Bonza Local Legend Northern Pacific - Crowdfunding -15

Bonza - Local legend

Australian LCC Bonza has yet to start flying (the latest date is September), but its marketing campaigns are in full swing.

For example, in one announcement, Bonza committed to “100% Australian food and drink.”

As part of that, Bonza encouraged travellers to download the Fly Bonza app on the Apple App Store or Google Play and be able to vote for their favourite local products, with a chance to win flights.

Bonza also generated media coverage around its announcement that it was “throwing out the rulebook” with a “wear it your way” cabin crew uniform.

The new uniforms are more casual in nature than standard crew outfits, and include combinations of tailored shorts, a white cotton t-shirt and blazer which features purple trim, a trouser option, shirt dress and sleeveless coat. The airline says cabin crew can mix and match from the approved items and so are not pushed into any gender specific combo.

“Local legend” is the latest campaign, which is being done to highlight the different Bonza destinations in Australia.

Taking place in areas served by Bonza, entrants had to post a video on Facebook or Instagram sharing “why their hometown is Bonza” (Bonza also being slang for great), and tagging the airline.

Finalists were then taken to a voting stage, with the winner in each town receiving free flights with three others on an inaugural flight, a “taste testing” of the “all Aussie” menu, a chance to “road test” the new uniforms, and an unspecified future role in events.

Key takeaway

We’ve featured two new airlines this month that have yet to start operations (but are well on the way there), and both in different ways seem to be trying to build up a community of advocates and ambassadors pre-launch.

Northern Pacific (see next story) is doing so via a crowdfunding campaign, with a very low ($100) entry point.

Bonza’s tactic looks like a much pared down version of what the now defunct WOW Air did with its 2018 ‘WOW Travel Guide’ (May 2018 issue of AMM). Applicants from around WOW’s international network submitted almost 5000 videos about their home cities and towns for a chance to become an official WOW Air blogger and to spend the Summer creating content for the airline.

The interesting thing about the Bonza promotion is the vague mention of these Bonza local legends being involved in Bonza events in the future, which does indeed suggest that the idea here is to create some kind of on-call content creator and influencer panel.

Northern Pacific’s crowdfunding campaign

Has crowdfunding come to the airline world?

A number of years ago, a UK entrepreneur tried to run a crowdfunding campaign for “Firnas Airways.”

Starting with a single Jetstream 31, the vision was to create Britain’s third long-haul airline alongside British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. (See AMM, April 2018).

It never turned out like that of course, and Firnas Airways vanished without a trace.

However, Anchorage based airline Northern Pacific hopes for its crowdfunding campaign to have a different outcome - and rather than relying on a single Jetstream, it’s already much better resourced than tiny Firnas Airways was - four 757 aircraft have already been acquired.

Business Traveller neatly sums up Northern Pacific’s core proposition as “Icelandair, but Alaska.” Just as Icelandair (and WOW successor Play) tries to take a chunk of the transatlantic market complete with Iceland stop-overs, Northern Pacific seeks to do so with the trans-pacific route.

In particular, the airline plans to serve cities in the states of New York, Florida, California, and Nevada, with direct flights to cities in Japan and Korea through Anchorage over the Northern route.

In fact, in the crowd-funding campaign, Northern Pacific specifically mentions Icelandair and its $1,5 billion revenue.

So what’s Northern Pacific’s crowdfunding campaign about? Especially as it already has aircraft, a livery, and plans to move into the North Terminal at Anchorage.

Paxex.aero says that “the limited potential total investment suggests this effort is much less about the money than it is the publicity.”

This was very much our thought too, it’s about building up a core community who have a stake in the airline, will be ambassadors for it, and will fly it again and again.

The total funding amount is not huge, $5 million, in the greater scheme of things (the desired valuation by 2025 is $1 billion). and the entry point is low - $100.

Also, the perks directly relate to Northern Pacific flights. For example, if you invest $250 you get free drinks during 2023. If you invest $1000, you get $1000 in flight vouchers, and so on.

Key takeaway

In a previous life, I worked with a creative agency that had a lot of Chinese electronics clients. These brands invariably ran kickstarter or Indiegogo campaigns prior to the launch of a new product.

The products were rarely dependent on the crowdfunding campaign, they would usually see the light of day anyway. However, running crowdfunding campaigns were seen as a way to drum up pre-launch buzz, with any funds raised being a bonus.

That seems to be the case here. As mentioned, the entry levels are quite low, and the perks you get directly encourage you to fly Northern Pacific - and after having parted with some of your money you are likely to do so anyway, and tell all your friends.

As a result, this exercise has gained Northern Pacific a community of advocates, some free media coverage, and a modest amount of funding.