KLM - WE ARE AN AIRLINE

Germany is one of KLM’s most important markets, with flights from regional airports such as Dresden and Nuremberg feeding into the airline’s long-haul network.

Nevertheless, the airline still found that almost half (46%) of Germans do not know what KLM is, with the three most popular answers (among people who didn’t know) being that KLM is either a bank, a radio station or a restaurant.

Actually, you could easily turn that stat around and say that 54% of Germans did know what KLM, as a non German airline, is. Nevertheless, KLM’s ad agency DDB & Tribal saw the opportunity to create a marketing campaign around the lack of awareness by the other 46%.

They did this by actually creating a KLM bank (or rather ATM machine), radio station and restaurant.

The KLM ATM machine didn’t give anyone money, but it did spit out free flight tickets to lucky users. Meanwhile the KLM Restaurant served free inflight meals.

Finally, the KLM Radio Station involved the take-over of an existing radio station, where KLM staff became the presenters, with KLM themed songs playing on air.

The whole campaign has been brought to life by KLM in a micro-site for the German market. The site links to the campaign video, and boxes you can click on around the ‘bank’, ‘restaurant’ and ‘radio station’ theme. Each then tie into a different area of KLM’s service.

For example, the radio station “box” explains that KLM may not be a radio station, but you will get 1000+ hours of entertainment on board. You then get a link through to the page of the main KLM (German) website on inflight entertainment.

“We are an airline” is actually very similar to the “It’s an airline” campaign which ran in the US in 2016. After KLM found that many Americans thought that it was a brand of milk or radio station, the airline recruited comedian Ken Marino to develop a series of comedy sketches around theme via a series of YouTube videos.

See as well Shashank Nigam’s SimpliLive episode dedicated to the campaign, where he looks in more general at how airlines need to be sensitive to the different markets that they serve:

“Airlines are global, they facilitate global travel. This is why they need to be sensitive to the aspirations of the global traveller, and ensure that they are relevant in the markets that they are flying to.

The song “We are an Airline” (by “The Flying Dutchmen”) which played on KLM Radio, is now available to listen to on Spotify. ■