4 minute read
Aviation brands at SXSW
While most airlines, and most aviation journalists were at ITB in Berlin, we went to SXSW in Austin. Though not as many as in previous years, a number of aviation brands did have a presence.
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This included:
Embraer
The Brazilian aircraft manufacturer had a heavy-weight presence around the theme of the future of urban mobility.
In particular, Embraer used the conference to highlight its partnership with Uber, namely with the Uber Elevate, or Flying Taxi, programme.
This included showing off a prototype (by way of images), letting users see the experience of an Embraer ‘flying taxi’ fly overhead via a VR headset, and having a space in one of the conference venues where users could build their own flying taxi out of lego bricks.
Embraer also sponsored a number of conference sessions, and the Embraer brand was prominent at the event.
SAS
As in previous years, Scandinavian Airlines was behind the House of Scandinavia.
This featured both a Scandinavian pop-up restaurant, and a rolling schedule of talks from Scandinavian speakers around the main conference themes of technology and marketing.
As in previous years, Scandinavian Airlines was behind the House of Scandinavia.
This featured both a Scandinavian pop-up restaurant, and a rolling schedule of talks from Scandinavian speakers around the main conference themes of technology and marketing.
Like Embraer, SAS had a serious, visible and high budget presence with the Crown Princess of Denmark being in attendance to spearhead an official Danish initiative focusing on Danish and Scandinavian values and strengths
With Austin being a major US tech and startup centre, not just at SXSW, one entrepreneur wants to make the House of Scandinavia a permanent feature.
Ray Sosa, the CEO of fintech company Rev, which worked with SAS on the Eurobonus travel wallet last year.
It is worth mentioning that SAS does not actually fly to Austin. Right now the only European airlines that do are British Airways, Norwegian and (from this Spring) Lufthansa.
SAS did however have an SXSW flight from CPH, which the airlinecalled a “one-of-a-kind direct flight”, where guests could “explore thelatest in digitalized traveling at a special event in Copenhagen Airport.
Lufthansa
Like SAS, Lufthansa had a special flight from FRA to AUS. Or to be more precise, the airline ran one of its “Flying Lab” flights. The best way to describe the Flying Lab is of a TED talk in the air.
Lufthansa runs a number of these a year to major trade shows and events, and the idea is you fly direct to the destination - and you are able to follow a series of speakers who give talks during the ten hour journey.
United
United didn’t have the highest budget presence, far from it, actually what they ended up doing must have cost them very little.
United targeted journalists on their way out of Austin, to show off the new United app in a pop up lounge, within the actual United lounge at AUS.
That doesn’t sound particularly creative, but we found it effective. For one thing United was the only brand we could see trying to get media on their way out of Austin, rather than join the bun fight in town.
Secondly, it’s not a given that journalists fly business, most don’t, and in exchange for a 15 min demo of the app, media got lounge access.
Features in the new app include ‘dynamic’ boarding passes which update automat-ically (e.g. if the departure time shifts), and a ‘my trips’ page with prepopulated boarding passes where you don’t have to be a United frequent flier (or log in every time) to access it.
As well as updated home screens, with more engaging content, the home screen is also more personalized to each user; for example, customers who recently passed loyalty milestones will be recognized on the home screen, and the app will also celebrate customers on their birthday.
SXSW - Should you have a presence?
As the world’s biggest combined interactive, film and music event, SXSW drew in 75,000 conference attendees last year, with 25% being from outside the US.
As an airline, should you have a presence? Depending on what you have in mind of course, we’d say (as 7x conference veterans), yes.
Those 75,000 people have an above average income, are more likely to travel, and much as the phrase is overused, really are early adopters, open to new ideas.
They are also more likely to be on social media, be ‘influencers’ (another overused word), and to share what they see and find - and talk about it afterwards.
In 2018 were also over 4000 media in attendance (the definition of media of course includes bloggers, niche trade publications such as this one, as well as A-List titles). That means over 5% of the audience are media.
SXSW isn’t cheap, but if you do have the budget, doing something like SAS did is worthwhile.
Or, you can spend less, be smart and do what United did and catch people in a setting no other brand was able to.
It’s worth saying that United told us that they have been doing the same thing at other influencer-rich conferences, such as CES in Las Vegas.
