Destination Tomorrow by Delta

Destination Tomorrow by Delta

Over the past five years, Delta has developed and built a relationship with innovations conference TED-Talks, which has seen the airline come on board as an official event sponsor and partner.

This sponsorship has been brought to life in a number of different ways. For example, in 2013 Delta bult a so-called ‘Photon Shower’ for TED talk attendees where they could energise themselves and recharge their body clocks.

The following year, the airline created “Social Soul” - an immersive digital experience inspired by the question: “how does it feel to be inside someone else’s social media stream?”

In 2015, Delta’s TED theme was ‘stillness in motion’, an installation which encouraged mindfulness and the need to live in the present moment, while in 2016 Delta hosted a TED conference on board one of its flights.

Last year, rather than creating a stunt or installation, Delta shifted focus into getting TED speakers to share their thoughts on the future of travel in a series of TED-Talk videos, headlined ‘Destination Tomorrow.’

‘Destination Tomorrow’ has now extended into an event for Delta employees under theme ‘Empathy.’ Last month, select front-line Delta staff as well as senior management gathered for a full day conference at the Delta museum to learn how “empathy contributes to unmatched customer service.”

The day kicked off with presentations from TED fellows Matilda Ho and Mitchell Joachim, before moving into talks and seminars hosted by Delta staff themselves. For example, flight attendant Jeanie Brady gave a presentation on “Practicing kindness at 35,000 feet.”

In the talk, Jeanie Brady outlined how by being a flight attendant, she was in “the people business” and “connects people with their stories all over the world.”

The 2017/2018 Delta / TED collaboration might not have had the ‘Wow’ factor of previous years when Delta developed a creative campaign to support the partnership, but arguably it is more valuable for the brand.

By working with speakers, rather than creating a stunt or installation, Delta is more closely aligning itself with the core brand value of TED - innovation and progress. The idea of getting staff involved and creating a TED event is also sound, and the quality of staff presentations as seen on the video is easily up to the standard and quality of what you would see in an ‘actual’ TED conference.

Finally, the theme of empathy is an important one in the customer services area. One example of Delta bringing this to life is in the ‘Letters to Delta’ video we covered last month, which involved a customer services agent going out of her way to help a family with a sick infant in rebooking flights.

Key Take-Away

The first few years of the Delta / TED partnership saw Delta create high impact (and high budget) immersive experiences at the annual TED conference. Delta has now shifted direction into aligning itself more closely with the content and speakers you see at TED-talks, to the extent of actually staging a TED conference of its own for its own staff.

This change of direction makes sense. In the early years, Delta will have felt the need to raise awareness and tell people about the partnership. That is no longer necessary, and Delta can look at a more meaningful relationship with TED Talks, where it co-opts some of the TED brand values as its own.