SimpliDream - Top 10 Airline Initiatives that Inspire Travel

iDream - Top 10 Airline
Initiatives that Inspire Travel

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com
http://www.SimpliFlying.com

The Social Traveler Lifecycle
As we often say to our clients
and write on our website, the
traveler lifecycle has evolved
following the exponential
increase in social interaction
brought about by social
media.

In this top 10 we’ll focus on
the “iDream” element of this
new lifecycle and take a look
at how airlines have managed
to inspire travelers to fly.

www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 1
Finnair: Chong what?

Destination awareness
Inspiring a person to travel to a well known destination may be hard
enough, but what if your latest destination is called something like….


Chongqing!
Chongqing is Finnair’s latest Chinese destination but also an almost
unknown place for most Europeans. To raise awareness Finnair created
the “Chong what?” campaign as part of the larger destination China
page, where it provided general information the Chinese cities it served.


Pinterest
But it did not end there. Instead of using Pinterest to create not the
traditional “destination” board they decided to create an eye catching
“Chong-what?” board that featured images of the town from the web.
Currently the board has achieved almost 400 followers with just 19 pins.


Case-study 2
South African Airways: Virtual Safari

Africa on Pinterest
Recently a lot has been said
about Pinterest and its ability to
inspire people through images,
however few airlines were able
to embrace this concept better
than South African Airways.

The company created several
interesting boards including a
crowdsourced one, but its best
initiative is perhaps its “virtual
safari board”.


Leveraging natural beauty
South African Airways was able to leverage on Africa’s legendary wildlife
to create a Pinboard where users could dream of the places they could
see in Africa.


Not just re-pins

In this case however the
company did not just re-
pin images but they also
made sure that each came
accompanied by well
designed descriptions to
entice users to share, like
and plan a trip.


Case-study 3
Vueling airgallery

Visual + Gamification
Images and games are possibly the two most engaging elements in
social media. The Spanish low cost airline Vueling has recently decided
to merge the two into an interesting competition called the Vueling
Airgallery.


#vuelingairgallery
The campaign asked users to
create an Instagram image of
a Vueling destination and
share it using the hashtag
#vuelingairgallery in order to
win free flights and the
chance of having their image
featured on the exterior of a
special Vueling plane.

All images were uploaded to a
dedicated tab on the
company’s facebook page.

Share to win
After uploading their image, users were invited to share it with their
friends since only those images that received at least 10 votes would be
put forward to the judges.


User generated content linked to the airline
The campaign was a success as it received almost 6000 submissions with
some images receiving over 100 votes. For the airline this meant the
creation of user generated content that boosted destination awareness
and associated the airline’s name with those destinations.


Case-study 4
BMI: Pinterest lottery

A lottery on Pinterest
Another airline that managed to merge gamification and images to drive
destination awareness was BMI that organized a virtual lottery on its
Pinterest boards.


Getting re-pins
To encourage users to share
the images on its Pinterest
boards the airline attached a
number (and a logo) to each
image, asking users to re-pin
up to 6 images to get a
chance to win a return ticket
to the destination portrayed
in the picture they selected.
Each week the airline
announces a lucky number
giving the users who shared
the corresponding image a
chance to win.

All in one
With this strategy the airline achieves several objectives, all aimed at
targeting users during the “iDream” phase of the lifecycle. With one
initiative it was able to increase: destination awareness, engagement,
Pinterest following and sharing of BMI-branded destination images.


Case-study 5
KLM: Destination Hangman

Simple ideas
The best ideas are often very simple ones, and in social media KLM is
well known for theirs. This time they have created something we
nicknamed D_ST_ _ _T_O_ HA_ _M_N !


Destination awareness + facebook engagement
To drive awareness of its new routes
KLM decided to play a game with its
users that at SimpliFlying we have
nicknamed “destination hangman”.

The airline would post an image like
the one on their previous page and
reveal one letter every “n” likes.
Users are invited to guess the
destination that can be seen in the
window or like the post to get more
letters.


A well liked plan
This simple idea was able to generate hundreds of shares and comments
but also thousands of likes. Some images received over 10.000 likes and
2.000 comments.


Case-study 6
Air China: Facebook check-ins

Local engagement
When Air China decided to raise awareness of their Asian destinations
in Sweden they realized that the best way to entice new customers to
visit Asia was to engage them at places where they were already
experiencing Asia... Asian restaurants across Stockholm.


A win-win solution
The airline reached an agreement
with several Asian restaurants in
Stockholm and invited users to
check-in with facebook whenever
they visited. The check-ins would
then be converted into a leader
board and each week the top
scorer would win a trip. By doing
so they created a win-win situation
where the restaurants received
more visitors, the airline increased
destination awareness and users
were rewarded.


The results
At the end of the campaign the airline reported these impressive results:


Case-study 7
Bmibaby: instameet exchange

Virtual meetings are not enough
As we’ve seen previously
Instagram can be a very
powerful tool to drive
destination awareness as it
allows users to share
beautiful and inspiring
images.

But to one small European
airline this was clearly not
enough as they decided to
move things to the next level
allowing users to meet in real
life, for free.

The real thing
BmiBaby launched a campaign to celebrate the 4th World Instameet Day
by providing free travel to members of different Instagram communities,
allowing them to meet each other.

On 11th March, members of
the London Instagram
community were flown into
Amsterdam to meet with
local Instagramers. The event
was tweeted and blogged live
using the #myamsterdam tag.


Committed to a platform and its community
The airline was able to benefit from this campaign by being able to
associate its brand to the cities that were “united” and by increasing its
engagement with the Instagram community.

The company’s commitment
to the Instagram communities
of the destinations it serves,
has also been used to create
the base for more successful
campaigns like the #myfrance
campaign pictured in this slide


Case-study 8
American Airlines: #AAtoAsia

Anniversary celebrations
To celebrate 25 years of flights to Asia and to raise awareness of the
destinations it serves, American Airlines organized a Pinterest
sweepstake offering the change to win a luxury trip to Tokyo.


Smart rules
The rules of the contest were simple, users
had to:

1. follow AA on Pinterest (= increase Pinterest
followers)
2. re-pin the poster of the competition
(=spread the word about the competition)
3. Pin a photo of a place in Asia with the
#AAtoAsia Tag (generate Asia-related content
with inspiring images… and an AA tag)
4. E-mail a link of the pin to AA’s social
media team


Positive results
A quick Pinterest search has
revealed a wealth of
engaged users and over 700
re-pins of the competition’s
poster, making it perhaps
the most re-pinned airline
image ever.

Further details on the 390% increase in followers
campaign’s performance
were also very impressive
as the data on this page
demonstrates

Case-study 9
LAN: wonders of South America

Discovering new places
In its efforts to position itself as “the” airline for South America LAN was
able to create what is possibly one of the best examples of travel-
inspiration websites: wondersofsouthamerica.com


Personalized items
In this interactive website users can not only learn more about LAN’s
destinations but also create and shares personalized items like
postcards.


Local focus
Another interesting way to engage local users when opening a new
destination is creating a dedicated facebook page to create a space
where the destination can be launched in sync with the local language
and culture. This is exactly what Air Asia is doing for its new Japanese
routes.


Early engagement
Even before the official
route-launch, the airline
was able to gain traction
locally by paying attention
to local events and keeping
users up to date as the
company’s plans to open
new routes went ahead.


For more case-studies:

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com www.SimpliFlying.com

SimpliDream - Top 10 Airline Initiatives that Inspire Travel

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