Issue
February
75 2019
The British Airways Centenary A guide to visual social media with CrowdRiff
Cover image credit - Stuart Bailey, www.StuartBaileyPhoto.com
Airline Marketing Monthly
Content 4-5
It is premium, but is it unexpected?
24
British Airways Centenary
6-12
Hear the taste
25
Delta and LSTN
26
British Airways - Magic 100
7-8 27-31
British Airways 747 in BOAC Livery
9
oneworld - Travel Bright oneworld - Travel Bright
28-29
BA Magic 100
10
30-31
BA 21119 - A search for sustainable fuel
11
oneworld apps to work together
BA 100 Great Britons
12
Delta - Best in class
32-36
Delta - Best in class
33-34
Delta’s A220 Media-Kit
35
Delta Napkins
36
Has Air New Zealand jumped the safety video shark?
37-41
Has Air New Zealand jumped the safety video shark?
38-40
Is it time to discover the next big thing?
41
Turkish Airlines - The Journey
13-21
Turkish Airlines - The Journey
14-17
Industry experts speak
18-21
Making celebrity food and fashion partnerships work
22-26
Making celebrity food and fashion partnerships work
23
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Introduction
42-71
Introduction
43
A Guide to Building a Destination Campaign Around Instagram Content
44-50
Working with staff and crews
51-54
Why you should involve AV Geeks in your visual campaigns
55
The problem of Instagram 56-59 fakes - and how to spot them Beyond the Website: Key Channels for Destination Marketing in 2019
60-64
Six New Places to Use Social Photos and Videos in Your Destination Marketing
65-71
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News from SimpliFlying
72-74
The SimpliLive Show
73
The SimpliFlying Global Institute
74
Airline Campaigns
75-85
AeroMexico - DNA Discounts
76
Caribbean Airlines Caribbean Identity
77
Emirates Playlist Syncing
78
KLM’s Takeoff Tips
79-80
Lufthansa - Hopper Partnership
81
Qatar Airways - A World Like Never Before
82
Thomas Cook Airlines Hello Holiday
83
VietJet - Love Connection
84
Virgin Atlantic - Innovation 85 Nation
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Visual Social Media For Airlines and Airports in association with Crowdriff
About us
SimpliFlying Pte Ltd, 231 Mountbatten Road, Block D #01-07, Mountbatten Centre, Singapore 397999 SimpliVisible Ltd, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, UK WC1N 3AX
Visit the SimpliFlying website www.simpliflying.com
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Published by SimpliVisible, the content arm of SimpliFlying, Airline Marketing Monthly is the only trade magazine worldwide devoted to aviation marketing
Introduction Welcome to the February issue of Airline Marketing Monthly (AMM).
We started life as a subscriber only report, in direct response to one airline which wanted to benchmark its marketing activity against the competition. I personally started editing that report in June 2016, and slowly oversaw the transformation, both in content and design, to AMM becoming a trade magazine - and the only one in the world devoted to aviation marketing. That transformation has included running regular topical industry reports inside the magazine, something we started in January. This month we’ve got a special section all about visual social media and user generated content - an area that’s extremely relevant for aviation marketers - that we have produced in partnership with CrowdRiff, the leading visual marketing platform for
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travel and tourism brands. Our cover story goes to British Airways, which like Avianca and KLM is celebrating its centenary this year. We’ve also featured Turkish Airlines for its Ridley Scott produced Super Bowl film, where we asked a number of industry figures to tell us what they thought of it. Other featured campaigns include oneworld’s new ‘Travel Bright’ brand platform, and Delta’s A220 launch. As we say in the Delta article, Delta is an example of an airline that runs a consistently excellent online press office. Other airline press offices however are surprisingly lacking, with no up to date information, image banks - or even contact details. That will be an issue we return to over the coming months when we produce a report about 21st century media relations. Have you got any stories for us? Email me editor@airlinemarketingmonthly.com Dirk Singer, Editor
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
With AMM now having around 7000 readers a month, most of you have only started reading the magazine recently - if that’s you, welcome! As some of our readers will however know, we have been around in various guises since 2013.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
British Airways Centenary
British Airways Magic 100
year will split into three parts. One part will look at heritage. The second at the future. And the third part will be about celebration.
“
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2019 marks the 100th birthday of British Airways (as well as that of Avianca and KLM), with BA rolling out a year-long schedule of events and campaigns to celebration the occasion. To kick off the Centenary of what the airline says has been “100
amazing years of taking the world to Britain and Britain to the World”, BA has released an ad spot featuring a selection of big names from British TV, film, music and sport. The ad, “Made by Britain”, shows British Airways staff as they carry out the final
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
“ The centenary
touches for a special British Airways flight - BA100, filled with a variety of British famous faces. While on board, each celebrity then
provides a short comment on why she thinks Britain is such a special place, which together forms a ‘love letter’ to the UK as read by the different A-Listers who took part.
In the behind the scenes video, British Airways says that the final line of the ad - Made By Britain - is meant to express the idea that it is the people of Britain who make BA what it is.. The ad very much gives off a modern, multicultural image of Britain. In fact this writer thought it had echoes of the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, produced by Danny Boyle. As the UK heads towards Brexit on March 29th, many so-called ‘Remainers’ (people who voted to stay in the EU) now look back to those Olympics as the high water mark of a country which to them seemed more open and outward looking than the one which voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. And so British Airways has been asked if
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Brexit was a factor in the thinking behind the campaign. Not surprisingly (according to The Drum) the airline stresses that the ad (and the celebrations as a whole) has nothing to do with Brexit, preferring to leave “politics to the politicians.” Similarly, speaking at the oneworld 20th anniversary media event (which we’ve covered in this issue), IAG’s Willie Walsh claimed he was unconcerned about the prospect of a “no deal” Brexit, saying he was confident that there would be an agreement. BA’s love letter to Britain ad is one part of a year’s worth of anniversary activity, that according to Marketing Week, will be split into three parts. The first part looks at heritage. The second will look at the future. And the third will be all about “celebration.”
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
For example, singer-songwriter Paloma Faith admires Brits’ sense of style, while (actress) Olivia Colman and (boxer) Anthony Joshua comment on how Brits pick themselves up when things get tough, in a scene which sees Colman accidentally knock Joshua on the head with her cabin bag.
British Airways 747 in BOAC Livery
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The BOAC livery will remain on the Boeing 747 until it retires in 2023. By this time, British Airways will have retired the majority of its 747 fleet, before the aircraft is replaced, in particular with the A350 and B787.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Heritage is very much the thinking behind giving one British Airways 747 a BOACthemed retro make-over.
BOAC was of course one of the predecessors of British Airways (along with BEA in Europe), and so one B747 has been painted in 1964-1974 BOAC livery. The aircraft was due to enter service on February 19th, and also coincided with the 50th anniversary of the first Boeing 747 flight, just a few days earlier.
BA Magic 100
This is a scheme launched in 2017, where the airline sets up once in a lifetime experiences for deserving members of the public. We originally covered the launch of BA Magic in November 2017. Coming after several months of PR disasters (for example the IT failure which affected BA at Heathrow and Gatwick),
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our initial reaction was to question whether this was an attempt to deflect attention from some of the reputational issues the airline faced that year. However, as we said at the time, the initiative was actually very impressive - and continues to be so - for three reasons. First of all, it’s not a stunt or a one-hit wonder. There is consistency, BA has kept the idea going. Second, the lengths BA
goes to, to create memorable experiences for deserving passengers is commendable and gives it a sense of realness beyond being a piece of marketing activity. And third,, there is the unspoken message of “only British Airways can do that.” To mark its centenary year, British Airways will be building on BA Magic, and turning it into #BAMagic100, which will see the airline stage 100 acts of kindness.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
In 2019, British Airways will also be building on its BA Magic initiative.
BA 21119 - A search for sustainable fuel The ‘look ahead’ element of the celebrations includes British Airways hosting BA 21119 - a programme, which will debate the future of flying and exploring the future of sustainable aviation fuels, the aviation careers of the future and the customer experience of the future.
The winners will also be invited to present their pathway at industry sustainability events in Miami and Montreal, as well as to the executive team at British Airways and IAG, the airline’s parent company. The runners up will also receive cash sums.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Taking the form of a challenge, open to UK Universities, the winning team will receive £25,000 to help fund further research and a commitment from the airline to work alongside them to incubate their idea.
BA 100 Great Britons Finally, another part of the centenary programme which has been announced is the BA 100 Great Britons initiative. The airline says it will be working with “expert partners” to identify 100 people up and down the country who are currently shaping modern Britain.
Shashank Nigam CEO and founder of SimpliFlying
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Subtle, understated and very British
“Airlines often struggle with a key question. What does the brand stand for? Am I a low cost carrier? Am I a legacy carrier? Am I a national brand? “And in fact, being perceived as a national brand is not always positive. For example, Air India is seen as a national airline, but it carries a lot of baggage with it.
“
“British Airways however has taken a stand and
said - you know what, we continue to be the national airline of Britain. “In my book SOAR, I talk about the six factors airline brands need to look at, and one is the X-Factor. What is the thing you can do that no-one else can duplicate? “In British Airways’ case that is its heritage. A link directly back to the country of Great Britain, and that’s what they have resurfaced in this video. It’s not just a flashy video, or a stunt, or something that is trendy for the sake if it. “It is in fact subtle and understated, and as a result very British.”
(To see more commentary from Shashank about the ad click here)
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Commenting on the Made by Britain ad, Shashank Nigam the author of airline marketing book SOAR (and the CEO of SimpliFlying) said:
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Turkish Airlines The Journey
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
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Turkish Airlines The Journey Turkish Airlines has over the past few years had a regular presence at the global advertising event of the year - the US Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, last year Turkish Airlines put up Turkish-American TV doctor, “Dr Oz” who invited audiences to explore the world through the senses. This year, the airline worked with Oscar winning director Ridley Scott, who directed what’s probably the most famous Super Bowl ad of all times - 1984 for Apple. American viewers were treated to a 30 second pre-game ad, which was part of a longer six minute video called ‘The Journey.’
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In it, she chases another woman around Istanbul with famous city landmarks such as Çırağan Palace, Basilica Cistern and Ortaköy Square appearing in the film. The film starts and ends on a Turkish Airlines flight, and also features cryptic conversations between Hoeks and a man with a “mockney” British accent, implying that she is some kind of secret agent and he is her handler back at HQ. There is no direct call to action to fly Turkish Airlines in the film, instead it shows off Turkish Airlines’ cabin crew wearing their new uniforms, the new cabin design, as well as the airline’s new home at Istanbul New Airport. As you’d expect from a film made by one of the world’s most famous directors, The Journey has high production values, is fast paced and very watchable.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
For example, in 2017, “Widen Your World” was fronted by Morgan Freeman in an ad that attracted some controversy as the call to ‘delight in our differences’ was seen as alluding to Trump’s ban on travellers from select muslim-majority countries.
The video stars actress Sylvia Hoeks, who appeared in Blade Runner 2049.
“ There is no call to action
“
We also loved the little details, such as the pigeons descending on the food Hoeks throws down on the ground while sitting at an outdoor cafe, and the brief flicker of a smile on her face as she is on the phone to the unnamed Brit, asking “do you think this is fun for me”, and sees that her next flight on the chase is going to Bali.
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At the same time, when watching the six minute video we did wonder - what on earth is going on? Who is Hoeks playing, who is she chasing and why, and who is the guy on the other end of the phone?
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
to fly Turkish Airlines in the film. Instead it shows off Turkish Airlines’ cabin crew wearing their new uniforms, the new cabin design, as well as the airline’s new home at Istanbul New Airport.
In fact, many viewers were similarly left scratching their heads, especially when it came to the 30 second clip (which prompts people to watch the longer six minute version). For example,. CNN Commentator and podcast host Jeff Yang tweeted
“ Whoever at @TurkishAirlines’s ad
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Obviously working with someone of the calibre of Ridley Scott doesn’t come cheap. Is it worth it? This is bearing in mind few viewers of the 30 second US TV version will be in a position to, or have the inclination to, fly Turkish Airlines. This is of course a question that comes up year. Does it pay off to buy Super bowl airtime? Last year, Ad
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Week asked four brands that very question, and the conclusion seemed to be that the investment was seen more in terms of social media engagement, links and brand awareness than in direct sales. However, at the same time, ‘A Wealth of Common Sense’ blog cites a Stanford study, which found that beer and soda brands saw around a 2:5 to 1 return in investment.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
agency convinced them to drop the cash to a.) hire Ridley Scott to make a “film” about them and b.) run a #SuperBowl ad is the real MVP of this game.
Industry experts speak We asked four advertising and branding experts about what they thought about The Journey, and whether they think an investment of the kind that Turkish Airlines made is worth it.
CEO and founder of SimpliFlying
minute story gives you many more opportunities to reach and connect with the viewer
“The Journey” signifies something important for airline marketing. Short films have come of age and gone are the days when a thirty second clip would be the only way to do videos.
what it was like to fly on a mythical “Blah Airlines” from Newark to San Francisco - and despite Virgin America no longer being around that video has now has almost a million views.
A number of airlines have of course already successfully used films as a marketing tool.
A more conventional approach has been adopted by British Airways, through its enormously successful “Visit Mum” film, targeting Indian expats, as well as the more recent BA Magic series of films, of which we’ll be seeing more now that
The most extreme example was probably Virgin America, which in 2014 created a six hour video showcasing
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“
Shashank Nigam
the airline is celebrating its centenary. The BA videos, each of which are around five minutes in length, are extremely well made and make an emotional connection by telling a story. And that’s the point: Creating a five or ten minute story gives you many more opportunities to reach and connect with the viewer, and ideally turn him or her into a customer, than you
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
“ Creating a five or ten
would get through a flash sale or a quick stunt.
It was done in a subtle and natural way, that in no way took away from the narrative that Scott created for Turkish Airlines.] Speaking as a frequent visitor to Istanbul, I thought the video also did an excellent job at showcasing the city, in a way that didn’t look photoshopped or involving Instagram type fakery.
So in addition to promoting the Turkish Airlines offering, it worked extremely well as a piece of destination marketing, and made me really want to go back to Turkey. The only question is whether the video justified a spend at the Superbowl, or if it could have been released on other mediums for lesser budget.
“ You have to nail it in Executive Creative Director at W Communications
The ingredients should all be there for a major marketing moment: a 30 second Super Bowl ad-spot; legendary Hollywood director Ridley Scott and a huge budget for production and media spend.
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“
Mark Perkins
those 30 seconds, not leave the viewer asking questions. There’s a fine line between intrigue and lost interest.
From a creative point of view, it’s a stunning piece of work. It falls flat in its objectives which was to drive Super Bowl ad viewers to watch the full film, but primarily market Istanbul as a stopover desti-
nation and the new airport. Whilst the 30 second trailer and Scott’s six-minute film ‘The Journey’ look as sumptuous as any Jason Bourne blockbuster the end result is a bit muddled.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
In fact, one of the things that impressed me was the smart ways in which Turkish Airlines managed to weave its product offering into the Ridley Scott film, from the in-flight dessert trolley, to the drinks you are served in business class prior to departure, to the very impressive brand new Istanbul Airport, which few
people will have seen.
for eyeballs, targeting consumers who have short attention spans who demand instant gratification. You have to nail it in those 30 seconds, not leave the viewer asking questions.
As a result, social engagement and share was pretty low for a campaign of this scale. The number of YouTube views for the short film The Journey is 1.3m after four days, which sounds respectable. However, just the first 30 seconds counts as a view, the drop-off rate is huge, and in the world of branded online content, six minutes is the equivalent of reading War and Peace cover to cover. It’s a beautifully made film that showcased Istanbul to new audiences, and it certainly created intrigue, but one has to wonder if it delivered the desired impact,
“ A Turkey.
conversation and ROI. Given the budget and the assets they had to work with it could have been much more engaging. Take away the ad spend on the Super Bowl slot and invest it in innovation and user-generated storytelling. Taking a nod from the Netflix show Bandersnatch, what if the opening of the film started with an arrival in Istanbul airport and the viewer could choose from multiple options for the lead character? That opens up both the narrative and city to discover, with different sequences and endings which immerse the viewer. In fact, that has given me an idea if anyone would like to get in touch.
Not Turkish Delight.
Sue Turner Brand Expert
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“
When you’ve got 30 seconds on the most expensive ad-spot in the world – bracketed by other blockbuster ads, not to mention the game itself – it’s a battle
There’s a fine line between intrigue and lost interest.
A Turkey with a lot of mash: The Bodyguard, Killing Eve, Mission Impossible - the gravy having been gobbled-up by Ridley and the US networks.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
The trailer was geared to drive viewers to the airline’s social media channels to view the full film. However, the reaction of media and viewers was one of confusion: Is this a new Ridley Scott film? What is this about? What are Turkish Airlines selling? What am I supposed to…Ooh, another ad!
Feck knows how much this cost to make let alone the media costs, but I suspect that Turkish Airlines will be eating the sandwiches until the next Super Bowl. A flimsy ‘storyline’ wrapped around shots of Turkey, the airline services and interiors. Yes, it’s beautifully filmed, the ‘bird’ looks great and it’s all very cosmopolitan. But
perceptions and reality are often very different things and this is alien to me. It’s not the Turkey we’ve been hearing about of late, so Mr Scott is doing a bit of terraforming here on behalf of his client. What would I have done? Nothing. I wouldn’t work with this client for the reason stated above. Do you think I had fun watching this? No.
So at first, I felt a bit underwhelmed. Marc Weber-Bång Aviation Consultant
However, I ended up watching it again and again to try and figure out what this mystery was all about.
The more I watched it, the more aware I became of all the details in the video, and the storyline became less important to me. And I think this is exactly what Ridley Scott and TK wanted to achieve. Because the storyline, the mystery surrounding it, and the excellent cinematic effects, all provided a powerful stage for TK to showcase all the typical “boring” airline ad elements (Business class cabin and service, city sights, TK history and their home airport) in a different and fresh new way.
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It is also very much on-brand, in the sense that it incorporates the two elements that the TK brand embodies, namely: humour (Think Kobe vs. Messi and the recent Lego safety video) and gastronomy (their restaurant like experience from lounge to landing). From chasing her target on a city bike, to the elegant non-aircrafty looking dessert trolley, the various brand ingredients are brilliantly thrown into the mix of mystery. All in all, a well-executed and on-brand ad, which only gets better the more you watch it.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
My first impression of the new Turkish Airlines ad “The Journey” was that of mystery and confusion. I could not figure out what the storyline was about, who the characters were, and why one was chasing after the other.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Making celebrity fashion and food partnerships work
Making celebrity fashion and food partnerships work
The airline brought on Jason Wu, who designed Michelle Obama’s inauguration dresses in 2008 and 2012, to create new sleepwear for passengers flying long-haul in Royal Laurel and Premium Laurel Classes. Meanwhile, Tan-style cuisine Master Chef Huang Ching-biao has created a special menu for selected EVA routes. The airline says that it uses “ancient recipes...made popular in royal courts and enjoyed over the centuries by prime ministers and world leaders.” Finally, EVA Air worked with Rimowa and Ferragamo to create new 2019 overnight kits. Those departing from Taiwan receive overnight kits in RIMOWA’s popular new “Carmona Red.” Contents include a color-coordinated eye mask, socks, a hairbrush, a microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses and screens on personal devices, earplugs, a toothbrush and toothpaste and skincare essentials from CLARINS.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Premium class passengers flying with Taiwan’s EVA Air, will now benefit from new amenities, special menus and sleep wear created by a series of big names in design, fashion and food.
It is premium, but is it unexpected?
Sure, we could see passengers wanting to take home PJs designed by the same person who created Michelle Obama’s Inauguration dress. Especially given the thriving market in airline collectables on eBay. However, big name partnerships are now almost something of a hygiene factor. You just expect it from a reputable carrier, when paying c. $5,000 for your ticket. So how can you make a partnership work? Finnair and Delta are two examples of airlines that have done that, mainly by creating stories and content around the association. In the past, we’ve covered Finnair for its association with Chinese celebrity chef
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Steven Liu, who has developed menus in Finnair premium cabins on flights from China. However, not only is Liu creating menus for the airline, he has fronted a number of campaigns aimed at appealing at Chinese travellers. For example, in 2016, Finnair produced a piece of video content showing Steven Liu arriving in Helsinki (from Shanghai) where he had five hours to spare before his next flight. These five hours formed the basis of a stopover challenge, where his Finnish colleague Sasu Laukkonen took him on a trip to the countryside, with the two of them preparing a meal from the ingredients they found, before Liu caught his next flight.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
EVA Air has clearly roped in a series of A-Listers to design amenities for high paying passengers. But with every airline working with this or that big name, does it actually give them any
Hear the taste
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Meanwhile in 2018, Steven Liu worked with Finnair in a creative tactic looking at how sound affects taste. As part of the “Hear the Taste” campaign, Steven Liu went on a trip around the Nordic countries to record northern sounds that enhance his culinary vision. This then resulted in a so-called “scientific soundscape” for each of Steven Liu’s dishes - essentially listening to an audio track was meant to enhance the flavours. In a nod to the Chinese audiences Finnair was trying to reach, the sounds could be played via a mini-programme on Wechat.
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Delta and LSTN LSTN as a brand. The headphones them-
working with socially responsible
selves are given out in bags containing
headphone company LSTN, as opposed
the LSTN motto “We believe that what
to the usual suspects such as Bose or
is good for business should be good for
Marshall.
the world.”
This was part of a wider CSR initiative
The link with Delta’s wider CSR pro-
where the airline committed to taking
gramme, in turn allows the airline to tell
part in ‘hearing missions’ in the develop-
stories and create content around the
ing world, in cooperation with the Star-
partnership. For example, take a look at
key Hearing Foundation.
this video.
The distinctive wood design means the
As tech and media website Engadget
headphones themselves are eye-catch-
wrote at the time, with the LSTN part-
ing, they make you want to look twice.
nership, Delta removed “the guilt from
And many people won’t have heard of
keeping in-flight headphones.”
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
In June 2017, we featured Delta for
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
oneworld Travel Bright
oneworld - Travel Bright
Over a dozen airline CEOs were in attendance, lined up in chairs along the stage, although it was odd to see most (including the CEOs of Iberia and JAL) sitting in silence, as only a few (including Alex Cruz, Doug Parker, Rupert Hogg and Alan Joyce) actually spoke. As a number of commentators have pointed out, the event also again demonstrated the lack of female representation at the highest levels of airline management, with the CEO line-up being all male (one of the few female airline CEOs is flybe’s CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener). oneworld claims that the new Travel Bright branding is “breaking the mould
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of airline alliance advertising.” Essentially the campaign features a group of happy looking, multicultural (mainly) millennials, against a variety of pastel coloured backgrounds, and in different creative poses (e.g in one image a young woman pulls her suitcase along, followed by a series of small oneworld planes). Whether it breaks the mould or not, the visuals are certainly striking and hard to miss. Ad agency Ogilvy, which developed the new brand alongside the marketing team, oversaw the creation of almost 300 different visual assets, in nine languages. oneworld says that these brand assets have specifically been designed to create engagement via social and digital channels. A series of short 15 second videos have also been created, which will be shown on-board partner airlines - the length taking into account the fact that IFE / Video space is at a premium.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
On February 1st, some of the most powerful figures in world aviation gathered together in London for a media event. The occasion was the unveiling of the new ‘Travel Bright’ brand platform by airline alliance oneworld, which in turn coincided with oneworld’s 20th anniversary.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
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oneworld says that the brand assets have specifically been designed to create engagement via social and digital channels.
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The eye-catching new brand platform aside, the event resulted in an announcement that will be real and meaningful to many travellers - oneworld is moving towards app interoperability. Currently, a frequent traveller will generally have to download and use individual apps for each airline s/he flies on. With the functionality being rolled out over the coming year, passengers taking connecting flights on any oneworld alliance partner, will be able to check in, obtain their boarding pass, receive flight info and track their luggage through any oneworld member airline app. In the future, oneworld aims to add full seat selection (where payment is needed), the ability to pay for additional lug-
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gage, and the locations of lounges and priority lanes. According to oneworld CEO Rob Gurney, half of oneworld frequent flyers “have at least three airline apps on their mobile devices - but there is a strong preference for using just one single app to cover a journey involving a transfer between different airlines. Yet, until today, the technology to supporĐľt that has not been available. It is now, progressively throughout the oneworld network.â€?
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
oneworld apps to work together
Rival network Star Alliance celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2017. As part of that, the alliance teamed up with National Geographic TV. NatGeo present-
er Robert Reid took part in a series of challenges set by Star Alliance founder airlines under the heading ‘Connecting Cultures.’
As a piece of brand storytelling and content, we prefer what Star Alliance did with Robert Reid - as we can see how the concept could be spun off in a number of different ways. However, with the apps working together, oneworld is doing something that will make a practical difference to its most loyal and frequent travellers. The youngest of the three major airline alliances, Skyteam, celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2020.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
For example, in Bangkok, he had to learn to kickbox in a challenge set by Thai Airways. Meanwhile United sent Reid to New Mexico to perform at the ‘Gathering of Nations’ Native American music festival.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Delta Best in class
Delta - Best in class Over the past few years, Delta has been producing video mini-series to showcase different sides of its business and product launches. For example, in the Autumn of 2017, Delta unveiled a twelve part series called ‘Earning our Wings.’
The series was released as Delta opened up cabin crew staff applications, where the demand for jobs is so high that Delta claims it is actually easier to get into Harvard than become a Delta flight attendant (see our November 2017 issue, where we covered the campaign in more detail). Delta’s latest video series ‘Best in Class’ - coincides with the airline taking delivery of its first A220 aircraft. The three part series involves a behind the scenes look of the A220
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being prepared for launch. It features interviews with Delta employees who as well as giving information about the aircraft, also promote various Delta talking points (e.g in episode two the point is made that while other airlines are removing seat-back screens, Delta is “doubling down” and putting more in). The first episode, ‘Coming Together’ has Delta employees gearing up to sell A220 tickets for the very first time. It then shows the airline’s very first A220 going through the assembly line, paint shop, and ultimately touches down in Delta’s Atlanta home. Episode two features a mock evacuation in
darkness and an engine change, while the third episode features passengers being welcomed on board the inaugural flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The launch event itself took place at LGA on February 7th, prior to Delta’s first A220 leaving for Dallas Fort Worth with media, AV enthusiasts and staff in attendance. And press coverage so far has been largely positive. USA Today commented that “the narrowbody planes seem a candidate to become a passenger favorite on the routes they’ll fly”, while Fast Company featured the aircraft bathroom windows and bigger overhead bins.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Produced in the style of a fly on the wall documentary, this followed aspiring Delta flight attendants through the company’s training programme.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Credit - Image from Delta
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Credit - Image from Delta
Delta - Best in class
We’ve featured Delta a number of times in the magazine in the past, and one of the things that consistently impresses us is how the airline structures its very comprehensive online media centre. We’ve featured Delta a number of times in the magazine in the past, and one of
banks, a lack of up to date information and imagery, and occasionally even no contact details.
the things that consistently impresses us is how the airline structures its very comDelta’s A220 Media-Kit includes B-Roll prehensive online media centre. footage, an animated video to download This is a theme we will come back to showing off key aircraft features, imagin a future issue, when we publish an ery, links to a selection of press releases industry report on best practice media and of course links to the ‘Best in Class’ relations, but the Delta’s operation is ex- video series. tremely thorough in the amount of maAny airline, or indeed any brand, looking terials it makes available to journalists to create an online press office could and bloggers - and always up to date. do worse than to look at and copy what Compare that to other airline press Delta has been doing. offices, which sometimes have no image
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Credit - Photo by Noam Galai/ Getty Images for Delta
Delta Napkins Delta has had to apologise after producing in-flight napkins that some passengers found “creepy.”
They then had a space on the back where you could write your phone number
Following a social media outcry, the airline told Insider magazine, “We rotate Coke products regularly as part of our brand partnership, but missed the mark with this one.” However, not everyone thought Delta had anything to apologise about. The Live and Let’s Fly Blog for example, wrote:
“ Would I be offended if someone
handed me a napkin with their telephone number? No. I also wouldn’t be interested….I see nothing wrong with these napkins. My goodness, do we really have nothing else to be creeped out about? I think Delta responded far too swiftly and cautiously.
“
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
The napkins, which were produced in association with Coca-Cola, included the words, “because you are on a plane full of interesting people and hey ... you never know.”
or a message to your ‘plane crush.’
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Has Air New Zealand jumped the safety video shark?
Has Air New Zealand jumped the safety video shark? Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
“Jumping the shark� is a phrase used when a TV series is past its peak and the creators think of ever more outlandish gimmicks to keep viewers hooked. It originally comes from an episode of the TV show Happy Days, where Fonzie jumps over some sharks while on water-skis (click on the image above for the video) Air New Zealand has arguably jumped the shark when it comes to safety videos. The airline of course invented the whole idea of making safety videos entertaining and using them as marketing tools.
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As far back as 2012, SimpliFlying CEO and founder Shashank Nigam wrote,
“
“
And over the years, Air New Zealand has cranked out hit after hit, each racking up millions of views. However, recently things haven’t gone totally Air New Zealand’s way. For a start, other airlines have long since latched onto the fact that safety videos can work as great pieces of branded content that are shared far and wide.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Air New Zealand has taken the same videos and turned them from what people ignored in-flight to something people watch at home on Youtube. Many times over.
For example, just today while writing this, Turkish Airlines announced a sequel to its 2018 safety video featuring the LEGO Movie Characters - the original has so far been viewed over 28 million times.. So with the bar being raised ever higher, it has looked as if Air New Zealand was going to ever greater lengths to prove it was still the King and Queen of the genre. Hence the airline boasted that the last safety video ‘It’s Kiwi Safety’, released in November, was the largest it ever produced, featuring a 600-strong cast.
The whole thing looked like it wanted to make a point. Back off: Safety videos are ours. The same thought seemed to be behind a LinkedIn post that the airline released in early February, advertising for a “head of Airline safety videos.” It was hard to tell whether the ad was meant as a joke, or whether such a role really exists, but the ad itself made the point of reminding people what a great run of safety videos the airline has produced.
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It was also a statement while you get your ad agency to dream up safety videos in between all the other stuff they do, we will have someone thinking about safety videos 24/7. Crucially though, the ad alluded to the fact that ‘It’s Kiwi Safety’ was not universally well received, and many viewers found it confusing. As Marco Serusi wrote in a blog post in November, when we watched it some of the team pointed out that it could easily be a washing powder ad since “there seems to be more footage of washing machines than there is of planes, destinations or anything immediately associated with an airline.”
As the Drum reports, that video has now been withdrawn on flights and replaced with a 2016 safety video called ‘Summer of Safety.’ And we’re not alone wondering what’s happened with the airline’s safety videos. No less than the NZ Herald posted a piece headlined “Air NZ’s safety videos stink. Here’s how to fix them.” Though written largely in a joking fashion by the Herald’s senior entertainment writer, Karl Puschmann, the piece did end with the words: “In true showbiz fashion I’ve saved the best idea till last. Just, like, stop making them. Please.” Ouch.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
That video takes the form of a rap and is backed by a remake of the popular RUNDMC song It’s Tricky.
Is it time to discover the next big thing?
We do however think Air New Zealand should stop trying to compete. When you have another
airline that buys up a 30 second spot in the most expensive piece of TV ad real estate in the world (the Super Bowl), commissions an Oscar winning director to make a short film and then follows all that up with a LEGO Movie safety video…..well….you will never really compete.
In the meantime, the two+ year old ‘Summer of Safety’ video Air New Zealand is running right now probably gets it right. Starring Rachel Hunter, it certainly doesn’t look cheap. It’s fun, watchable, and works as great destination video. It does all this, without being over the top.
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If you have a 600 strong cast for your video, they’ll just throw money at it and bring in 6000. Air New Zealand has owned the genre, its been around for a while now, everyone else is getting in on the act. So find something else and make it yours.
It doesn’t try to be the greatest, or the funniest, or the best, or the one with the biggest cast. You just enjoy it on its own merits as a good piece of content. So, over to you Air New Zealand. You revolutionised safety videos. We’re keen to see what you come up with next.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Actually we don’t agree that Air New Zealand should stop making them. There is still a role in safety videos as a piece of airline branding.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Visual Social Media For Airlines and Airports
Introduction Welcome to our second special industry report.
How can you actually create an amazing destination campaign using UGC on Instagram? Our industry guide starts with a piece by CrowdRiff’s Maggie Brennand, who provides a step by step guide.
CrowdRiff’s AI-powered content marketing platform is purpose built for travel marketers and combines content discovery, digital asset management, and content delivery tools that allow you to source and share top performing visuals with their respective audiences, at scale.
We’ve then move onto a topic that was discussed at our last SimpliFlying London Lab should you involve cabin and flight crew in your visual marketing campaigns. We think yes, and have given some examples of airlines that are doing so successfully.
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We also look at the thorny
subject of Instagram fakery, using the example of a fake account that we bought pre-packaged with followers, likes and photos, to illustrate how easy it is. We’ve given some advice on how to make sure influencers really are who they say they are. CrowdRiff’s Amrita Gurney talks about key channels for destination marketing beyond Instagram, while linking into that, the final piece from Mark Mezzapelli looks at six new places where you can use social photos and videos in your destination marketing.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
This month we are looking at visual social media for airlines and airports. In this report, we’ve partnered with CrowdRiff, the leading visual marketing platform for travel and tourism brands.
A Guide to Building a Destination Campaign Around Instagram Content Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
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By Maggie Brennand, Product Marketing Manager at CrowdRiff Now more than ever, user-generated content is taking center stage in successful destination marketing campaigns.
Where can you put them to work on your social and digital channels? Any step in the process could easily fill its own guide (we’ve done it!), but sometimes it’s useful to see the whole picture to help you understand what you’re trying to achieve and how to get there. So think of this as your UGC campaign planner. Using this handy checklist, you’ll be turning ideas into results in no time.
Let’s get started!
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But what does it actually look like to build a campaign around relevant and beautiful UGC? How do you know where to look? How can you quickly sift through the hundreds of millions of photos on Instagram to find the perfect visuals?
Pre-campaign tip: Set yourself up for successful sourcing Before you even sit down to plan your campaign, make sure you’re following these best practices so your library is always stocked with amazing content. Track
Track Instagram Business Accounts to access quality local content. Audit
#
Audit the hashtags you’re tracking to review the type of content they bring in. Use Sidekick, CrowdRiff’s handy Chrome extension, to easily add photos you’ve found directly on Instagram straight to your CrowdRiff library.
With Sidekick, you can quickly add photos directly to your CrowdRiff library in one click. Let’s say an airline launching a new Toronto route wants to run a campaign that showcases the city’s incredible food scene. Searching #foodie on Instagram returns over 100 million photos, but although tasty looking, how many of them are going to be from Toronto restau-
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rants? Probably not that many, considering how broad the hashtag #foodie is. Searching #torontofoodies, meanwhile, only returns 125K posts, but the vast majority will be relevant to the city. Being strategic with the hashtags and accounts you follow can pay huge dividends when you’re ready to start putting a campaign together.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
#
Track hashtags that are specific to your destination or attraction. For example, let’s say you are an airline launching a new route to Toronto (like Air Italy is from May). You may want to track #YYZ or #tiff.
Step 1: Surface campaign content from your library (with CrowdRiff ;)) With your library stocked with great content, building a campaign is just a matter of surfacing the right visuals. Here are a few ways CrowdRiff can help you find the perfect visuals. • Search with Smart Curation on, to ensure you’re getting the highest quality visuals.
content. • Once you’ve found a few photos you love, use our similar photos feature to gather more like it to build out your campaign. • Create a saved search, complete with hashtags, identifying keywords, and exclusions. Not only will this give you killer content, but you can easily revisit it in the click of a button.
Step 2: Prepare for publishing Before you press the launch button, make sure you have your campaign components organized.
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Travel brands have seen a 67% average increase when using smart galleries over standard galleries
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
• Don’t forget to search your @mentions stream! CrowdRiff automatically brings in any photos you’re mentioned or tagged in, giving you easy access to hyper-relevant
• Make sure you know where you’ll be sharing your content. This will help you determine which photos you can use right away, and which you’ll need rights for. • You can request rights to photos directly within CrowdRiff. Once approved, they’ll show up in your Rights-Approved Assets stream. • If you want to drive traffic to a specific partner or booking page, or redirect visitors to a new page on your website, add CTAs to your photos. • Start making galleries for your website and blog.
Step 3: Launch! Now that everything’s sourced and prepped, start sharing them with your community! • Send campaign content to any marketing partners you’re working with. • If you’re using scheduling or social tools, use Sidekick to quickly drag and drop your campaign content wherever you need it. • Remember to promote your social hashtags and handles to gain traction on social media! Tourism Toronto reposted this amazing brunch shot to their own Instagram feed
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• If you’re publishing a large variety of social content, use Creative Editor to easily edit, crop, and style your visuals for every type of post, so they’re ready to go when you need them.
If you’re in need of some extra inspiration, check out these incredible campaigns built with UGC: Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Explore St. Louis created a microsite, STL.Live, to showcase the culture, beer, food, and music scenes that make their city so great. Powered by great user-generated content, they’re able to show an authentic view of the best things to do in St. Louis. Clearly, Halifax is the place to be in 2019. Discover Halifax put together a list of the top 10 reasons to visit this year, complete with beautiful photos that highlight the unique experience of the city.
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You’re all set! Building out a marketing campaign driven by Instagram content doesn’t have to be tough or time consuming. With CrowdRiff, you can curate the best UGC out there and create impactful marketing campaigns with ease. 50.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
The State Parks & Historic Sites division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources ran their Leaf Watch 2018 campaign this past fall. They encouraged locals and visitors to try their Leaf Watch Travel Planner and share their beautiful fall photos with #GaLeafWatch, and featured user photos in a gallery on their website.
Working with staff and crews
The first is how you can create campaigns using passenger UGC. For that, see the previous article by CrowdRiff’s Maggie Brennand, which gives an excellent step by step guide on creating amazing campaigns from Instagram hashtags. These could be related to your airline or a destination you fly to (or about to). However, as well as working with passenger content, our group of airline marketers tackled the issue of how to work
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with crews and to what extent airlines should be using their content. Some thought crew content was gold dust. But others raised contractual issues (sometimes unions simply won’t let the airline work with crews in this way), and also wondered if crew content could be seen as fake and inauthentic. Our advice on this was (and is) - where you can work with crews, do. Pilots especially have views no one else does (and cockpit shots where they take photos of cities below traditionally do very well). Working with staff and using their content also however helps humanise your brand.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Our London lab last year included a session on destination marketing, where aside from working with influencers, two more issues came up for discussion.
Here are a few examples from airlines:
Cargolux.
Captain Joe has a huge audience on both channels, and though Cargolux isn’t working with him right now, when we contacted them they did say they were discussing content ideas with him, and so will be in future.
Lufthansa Cargo Lufthansa Cargo is a brand that continually impresses us for its campaigns, which adopt two philosophies we very much believe in. First of all, cargo is interesting. Just like every passenger journey, every cargo journey tells a story (what is the product? Who is it for? What difference will it make?) and is also usually very visual.
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One of the biggest pilots on Instagram and YouTube is of course “Captain Joe”,who used to fly with Air Berlin before it went bankrupt and now flies for Luxembourgbased cargo airline
Six billion Capri Suns?
LH Cargo has rolled out a number of great visual campaigns that wouldn’t look out of place for a consumer brand. For example, check out the Christmas challenges where they pitted themselves against “Santa” to find out who delivers more. Lufthansa Cargo also has pilots take over their Instagram account, in a ‘week in the life’ of type features. This is generally done via a mix of Instagram posts and stories, where the pilot in question gives an overview of what his or her job involves. You don’t have to be a huge airline to do this, even regional carriers can follow suit. In fact, for a smaller airline, involving staff could be a good way to get content if your budgets are not so high.
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Secondly, LH Cargo is a b2b brand, but ultimately everyone is a consumer. Just because s/he sits behind a desk and works with spreadsheets, s/he still has the capacity (and wants to be) inspired.
One example is British /European
airline flybmi,
which last year ran a pilot take-over with one of its female pilots, where as well as showing the various airports the airline flies to, she also told her story about how she became a pilot.
The importance of briefing staff while keeping it natural Obviously the key thing when using staff visual content and working with staff is to make sure they are well briefed beforehand. What can and can’t they do, what kind of visual content do you want them to feature? At the same time, it’s important that you are not too restrictive. Going back to some of the concerns that our panel of airline marketers have, if it’s too restricted it will look forced and false to an external audience. There has to be scope for them to tell your story and their story - but using their own voice. Finally, it is worth doing a check and an audit of which of your staff are using Instagram and other channels right now and posting on the job. From experience, we know that a lot of airlines are surprised when they see photos from some of their flight or cabin crew, that they didn’t know about.
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Then of course, as well as pilots you can work with cabin crew. Airlines that have done so include Qatar Airways, WOW Air and Lufthansa - in the case of all three, on Snapchat as well as Instagram.
Why you should involve AV Geeks in your visual campaigns More often than not, they are very active on Instagram, where there’s a large aviation community. There are over six million posts tagged #AVGeek on Instagram, but even once you drill down further the volume is significant.
Airports, who several years teamed up with Flybe, in a “Plane Spotter Swap.” A group of AV Geeks was taken from EDI to LCY, and the other way around, where they were given a behind the scenes look at the aircraft, including the opportunity to take photos on the airfield.
For example, there are over 800k posts tagged #Airbuslovers, over 15k tagged #A220 (see the Delta A220 launch story in the main section of the magazine) while 13k+ posts even contain the hashtag for the regional jet #Saab340. Indeed, if you scan through a lot of airline hashtags, a fair amount of posts come from aviation enthusiasts. This is the case even for relatively small airlines. For example, if you scan through the 5k+ images tagged #LoganAir (after the Scottish regional airline) quite a large proportion are photos of its aircraft. One example of a successful AV Geek collaboration is Edinburgh and London City
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When you work with AV Geeks, not only do you get generally good quality aviation related content, by and large they are grateful when you feature them - it’s a sign of recognition after all when an airline uses their shots. Where possible, we think you should do it. And of course, use a platform such as that created by CrowdRiff to source, curate and acquire rights to the content.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Every airline marketer knows of them and sees them, the collection of AV Geeks who sit on the edge of an airport and take pictures of aircraft coming in.
The problem of Instagram fakes - and how to spot them At last year’s Aviation Festival in Miami, we ran a SimpliFlying Lab, where we announced we’d be bringing along a special guest - a major Instagram and travel influencer.
The time for the talk came and went...but there was no Bob. That’s because there is no Bob Golan. We bought his account, ready-made with followers and filled with images (most of which were stock images) off a website. The cost? $60. The whole exercise was done to show how easy it is to game the popularity game and numbers - right down to buying up pre-packaged accounts that look popular and are ready to go. In fact, before “Bob’s” talk, no one questioned his authenticity, with a number of attendees even taking the trouble to follow him. And it’s easy to do. Sixty dollars to buy up an account with over 10,000 followers, where you can easily change the username and the biography, might to some seem like a good investment if it can bag you free flights and hotel stays a a result.
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Our influencer, Bob Golan, had (at the time) over 12k followers. We told our audience of airline marketers that Bob would be hosting a special session about Instagram best practice.
Likes for sale at $0.06 per hundred
Social media fakery is of course an ongoing problem, and it’s particularly rife on Instagram. One
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reason for that is that the Facebook-owned visual social network now houses a lot of influencers who earn their living from it. That trend is in part fuelled by a constant stream of press articles touting Instagram as some kind of get rich platform, where you tour the world for free while getting paid. Last Summer Britain’s Mirror newspaper ran an article centred around
research by influencer platform Takumi, claiming that someone with 10,000 followers could earn £15,600 ($20,100) a year while someone with 100,000 followers could earn £156,000 ($201,000). Hence the temptation is there, and while most influencers are honest, some are not. How do you spot them, and make sure the engagement they promise to deliver you is real?
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Of course if you buy a fake account, it’s probably mainly followed by bots and you need to shovel in a steady stream of likes to seem legitimate. Again, easily done. A one minute google search brings up plenty of results. Just one example, buying likes from “Kickliker” comes in at $0.06 per 100 likes.
Do a spot check of their followers and likes When someone approaches you, take a minute to look through their followers, and the people who are liking their photos. No one will be 100% clear of bots, but by and large the list of followers should look genuine. Followers profiles should seem realistic, with a selection of photos that have been post-
If someone (e.g.) follows 1,000 but has 100 followers, with an empty or threadbare profile, that should raise a red flag.
Look at the comments - are they genuine? Conventional wisdom says that you should make sure that an influencer’s pics have comments as well as likes - i.e. look for engagement as well as likes. owever, comments can also be bought. As a result, look at the quality of those comments instead. Are they canned comments or do they relate to the photo.
If in doubt, run their images through TinEye Earlier we mentioned how Bob Golan’s account was delivered to us, with his feed made up of stock travel images. An easy way to find out if someone is doing that is to use a reverse image search engine, such as TinEye.
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ed on their feed. They should also have a reasonable following to follower ratio.
Audit them by using a number of tools and services A range of tools exist, which allow you to audit an influencer’s feed. They are not totally foolproof. For example, they can’t audit followers who have made their accounts private. However, they still give a good overview. One free tool is IG Audit, which takes a snapshot of someone’s followers. IG Audit only takes a sample,, and so claims accuracy within an eight percent range either way (e.g
Also, as we mentioned most large accounts have some bot followers who tack onto certain hashtags. However, bearing all that in mind, someone should still have a score of at least 75%+.
In terms of paid for services, Hyper Auditor is worth looking at. As well as telling you what % of someone’s followers are real and / or high quality, it will also give you information about the demographics of someone’s followers and information about the engagement rate and the quality of comments. Finally, when it comes to getting a sense that a visual influencer is who they say they are, then working with them over time and building up relationships. Once you’ve worked with someone on a destination two or three times, you will start to get a feel for the type of engagement that their posts attract. And it works both ways, they will know what content works best both for you, and their followers.
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someone scoring 50% could have 42% or 58% real followers).
Beyond the Website: Key Channels for Destination Marketing in 2019
Websites are well-known to be the average travel marketer’s single most important piece of digital content. While it remains the primary endpoint for
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most customer interactions, it’s no longer the only venue where marketers can provide information, market their destination or attraction and convert sales.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
By Amrita Gurney, VP of Marketing, CrowdRiff
Instead, you need to meet audiences where they are. Here are five digital spaces that we are keeping on our radar as key channels for tourism marketers in 2019:
1. Google Maps
One of particular importance to tourism marketers is Google Maps. An increasing number of searches now start inside Google Maps, especially when visitors and locals are looking for things to do that are nearby. A search inside Maps retrieves more than just directions – it
also adds pictures, hours of operation, contact information, reviews and more. The feature is called Your Business Profile, and marketers can edit pages for free using the Google My Business application, adding photos and descriptions for their brand. Marketers should absolutely take the necessary time to claim their profile in order to have a say in what users see when they conduct relevant searches.
2. Instagram Stories Snapchat may have been the first platform to popularize the Stories format, but this past year the big story (excuse the pun) was Instagram’s similar feature, which surpassed Snapchat’s popularity. In fact, user-ship grew from 100 million in of 2016 to over 400 million daily active users in 2018, making it the fastest growing product on the Facebook/Instagram platform.
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This new format structure not only requires more vertically framed, less produced and more in-the-moment content, it also allows marketers to tell a story over multiple still images or 15-second snippets. I can’t overstate the importance of creating original, native-looking content for these stories, rather than reformatting existing images and videos.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Google has been reclaiming more and more of the real estate on search result pages, adding a slew of new features that attempt to answer queries in more dynamic ways.
With content disappearing after 24-hours, however, marketers that want to invest in stories need to consider how to best extend its lifespan. One way is to find somewhere for it to
live after it’s expired on Instagram, such as website pages or YouTube channels. Another option is to save it to your Instagram profile so it continues to be available as a “highlight”, like the team at Visit Stockton does so well.
3. Paid Social, SEM and Display A number of trends over the past year have unfortunately decreased the value and prominence of organic traffic on social media platforms. That doesn’t mean that your organic campaigns aren’t worth the time, money and effort, but marketers should expect their traffic to come from more paid sources in 2019 than the previous year. The change is in part due to a change in Facebook’s API last January that is intended to prioritize content from friends and family over brands in news feeds. Jeff Robinson, Director of Marketing at Visit Indy, recently gave a presentation at the
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Some brands, however, have found ways to incorporate Instagram stories into wider marketing campaigns. Visit Savannah, for example, used the polling feature to collect feedback from users and build an audience-directed tourism video that continues to live on its website and YouTube channel today.
DTTT Global Summit in Helsinki where he shared that their DMO has seen a downward shift in organic traffic over the years and as a result, their digital budget has evolved to spend more on paid display, paid social and SEM. Don’t get me wrong, organic content still has the same value, but brands should anticipate using more of their digital marketing budget on getting that content in front of audiences in 2019.
4. Facebook Live
Facebook Live broadcasts have grown 100% YOY since they launched in 2016. Their format naturally lends itself to viewer engagement, and as a result, have 6 times the interaction of other video formats. The beauty of Facebook Live is that it doesn’t require a large investment in production. Smaller tourism brands like Visit Hendricks County and Visit Franklin are shooting Facebook Live segments with a simple iPhone setup, interviewing their local business partners from new hotels to craft studios.
5. Content Syndication
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While video continues to explode in popularity as a content medium, one type of video format – live video – is a perfect fit for tourism brands.
We’ve seen an increasing number of destination marketers forming successful partnerships with publishers, and only expect that trend to increase moving forward as native advertising grows. Napa Valley, for example, recently partnered with Afar Magazine on its “Makers of Napa Valley” content series. The campaign ultimately doubled all of its original KPIs, achieving more than 13.6 million overall impressions. We’ve seen an increasing number of destination marketers forming successful partnerships with publishers, and only expect that trend to increase moving forward as native advertising grows. Napa Valley, for example, recently partnered with Afar Magazine on its “Makers of Napa Valley” content series. The campaign ultimately doubled all of its original KPIs, achieving more than 13.6 million overall impressions.
While websites remain the digital marketer’s most valuable platform, they are no longer the only place where audiences go for information. In the coming year, make sure you’re prepared to meet your audience wherever they are. We’ll continue to cover these channels as well as new ones on the horizon. If your website is still a key focus for 2019, read our eBook on keeping tourism websites relevant. It dives into what tourism brands can do to create engaging web experiences that’ll be the go-to resource for any visitor.
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Keep Your Eye on These Growing Channels for Tourism Marketers
Six New Places to Use Social Photos and Videos in Your Destination Marketing
Social media is the perfect spot to showcase visual UGC (user-generated content) , but it’s not your only option! Sure, visual UGC works amazingly well on Instagram and your website, but there are tons of other creative places airlines can feature social photos and videos in their destination campaigns – including some you probably haven’t considered before.
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Think about it: almost anywhere you normally use professional photos, you can use user-generated visuals to inspire travelers to come and visit with an authentic lens, as long as you have the rights to them. Not quite sure where to start? Here are six places you never thought to – and most definitely should– use UGC.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
By Mark Mezzapelli, VP Business and Partnerships, CrowdRiff
1. Digital ads People are bombarded with ads all day long. We’re less receptive to traditional ads, which has created a new challenge for brands that want to make a lasting impression. Here’s where visual UGC comes into the picture. It offers a fresh, relatable perspective that resonates with your customers. Maybe that’s why 70% of customers trust UGC more than traditional marketing content and Facebook ads with UGC visuals have a 300% higher click-through rate.
Visit Indy created a series of ads that were comprised completely of UGC, in an effort to make their ads feel more authentic.
“ Visitors want to see other visitors in-
teracting in the space, so 2018 is the first year that in our social ad buy, we decided and pledged that we’re only going to use UGC images within the says Christine Zetzl, the Digital Marketing ad buy. Manager at Visit Indy.
“
Their use of UGC in their ads helped increase their click-through rate by 3x on Facebook ads. This kind of user-generated content can give you the same look and feel as a friend’s post — un-intrusive and real.
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Visual UGC can help bridge the gap and allow brands to establish a strong connection with their audience. The goal here isn’t for promotional content to stand out – it’s to blend in with content shared by other travelers.
2. Digital displays Another clever way for travel organizations to capitalize on visual UGC is by including it in digital displays. Not only do customers respond better to authentic content than purely promotional content, it helps them picture themselves in different scenarios.
For example, Blue Mountain Resort in Ontario squeezes more value out of their visitors’ photos by featuring them in multiple on-site digital slideshows. On screens throughout Blue Mountain, they display this randomized gallery of
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This applies to both current and future visitors. Visitors who are already at your destination can get inspired by experiences others are having, through social photos and video, that encourages them to make the most of their trip. Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
So using UGC to suggest activities or
local restaurants is a resourceful way to feed your audience’s imagination.
curated photos to excite visitors right at the start of their visit. Digital displays with UGC also provide inthe-moment reminders that customers should capture and share their experiences on social media.
3. Visitor guides When people flip through visitor guides, they want to see experiences that they can identify with. You can capture those authentic experience with visual UGC. And as a sweet bonus, that also means you can stretch your photography budget. Here are a few fun ways to include more social photos in your visitor guides: • Add a section called “Where Locals Hang Out” that offers an insider perspective and photos of local hotspots.
light the most popular sites, attractions, and activities that visitors post about on Instagram. • Go all in with a “fully social” visitor guide. This is exactly what West Virginia did and the result is incredible:
Need some guidance? Read this step by step guide on how to create a visitor’s guide with user-generated content!
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
• Create a page called “The Social Media Bucket List for [Your Destination]” to high-
4. Responding to media outreach It’s a great feeling when journalists and bloggers reach out for information so they can write about your destination. What’s not so great is when they need very specific photos for their articles and you don’t have any that match.
Or do you?
Submitting UGC to media outlets also gives your visitors more widespread recognition for their awesome visuals. Plus, customers are more likely to share articles and blog posts starring their photos.
Did you know? CrowdRiff’s share portal is perfect for media outreach. You can easily and securely send any number of social and owned photos to media. Visuals from social media are available as a web embed.
5. Videos You already give your customers a voice on your website and social media through crowd-sourced images, so why not video? Video is already dominating the web and continuing to gain traction. In fact, video is expected to make up 80% of internet traffic by 2021. Showcasing travel videos is a dynamic way to let your customers share trip experiences. You can even compile multiple clips and pictures together for a more powerful impact than photos alone.
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Once you add visual UGC to the mix, your pool of high-quality photos grows significantly. The more variety in your visual content, the higher your chances of finding an exact match for the journalist’s request.
This video went viral to get 1.28 million views (and counting) on YouTube!
6. Trip Planners Travelers turn to social media to research trips all the time. It’s easy to see why – social media offers an unfiltered view of a destination through the lens of another traveler. Destination BC took advantage of this by incorporating Instagram directly into their visual trip planner. The BC Explorer allows travelers to scroll through authentic photos that encourage them to visualize their own trip.
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Check out Destination Canada’s amazing video, Found in Canada, to see how visual UGC can come together to bring a destination to life.
Each photo includes the call to action “Get the Details� and links to more relevant information about local businesses, popular attractions, and visitor guides. Whenever viewers find an image that inspires them, they can save it directly to their trip plan with the click of a button. Find out more about the BC Explorer to see what you can learn from its success.
Use visual UGC to breathe new life into every corner of your marketing Travelers love relatable visual content that helps them imagine their own dream vacation. Whether an image inspires someone to learn more about a destination or book the next flight out of town, UGC provides a realness that DMOs need if they want to connect with their next visitors.
Over 500 DMOs and tourism brands use CrowdRiff to find high-res social photos and video to use in their marketing. 71.
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Image credit: @stephfusea
News from SimpliFlying
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
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The SimpliLive Show Is it a coincidence that the oldest airlines in the world are also some of the most digitally innovative? This is a theme that SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam explored in an episode of the SimpliLive Show.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Is it a coincidence that the oldest airlines
topics we have covered in this issue, in-
in the world are also some of the most
cluding the Turkish Airlines Super Bowl
digitally innovative? This is a theme
/ Ridley Scott film, the British Airways
that SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam
‘Made by Britain’ ad and Frontier’s ‘Kids
explored in an episode of the SimpliLive
Fly Free’ initiative.
Show. Other episodes expand on some of the
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You can see these and more, over on SimpliFlying’s social media channels.
The SimpliFlying Global Institute
equip you with what you need to know about marketing and communication in aviation, through the series of courses we are developing. Join the institute at a special early bird rate now by going to our website.
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How would you like insights from 100+ aviation leaders to help you grow in your career? The newly launched SimpliFlying Global Institute will
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Airline campaigns
AeroMexico - DNA Discount
For example, in 2016 it launched a gritty ad called “Fronteras” (borders), which talked about the futility of artificial barriers that keep people apart. It’s latest campaign, launched in January, looked at why some Americans don’t want to travel to Mexico due to some of the misconceptions they have. A campaign created by Ogilvy, saw the
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airline going to a town in Texas, and telling residents some surprising facts about themselves via DNA testing kits namely that most of them in fact has at least a small % of Mexican heritage. Those percentages were then translated into discounts on AeroMexico tickets to Mexico, so if you were found to have 25% Mexican heritage, you got a 25% discount. With the campaign being both extremely topical and creatively different, it ended up getting a lot of pick-up on social media and in the press over January.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
AeroMexico has a track record of turning the challenge of Donald Trump’s desire to build a wall between the USA and Mexico, into a marketing opportunity.
Caribbean Airlines Caribbean Identity
According to airline CEO Garvin Medera,
“ the culture and
the spirit of our many diverse nations - united by a shared sea and by our similar and powerful heritage.
“
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That seems to be the crux of the campaign - to support events and musicians that underpin the joint culture of the different countries that make up the English speaking Caribbean, with a number of sponsorships being announced in the airline’s launch press release. The Guyana event follows a similar one in Trinidad, with another planned in Jamaica.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Caribbean Airlines has launched a new brand campaign called “Caribbean Identity.” The new brand platform was unveiled at an event in Georgetown, Guyana, featuring a variety of live acts.
Emirates Playlist syncing
For example, last March Emirates released an ad starring comedian Badr Saleh, aimed at Saudi audiences, which showed him being so mesmerised by Emirates’ IFE that he forgets to leave the aircraft (see our March 2018 issue). More recently, the Emirates ad campaign
“Fly Better” (see our November issue), showed a passenger watching a cabin crew member on screen, who then morphed into a series of entertainment / film / dance characters. Now the airline has announced that passengers can create their own personalised playlist from the Emirates App, and once on board sync it to their seatback TV.
The syncing capability is currently available on over 100 Emirates Boeing 777 aircraft and will be made available progressively across the entire fleet, including A380 aircraft in the coming months.
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Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
The Emirates In-Flight entertainment system features heavily in the airline’s advertising.
KLM - Take off Tips
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
What if travellers waiting to board a plane could exchange tips face-to-face with others heading in the opposite direction?
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This was the insight behind KLM’s latest marketing tactic, where it created a series of “live hologram bars” in different airports.
Basically the hologram bars are video booths that KLM has set up in airports that include Amsterdam, Oslo, and Rio de Janeiro. You sit down in one, and you are connected with someone halfway around the world. The idea is that you then share destination tips with your booth counterpart.
Another airline which has in the past beamed people in from around the world via holograms to take part in live conversations, is Lufthansa. We featured Lufthansa on the front cover of our October 2017 issue for setting up ‘travel kiosks’ in different German cities. Stall and small shop owners from Hong Kong, Tokyo, Miami and New York took part, and interacted live with German shoppers, who had the opportunity to buy souvenirs (and also the chance to win flights).
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KLM has created a short video showcasing some of the “warmest moments” resulting from the ensuing conversations, which has so far been viewed over a million times.
Lufthansa - Hopper Partnership
Montreal-based Hopper forecasts flight and hotel prices and serves up personalised recommendations at the optimal booking time to consumers who download its app, as well as alternative travel offers. The partnership between Lufthansa and Hopper, which is being run through the
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Lufthansa Innovation Lab, will involve a collaboration on predictive analysis models and flight-demand forecasting. Hopper recently completed a $100 million financing round, and will continue to grow its international presence with a European roll-out planned throughout 2019. Lufthansa has rolled out a number of tech innovations over the past year. In November, we covered Lufthansa’s “AI Powered Ad” that it developed in association with IBM
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
The Lufthansa Group has made a “multi-million dollar investment” in a technology platform that seeks to predict flight demand, through artificial intelligence.
Qatar Airways A world like never before
their flight to paris, New York, Hong Kong and Doha while showing off a number of signature products from Qatar Airways, such as the QSuite along the way.
The Hollywood inspired ad and online video was created by agency 180 Kingsday and Ridley Scott Associates (Ridley Scott himself of course directed the Turkish Airlines Super Bowl film, which we’ve covered in this issue).
The airline says it was filmed on the biggest green screen in Europe and involved a production crew of more than 200 people across four continents.
The film portrays one family’s journey with Qatar Airways, taking them from
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The campaign includes film, digital, print, events and product campaigns featuring the airlines cuisine, service, in-flight entertainment and Oryx Kids Club.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Qatar Airways kicked off 2019 with what it has called its “biggest and most cinematic brand campaign to date” - A World Like Never Before.
Thomas Cook Airlines Hello Holiday the UK and Germany in January across digital, OOH, print and radio and was developed by Leo Burnett Germany.
The company launched a “Hello Holiday” campaign, which it says aims to showcase the “happiness experienced when going on holiday”
Thomas Cook Airlines confirmed to us that it had used “stock material” in the campaign. Which begs the question - if the inspiration is Instagram, why not work with actual user images?
The campaign is designed to encapsulate special holiday moments, places and experiences through a series of Instagram-style images that are meant to look “emotive and authentic.” The visuals centre each centre around a concise headline, around the word “HELLO.” The campaign launched in
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The airline additionally said that while some kind of Instagram promotion could be a “future option”, there were no plans as yet. (See as well our supplement on visual social media in association with CrowdRiff)
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
Instagram forms the inspiration for the latest campaign from Thomas Cook Airlines.
VietJet - Love Connection
The slightly surreal “fly for love” (in its original mixed English / Vietnamese, and English only versions) features female cabin crew, as well as a selection of ‘passengers’ including a Western man in a kimono, an elderly gentleman suggestively winking at the flight attendants, and an Indian dancer in traditional dress. They all dance in front of different
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backdrops, meant to represent VietJet destinations across Asia. The airline released the video to coincide with its “Love Connection” promotion, which ran in a number of Asian countries from November to February, and included competitions with free flight giveaways. Though this particular video is SFW, VietJet has in the past run into controversy for its reputation of being the “bikini airline.” For example, in January 2018, it ran into trouble when it sent women in hot-pants and bikini tops on a flight to accompany the Vietnamese football (soccer) team.
Airline Marketing Monthly | February 2019
A video released by Vietnamese airline, VietJet, has ended up being viewed almost fifteen million times, making it one of the most watched airline videos of the past few years.
Virgin Atlantic Innovation Nation
The airline, which flies from the UK to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, says that the documentary looks at how the state of California has become such a breeding ground for innovation and why it attracts the best and brightest from around the world. The first episode is all about California’s spirit of innovation – where it comes from and what drives it. It looks at how many of California’s major brands, companies and innovators started off in garages. Meanwhile the second part frames the state’s heritage of ‘alternative thinking’ through its rich history of counter-culture, and looks at how that has informed cyberspace and California’s mindset.
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Virgin Atlantic has partnered with Visit California, to produce a two part YouTube series that showcases California’s spirit of innovation.
