Qantas - Not Your Typical Airline

Qantas - Not Your Typical Airline

According to the US State Department, close to two thirds of Americans (64%) have never been abroad and don’t own a passport.

Australian airline Qantas has a simple solution - if you are American it will pay for your passport. Or, to be more precise, Qantas is deducting $135 off the ticket to Australia for US travellers - $135 being how much it costs to apply for a passport in the US.

The campaign, under the strapline of ‘Not Your Typical Airline’, was developed by advertising agency BWM Dentsu Sydney, to coincide with Qantas introducing the 787 Dreamliner on flights to the US from December.

In addition to the $135 offer, the campaign features iconic Australian locations including Great Barrier Reef and Uluru, with the explanation being that Australia also offers not your typical vacation experience

In combination with the insight that 40%+ of Americans don’t have a passport, the campaign used the stat that Australia is in the top five destinations US travellers would like to go to over the next two years.

Out of the eight million international visitors who came to Australia, less than 10% (753,000) were from the USA. They in turn injected $3.7 billion into the Australian economy during their visit, an increase of 7% year on year. As a result, Qantas clearly believes there is a larger untapped market.

At the same time as it is offering to pay for Americans’ passports, Qantas has launched a wider campaign to promote the new Dreamliner aircraft in the fleet.

A series of online videos features different Qantas employees who are in some way involved with the B-787.

The campaign profiles a pilot whose curiosity for flying began while his mother worked at the airline in the 1970’s; an engineer’s early passion for mechanics and aviation started on a farm; and a flight attendant who immigrated to Australia at a young age and is passionate about making people feel comfortable and at home.

According to Ben Sampson, creative director of The Monkeys, the agency which came up with the campaign, “Being able to show the human side of something as technologically advanced as the new Qantas Dreamliner was a nice creative opportunity, and suited the Qantas brand perfectly.

“They have such spirited people and that was clear when we discovered the stories from three of their staff, and experienced their excitement at being part of the Dreamliner program.”

Filming for the Dreamliner campaign took place in regional Queensland, Melbourne, Sydney and the Boeing facility in Seattle, Washington.

Key Take-Away

Will the Qantas campaign lead to a rush of Americans applying for a passport? Almost certainly no. However it is a way to get what would otherwise have been a standard ad campaign noticed. Both the statistic (of people not owning passports), and the mechanic gives the advertising extra legs as it can be used both in social media content and as a way to generate press coverage via PR.