Lufthansa Cargo-Hessen Goes Global

HESSEN GOES GLOBAL - LUFTHANSA CARGO

Despite being a b2b brand, we’ve featured Lufthansa Cargo in previous issues for having one of the best aviation Instagram accounts that we’ve seen. Instagram tactics have included a 24 days of Christmas gift promotion, a competition where fans sent in pictures LH Cargo planes made out of lego, and several Instagram takeovers where pilots took over the account and showed what it is like to work for the airline via Instagram stories and posts.

In addition to Instagram, Lufthansa Cargo also has an active YouTube channel packed with interesting videos as well as regular mini-features. One example is “Hessen goes Global.” Hessen is of course the region of Germany where Lufthansa’s home Frankfurt Airport is located, and this initiative allowed small and medium sized businesses from across the area to enter to win free logistics support and transport of their goods around the world.

The initiative was held in association with a number of other partners including logistics firms UPS and Panalpnia, as well as regional development agency, Hessen Trade & Invest.

For a chance of winning the prize, small business exporters in Hessen had to apply via the Cargovention website Cargovention being a Lufthansa Cargo led exhibition and conference in Frankfurt on March 8th. Five finalists were then chosen from among the entries. Each was profiled on the Cargovention website, and each also had a short film made about them which appeared on the Lufthansa Cargo YouTube channel.

Finalists included “Schönwetterfront” (a Hawaiian shirt manufacturer, where the patterns have German-inspired images such as Riesling grapes and Edelweiss), “Frankfurter Brett” (a chopping block for chefs) and “Nik Huber Guitars” (an E-guitar maker for Robbie Williams and the Foo Fighters among others).

Every finalist went in front of a judging panel at Cargo Convention, with Lufthansa producing a short film of the event and the finalists moderated by German motoring journalist Jens Kuck.

The eventual winners were Nik Huber Guitars and Frankfurter Brett. “Seats for Startups” initiative from UK / European regional airline bmi.

Over the next year, the two Hessian companies will receive support in launching their products worldwide and thereby tapping new markets.

Lufthansa Cargo and its shipping partners Panalpina and UPS will provide them with free air-freight capacity of up to one container per month as well as free door to-door shipments and the organization of all necessary customs clearance processes.

A campaign with a similar idea, albeit executed on a smaller scale, was the 2016“Seats for Startups” initiative from UK / European regional airline bmi.

New and emerging businesses from the Bristol, UK, region (Bristol being one of bmi’s main bases) had the opportunity to apply for free flights to Europe to grow their business, with the judging panel including representatives of the UK’s Department for International Trade.

On the back of this campaign, bmi became an official partner of the Department for International Trade’s “Exporting is Great” campaign, being the only UK airline other than British Airways to be part of the initiative

KEY TAKE-AWAY

Key takeaway: There’s a story behind every passenger journey, but the same is true for cargo as well. Over the past few years, Lufthansa Cargo has taken this idea to heart and has produced social media content which is genuinely engaging and interesting.

With Hessen goes Global, Lufthansa Cargo has taken this concept one step further in showing that there’s not only a story behind every piece of cargo, but the companies which send those shipments have their own stories too.

Finally, with Lufthansa being headquartered in Frankfurt, this was a good way of showing that LH is a good corporate citizen, not only to local residents but also local businesses.