systems sorted out beforehand. When a crisis happens, it’s already too late.
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Qantas - Dr Seuss Credit Card
“Oh, the Places you’ll go!” is one of the best known book’s by children’s author Dr Seuss. It’s also the inspiration behind a new campaign to promote the new Qantas Premier MasterCard, with the idea being to show where Qantas Frequent Flyers who are also card holders can travel. A video ad, which is being shown online, asks frequent flyers to imagine, “the sights
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you’ll soar” telling them “your mountain According to Qantas Chief Marketing is waiting, so get on your way”. Officer Stephanie Tully, credit cards don’t have much of an emotional pull, and Key passages of the book have so rather than focus on the card, this additionally been tailored to fit Qantas campaign focuses on what the card can and the product. For example, reworked do for you when you use it: quotes include “There are points to be scored”, “you’ll be seeing great sights” “Given credit card spend by nature is and “You’ll join the high flyers”, all read in transactional, this campaign has given us a Dr Seuss narrative style. a platform to…show people all the places they can go with their bonus Qantas In addition to an online video ad, the Points upon sign-up, and the points they campaign is also appearing in airports build when they use their card every day.” over July. Almost every major airline of course now
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has an affinity credit card. However there give-away for people who transferred is no need for these cards to be promoted credit card loyalty points, a ‘billion miles give-away.’ in a functional way. Indeed, airlines looking to market their card would do well to draw inspiration from creative and successful fintech campaigns outside the aviation industry. For example, Visa and fashion house Henry Holland teamed up to create a “Cashless on the Catwalk” campaign at London Fashion Week, where ten VIP influencers were able to make real-time purchases using near-field communication (NFC) payment rings and smart brooches.
It then made a series of ‘The Office’ style videos, which included for example a shame-faced intern sitting in the corridor while managers were yelling away about the “mistake” behind closed doors.
Key take-away
An airline could easily build on the core of this idea, and run a shopping challenge using a group of influencers in different destinations.
Dr Seuss has universal appeal, and the link between ‘Oh the places you can go!’ and an airline are obvious. This then provided Qantas with an accessible hook around which to position the benefits of its new card - basically the more you spend, the further you can travel.
Another example of an airline that succeeded into turning something that people might not find very interesting into a creative marketing campaign is Virgin Australia, which we featured last month.
As we mentioned, airlines launching new cards would do well to look more widely at other fin tech campaigns for inspiration, for example this list from Lets Talk Payments has some good examples.
In it, Virgin Australia ‘pretended’ it had made a mistake in calling a million miles
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Turkish Airlines - How Ridiculous
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Turkish Airlines has a long track record of supporting professional basketball. It’s been the title sponsor of Europe’s premier basketball league, Euroleague, since 2010, a partnership that was renewed for five years in 2013, in a deal worth €37.5 million euros. The agreement has given Turkish Airlines on and off-court branding rights, as well as title sponsorship of the ‘Final Four’
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event, which sees four top European teams squaring off at the end of the season. This year at the end of May, the ‘Final Four’ event took place in Istanbul, which is of course also the home of Turkish Airlines’ main hub at Ataturk Airport. As a result, Turkish Airlines recruited Australian basketball trick-shot stars ‘How Ridiculous’, to film a series of videos in and around the city. This included the Galata Tower, Rumelian Castle, Maiden’s Tower and the Bosphorus Bridge. In each, the How Ridiculous team manage to get a basketball in the hoop from a great height or distance, with each shot leaving the viewer wondering ‘how on earth did they do that!.’ The whole campaign was developed by The video has so far racked up over two advertising agency Efabrika, with the million views on YouTube and hundreds hashtag #Final4LandsinIstanbul being used to generate excitement about the of thousands more on Facebook. basketball competition (eventually won The YouTube video additionally points by Istanbul’s Fenerbahçe) as a whole. people to listen to the track that forms the soundtrack to the How Ridiculous Lots of major airlines are involved in sports / Turkish Airlines stunts - ‘You’ by sponsorship. For example the three main Skybourne.
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Gulf carriers all spend large amounts of money in promoting professional football / soccer in particular, and likewise Turkish Airlines has in the past been involved with clubs such as Manchester United. However, Turkish Airlines’ basketball tieup is smart for a number of reasons. Despite it sometimes being ignored by mainstream European broadcasters, the Euroleague is incredibly popular, with an average match attendance of 8000+ per game. In professional basketball, only the USA’s NBA does better. It attracts a young, affluent audience and the spread of clubs (currently in Russia, Spain, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Greece and Lithuania) allows for individual campaigns and branding in each location. Meanwhile, working with ‘How Ridiculous’ brought Turkish Airlines’ basketball sponsorship and heritage to a far wider audience than would otherwise have been the case.
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Key take-away Ordinarily something like the Final Four championship would probably only have been of interest to fans of those four clubs and people watching the games. The ‘How Ridiculous’ project significantly increased its reach for Turkish Airlines. The How Ridiculous videos are fun, watchable and as brand ambassadors the guys from the How Ridiculous team come across well. Well done Turkish Airlines for a creative and engaging campaign.
About Us
SimpliFlying is a global consultancy that believes in thinking differently about aviation marketing. Having worked with over 50 airlines and airports around the world, it has presences in Singapore, UK, Spain, Canada and India. Today, SimpliFlying advises airlines and airpor ts on customer engagement strategy, achieving aviation business goals by harnessing the latest innovations in the social media space.
The firm also conducts MasterClasses to train and develop airline and airport teams to become self-sufficient in executing measurable and rewarding social campaigns. SimpliFlying’s growing list of clients includes Lufthansa, Emirates, Toronto Pearson Airport, Halifax International, KLIA, Jet Airways, LAN Airlines, airBaltic, Airbus and Bombardier. Get in touch at engage@simpliflying. com or visit simplifying.com.
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Pricing
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