Airlines and the ad men: when it can’t be done, do it

Video campaigns by KLM, WestJet and Lufthansa show us that nothing is impossible, writes Mariam Sharp

Executive creative director Paul Arden was responsible for some of Britain’s most successful advertising campaigns. In his book, It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be, a central piece of advice is this: ‘When it can’t be done, do it. If you don’t do it then it doesn’t exist. A new idea can be either unfamiliar, or silly or both. It can’t be judged by description, it needs to be done (made) to exist.'

Airlines are increasingly taking that bold approach to advertising. Here are three that have freed their imaginations to actively engage customers.

KLM: old dog teaches us new tricks

As KLM turns 95 this month, it appears to resist the cliché that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. In its latest commercial, KLM employed a beagle ‘Sherlock the [search] dog’ to symbolise a new team at the Dutch airline KLM, which actively connects passengers with their lost items. According to representatives at the airline’s ad agency, DDB & Tribal Worldwide, KLM’s Lost & Found team feel a bit like detectives, sometimes tracking passengers before they even realised they’d lost something. So to illustrate that KLM goes above and beyond for their passengers, a decision was taken to involve a search dog which darts through the airport returning lost goods to delighted passengers. In reality of course, that doesn't happen. Although undoubtedly a believable and imaginative idea, not everybody liked it some complaining it was ‘deceptive’ and ‘fake’. Still with over 12 million YouTube views, 45,000+ likes (vs 1,800+ dislikes) and a million responses to the service, it’s fair to say that engagement has been high. And the result is that KLM has indicated a re-appearance of Sherlock in the near future, which we’ll look forward to hearing about in San Francisco next year when KLM’s social media manager, Karlijn Vogel-Meijer picks up the mic.

How WestJet won over consumers in real-time

Westjet’s December 2013 video campaign, involving passengers on two internal flights, 175 employees, a frenetic shopping expedition and 19 hidden cameras that captured the surprise of customers as their Christmas wishes arrived on a carousel in a Toronto airport arrivals hall generated even more positive engagement. In an EyeforTravel interview in February this year Richard Bartrem, WestJet’s vice president of communications and community relations, said: “The business results were literally amazing.” 

Without any call to action on the video itself in the 14 days leading up to Christmas, WestJet saw:

  • Site traffic increase by 100%
  • Bookings increase by 77%, and
  • Revenues up 86% on the previous year

In addition, the airline saw subscriptions to its YouTube channel rise more than ten-fold from 3,000 to 40,000. Today the video has been viewed over 35 million times proving that video is an important strategic step on the road to engagement. And that is paying off. Within six days of launching its recent Share a Coke campaign, the video has had 165,000 views.

Lufthansa: making dreams come true  

Klaus Heidi, a campaign led by Magnus Engvall, the Lufthansa marketing specialist, goes a step further in making dreams come true. Lufthansa created a competition, to promote Lufthansa’s flights from Stockholm to Berlin. The deal was a one-way ticket, an apartment for a whole year, and just about everything else you would need to start a new life in Berlin. The big condition: To win, participants had to prove they really wanted to be a Berliner by changing their name legally to Klaus-Heidi. Astonishingly 42 Swedes, aged between 19 and 69, legally changed their names (or added Klaus-Heidi to their existing first name) and entered the competition. Lufthansa, which had expected a handful of participants, could not believe the huge response and as a result closed the contest a month early.  Interestingly, 70% of the contestants were men, half lived in Stockholm and half elsewhere in the country; nine alone were from Sodermalm, a Stockholm neighborhood made famous by the author of the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, Stieg Larsson.

So what exactly has made these campaigns such a success? The key has been the use of multiple channels video, web, mobile and social media to reach audiences in new ways. Get it right, and these campaigns also show just how far customers are willing to engage with brands - more than you ever thought possible.

To hear more about how you can use social to drive customer engagement join us in San Francisco for this year’s Social Media & Mobile Strategies for Travel 2015 (March 23 -24) where when KLM’s social media manager, Karlijn Vogel-Meijer will be speaking

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