4. 1. Reinventing long-haul In 2010 Air NZ delivered a new game-changing long-haul airline experience. The big idea: To create an entity and campaign that would live only online and in PR, and could easily move around the plane to showcase all the innovations. So, in mid 2010, at the legendary Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Los Angeles, Rico was born. The peculiar puppet was designed to be a cult character that starts conversations that would continue far beyond the launch of the new plane.
5. The Rico Craze A series of online videos were shot featuring Rico and other passengers experiencing the different classes and innovations aboard the new 777-300. Rico ultimately became a hot topic and was even interviewed in Hollywood by Campbell Live, has made a music video with Snoop, and he's interviewed Lindsay Lohan and the Hoff as part of his 'On the Skycouch with Rico' series.
6. Evaluation 1. Rico’s videos included 400 million impressions in the US and 3 millionYouTube views. The campaign ranked 10th in the world for 2010 viral videos and is being used as a global case study by YouTube. 2. The campaign is exceeding aggressive revenue targets, and has increased demand in the Economy cabin by 25%. 3. All this global awareness was achieved on a media spend of just NZ$167,000 (US$135,000).
7. 2. Fit to fly The challenge was set to drive brand awareness for Air NZ and push much further into global markets. The big idea: A completely unexpected take on the Safety Video: transforming it into a retro 80s exercise video that worked as highly visible online content first, and as clear and functional on-board safety instructions second; combining it with a market-leading seeding strategy to deliver massive global awareness for Air NZ.
8. Roping in the “expert” In the case of Fit to Fly, the fitness legend, Richard Simmons was the creative answer to Air NZ’s objectives. His international recognisabilityalong with his life being genuinely devoted to championing fitness and an active lifestyle made him an ideal person to reach out and touch as many people as possible with his message. Bright, bold and in your face, Fit to Fly did exactly what it set out to do: make plenty of noise to get heard around the world.
9. Evaluation The interest in the Richard Simmons video delivered over half a billion media impressions in the US and UK alone. Key US successes included an exclusive video launch on Mashable, which ultimately delivered 2.2% of total views on YouTube from an embedded player. This was a massive win for the campaign and set Air NZ on a true global social media stage. Ultimately the content pulled in over 2.3 million YouTube views and 1 million You-Ku (China) views. Social Media highlights: • 50,000+ Facebook engagements • 32,000+ Twitter engagements • 24,000+ Stumble Upon engagements
10. 3. Air New Zealand have nothing to hide! This dare-bare campaign celebrated the airline’s transparent fare policy by showing the staff (and even CEO) in a commercial wearing only body-paint! YouTube views:6,750,000+
11. 4. Foursquare Mayors The “mayors” of select airports and terminals served by Air New Zealand receive free admission to the Koru Lounge just by showing their mayor status and boarding pass. Pro Tip: Koru Lounges offer amenities like bar service, light refreshments, televisions, magazines and showers.
12. Rewarding the most loyal customers! If they’re already a Koru Lounge member, Air New Zealand will award them 100 Airpoints Dollars instead (up to a maximum of $300 per month). Mayors of Koru Lounges are eligible for 100 Airpoints Dollars as well.
13. Evaluation While the viral video was a great way to drive both revenue and engagement while gaining huge buzz, the Foursquare mayors initiative drives loyalty and engagement by rewarding loyal customers.
15. 1. Fantastic Toronto route launch using Twitter! One of the earliest examples of route-launches using social media. Virgin America, while launching its Toronto route, offered 50% discount to the first 500 people who booked tickets using their Twitter handles. Those with higher Twitter influence got more perks! Money spent on traditional advertisements: $0
16. 2. Route launches using Groupon After announcing the new Chicago-O'Hare and LAX, SFO routes, VA tasted huge success with a Groupondeal in a matter of a couple hours. The bargain was to pay $7 and get $77 in airfare towards a round-trip purchase on Virgin America’s new routes, and the deal was good on Groupon's Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco sites. Quite obviously the deal was a huge hit. Later, this was repeated successfully, with slight modifications to the price, for the Dallas-Fort Worth routes.
18. A race to get on the leaderboard! Passengers compete with each other to check-in at the most locations around the airport and to get on the public leaderboard.
19. 4. Chrome web app helps you fly! To use this app, users input their gender as well as where, when and the kind of trip in order to get suggestions for what to pack and where to go. Users can also select specific traveling preferences to build Trip Inspiration boards based on criteria like Trip Vibe and Must Do activities. They can also pick from a selection of images or add their own images from Picasa to their boards. The app then recommends destinations that correspond to the “mood” of your Inspiration Board.
20. Evaluation Overall, Virgin America’s stellar presence on social media coupled with its innovative ticket giveaways drive revenue not only by clearing excess capacity but also by driving awareness of new routes as well as increased engagement with fans. The location-based initiative was a great way to drive both loyalty and engagement.
22. 1. Wonderfully innnovative route launch KLM announces that the Amsterdam-Miami route would be re-launched on Mar 27, 2011. But Dutch DJ/producer Sied van Riel and film-maker Wilco Jung replied on Twitter that this would be too late for the Spring Break events. In response KLM empowers and challenges them to fill up a plane! In return, they’d fly on an earlier date!
23. The challenge gets an unbelievable response! The DJ and Filmmaker responded with a website, Twitter account and a hugely popular #fly2miami hashtag. Result: On March 21, 2011, a KLM MD-11 packed with Dutch DJs, producers, promoters and other dance fans, will fly2miami!
24. 2. KLM Surprises pleases its Foursquare followers Some passengers who check into KLM’s Foursquare venues are surprised with personalized gifts from KLM Read more on SimpliFlying.
25. Surprises = Delighted customers! Passengers, chosen at random, are accosted by KLM at the airport and receive special gifts. Delighted passengers share stories of appreciation with friends and family on social networks, spreading the word even further.
26. 3. Viral Video to promote Economy Comfort KLM hired magician Ramana to perform his famous levitation trick to advertise the benefits of the airline’s new economy comfort optionthat gives passengers more leg-space and allows them to recline their seats twice as much. YouTube views:1,433,000+
27. Evaluation KLM has been one of the leaders in the social space and has run some extremely innovative campaigns. It’s route launch to Miami saw it drive both revenue and engagement while “Surprises” genuinely made their customers happy and pleased to fly the airline. In other words, it drove loyalty. Moreover, their viral video drove engagement and revenue.
30. 1. Driving revenue AirAsia launched its AirAsia 10 Cent Big Sale on 23 May 2011, but rumours were already rife in social media about an impending sale. coming up. The only unknown factor – how low would they go?
31. “Can you buy a flight with a coin?” A simple call to action with a picture of several coins kicked off as a teaser for fans, asking them to mark their calendars and the question “Can you buy a flight with a coin?” That particular post garnered 681,996 impressions.
32. Driving the excitement on Facebook Using the Facebook “Event Calendar” function, AirAsia also created an event called “AirAsia 10 Cent BIG Sale”, for fans to interact with their own friends and send out invitations for them to stay tuned. Fans were made aware of the sale date and anticipation was built towards 23rd May 2011.
33. Something for everyone! AirAsiacontinued to tease fans with photos of destinations on sale, based on different themes - Sun Sea Surf, Eco Tourism, Shoppers Paradiseetc. essentially saying that there’s something for everyone.
34. Making the booking process really easy! After AirAsia revealed the full list of destination and prices, its “Bargain Hunter 101” note made the booking process even more smooth. Even though it was a midnight sale, the Regional Team was on standby to provide quick response and assistance to fans on all Social Media platforms.
35. Evaluation Apart from the tickets sold, total fans on Facebook increased 90,405 regionally, and the total views of the "teaser" was a whooping 8,703,653 views. Within a week, AirAsia Social Media platforms saw an increase of 94,844 fans without the help of any traditional media.
36. 2. A great new way to serve customers! In order to deal with growth on its network and resultant customer queries, AirAsia took a unique path to customer service without adding to its Call Centre which would have inevitably added to operational costs and subsequently higher fares. AskAirAsiais an online customer service portal, created in early 2011 to provide quality customer service to existing customers. It utilizes social media to the hilt including live chats and Twitter.
37. A holistic customer service portal! The main portal AskAirAsia.comis an FAQ portal that introduces the new “face” of AirAsia Customer Service – Lil’ Miss Red. Guests can ask her questions and are directed to a list of Search Results that show the top questions by guests related to the question asked. Guests can also get answers to questions about AirAsia, pre-flights, during flight, post-flight and even be updated on latest news. The AskAirAsia portal is available in 5 languages.
38. A large number of ways to get served! Guests who cannot find the answers they were searching for can seek further help through AskAirAsia’s social media platforms on Twitter, Weibo and Live Chat. Lil’ Miss Red is available on Twitter and Weibo (@askairasia) to quickly answer guests’ questions and feedback. For those who do not want to go on Twitter, the website offers a Live Chat session for guests who want to be attended to immediately.
39. Evaluation Lil’ Miss Red’s Twitter and Weibo Accounts, Lil’ Miss Red now have over 20,000 combined global followers. The Twitter and Weibo accounts play a double-edged role in fan acquisition on Social Media as well as providing personal assistance. This additional customer service platform provides faster responseand creates more engagement with guests by serving existing customers whilst effectively staying true to AirAsia’s low cost business model.
41. 1. Driving revenue and reinventing the booking process JetBlue sells last minute, limited-availability, cheap flights every Tuesday. Almost 240,000 people follow this account!
42. 2. Awesome viral video JetBlue exposes the ridiculousness of airline fees with this video featuring a vendor trying to sell New Yorkers a half cup of soda. Hilarity ensues as enraged New Yorkers wonder why they can’t get the entire can of soda that they paid for. YouTube views:71,000+
43. 3. Location-based rewards Announce to your friends on Facebook that you’re at a JetBlue terminal and earn loyalty points as well as other rewards.
44. Evaluation Not only does “Cheeps” help fill up capacity, it drives more user traffic to JetBlue. While the Twitter sale drives revenue, the superbly made viral video drives revenue, loyalty as well as engagement. The LBS initiative drives both loyalty and engagement!
46. SpiceJet organized 3 contests to drive awareness about their new planes and destinations in India 1. Name the plane –Fans and followers were asked suggest 5 names for SG Q400 aircraft in 'Hindi' after Indian spices that would be appropriate as names for the planes. If their choices matched SpiceJet’s, a lucky winner would get to inaugurate the first flight of the Q400 fleet!
47. Trivia contest 2. SG400 trivia - This six-day long contest had one question everyday regarding the SG Q400. Every correct answer gave the fan/follower a DIGIT. At the end of the contest, these digits formed the key to win some great prizes!
50. Evaluation SpiceJet’s stellar intiative was actually a three-pronged effort: namely, to first drive brand awareness online and build engagement with customers on social media, to drive awareness of the new aircraft(Q400) and to drive awareness of their new route. In all these, it succeeded by driving spectacular engagement and buzz online.
52. Spring Airlines gets social media savvy! Spring Airlines has the largest presence on the #1 Chinese social media site SinaWeibo. To reassert its dominance, it recently organized a campaign involved a sweepstake, inviting fans to “@” Spring Airlines’ official account while “@”-ing at least 2of their friends. All entrants had a chance to win 1 of 25 double-ticket passes to Transformers 3. In this way, they hoped to recruit more followers for follow-up campaigns (the most popular of which is their bi-weekly ‘flash buys’). Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankyflier/
53. Great low-cost strategy Winners were selected randomly and issued tickets to T-3, with funding provided by 3rd-party online payment providers who were happy with the traffic and they gained. As an LCC, this was a great coup for the airline! At the event, winners were invited to leave a message on a whiteboard which was shaped like a SinaWeibo text box and leave their messages for Spring Airlines.
54. Evaluation During the 6 days of the competition, 700,000+ unique accounts were exposed through Friend networks, with 53,000 unique page views. 1200 completed entries were submitted. Over these days, Spring’s fans increased by over 6000, which tripled their average daily recruitment of fans. During and following the event, photos were uploaded by Spring and the competition winners, reaching over 130,000 unique accounts.
55. For more case-studies: www.SimpliFlying.com Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably http://www.SimpliFlying.com