Eurowings - #FlyWithEd

Eurowings - #FlyWithEd

Over the past few years a number of airlines have experimented with Virtual Reality.

For example, last year United Airlines enlisted actor Matt Damon to show off new (yet to be unveiled) business cabins.

KLM used Google Cardboard to show off its new Dreamliner / 787 aircraft, while as far back as 2015 Qantas became the first airline to offer VR headsets to passengers. In fact the rush to embrace VR in the airline industry led Quartz to cynically claim that airlines were doing this to “hide the dismal reality of flying.”

That might be somewhat unfair, given that many airlines are in fact using virtual reality on passengers before they get on the aircraft, rather than as a way to make them forget about whatever perceived discomforts they encounter when in long-haul economy.

One airline which recently experimented with VR as a destination marketing tool is Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings. Eurowings’ parent company Lufthansa had already run a VR campaign as a way to sell Premium Economy upgrades at the gate.

Over the Summer, Eurowings partnered with the German state of Baden-Württemberg and amusement park Europa-Park to target UK leisure travellers. The promotion took the form of a virtual reality stunt / experiment at London’s Westfield Stratford City Shopping Mall.

“Ed Erasmus”, the mascot of the Europa Park, took mall visitors on a flight to Stuttgart, a trip to the Black Forest and from there to the Europa Park itself.

The campaign was seeded on social media, with the reactions videoed and shared across the campaign channels via the hashtag #FlyWithEd in order to drive social amplification.

Additional Out Of Home activity consisting of digital OOH throughout Westfield Stratford City and print OOH throughout Stratford International Train Station.

Visitors going on the journey with “Ed” had the chance to win flights to Stuttgart and entry tickets to the Europa Park.

Key Take-Away

While virtual reality still has a certain novelty factor among consumers, we can’t help think that for the (likely) expense, the campaign was actually quite limited in reach. It’s true that tens of thousands of people pass through Westfield every day, but these events are often missed.

For example, this writer walks through that particular shopping mall on a more or less daily basis and can’t recall ever having seen the Eurowings stunt. As a result when doing experiential activity, it is worth thinking about how can it be given a much wider reach.

A good example of an airline that did that was easyJet, who we featured in June for its “Feel Cote d’Azur” campaign. Though experiential did form a big part of the project, there were also daily competitions for the airline’s hundreds of thousands of social media fans so they could take part too, even though they weren’t physically there.