AIRLINE MARKETING MONTHLY November 2018 - Issue 72

SAS - The Arrivals easyJet - Look & Book WestJet - Love where you’re going

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AIRLINE MARKETING MONTHLY - NOVEMBER 2018 Contents: Introduction - 03 The SimpliFlying Live Show - 04 SAS - The Arrivals - 05 IATA - The Value of Aviation - 09 United - World Orchestra - 11 easyJet - Look & Book - 13 Air New Zealand - It’s Kiwi Safety - 16 Emirates - Fly Better - 20 WestJet - Love where you’re going - 23 Airline campaigns - 25 Kenya Airways - Flights to JFK Various - Fly Pink Lufthansa - AI Powered Ad campaign TAP Portugal - Portugal stopover flybmi - Music contest Virgin Australia - Smiling Mind Delta - Learning on the Go with LinkedIn

Airport Round-up - 32 London Gatwick Airport and Shannon Airport - Sensory rooms Brussels Airport - 60th anniversary TSA - Don’t lose your booze Sydney Airport - Keith and Brent Stockholm Arlanda Airport Welcome to my hometown Singapore Changi Airport - At that truly moves The SimpliFlying Lab - 38 10,000th Copy Of SOAR Reach aviation marketers through AMM Aviation brands in this issue

AIRLINE MARKETING MONTHLY

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Published by SimpliFlying, 152 Haig Road, #13-04, 438791, Singapore, www.simpliflying.com CEO: Shashank Nigam, shashank@simpliflying.com Editor: Dirk Singer, dirk@simpliflying.com To subscribe, pleaseMonthly register here. Airline Marketing - November 2018

INTRODUCTION Welcome to the latest edition of Airline Marketing Monthly (AMM), where every month we review aviation marketing issues and campaigns. AMM is the only trade publication in the world devoted to aviation marketing. We appear in a digital format monthly, and in print quarterly to coincide with major trade events. If you are new here, welcome to our growing list of readers. As the only publication of its type, we benefit from high reader engagement. Feedback we get (backed up by our own statistics) is that one issue is often forwarded around dozens of people in one organisation. However, AMM is only one part of the SimpliFlying content portfolio. There is also the SimpliFlying Live (or SimpliLive) show hosted by SimpliFlying CEO and founder Shashank Nigam, where every day Shashank tackles a different industry issue.

future issue to a mutually agreed topic. We’ve given more details at the end of the magazine. Similarly, we are open to broadcasting the SmplILive Show from a major news event where it becomes your in-house TV. Please contact us for more information. This month the cover story is around ‘The Arrivals’ by SAS, which is part of a wider brand campaign called ‘We are the travelers.’ Other brands featured in this issue include easyJet, Emirates, WestJet and Delta. Does your organisation have a marketing campaign running that you think we should know about? Email me at dirk@simpliflying.com Dirk Singer Editor

Though for quality control purposes we will steer clear of straightforward advertising, we are now open to working with brands on special themed editions, where we devote a

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THE SIMPLIFLYING LIVE SHOW

Fronted and hosted by SimpliFlying CEO and Founder Shashank Nigam, the SimpliLive Show is the only one of its kind in the aviation industry. With almost 400 editions having been broadcast, this is a daily online video show, with short (<5 minute) insights on topical aviation and airline issues, and on occasion interviews with senior airline executives and industry commentators. Recent episodes have included: How Cathay Pacific messed up more than others, with its data breach A conversation with Dave Carroll of ‘United Breaks Guitars’ on the relevance of compassion in aviation

Are airline alliances running out of ideas to stay relevant? Be sure as well to listen / watch the recent interview Shashank did with crisis management strategist Melissa Agnes. Shashank joined Melissa’s “Invincible Brand Podcast” to share some powerful strategies on how today’s leading airlines have managed to build sustainable trust – and how that serves them when undesirable incidents risk occurring.

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SAS - THE ARRIVALS There are a number of different routes you can go down, when building a brand for your airline. You can lead on the quality of service, and how you are different from the competition - see the latest Emirates campaign in this issue as an example. You can create campaigns where you try to associate yourself with your home country - e.g the British Airways campaign where they explained Britishness to Americans, or the many successful stopover campaigns by Icelandair. You

can do something around heritage, for example the Vistara retrojet (see this episode of the SimpliLive show for more). You can promote the breadth of your network and how you make the world a smaller place - United, which we covered in this issue is doing exactly that with its latest campaign ‘World Orchestra.’ Or, you can actually try to own what you might call the human dimension of travel. People’s stories, how travel is life changing.

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Lufthansa did this very well in its “Say yes to the World” campaign we featured in March, while Russian Airline S7 adopted a similar tack with its “The Best Planet” and “I am You” campaigns - both previous AMM cover stories.

called ‘We are travelers’, which was launched in 2014. According to SAS, the idea is to look at “the positive emotions associated with flying.”

Scandinavian Airline SAS has likewise chosen to lead on the human side of travel, with its latest campaign called “The Arrivals”, which focuses on what happens in the arrivals hall of airports.

Last year for example, the concept was brought to life through a spot called ‘Travelers are the future’, where a young school girl imagines a career of fame and fortune and is transported to various destinations while daydreaming in her classroom.

The Arrivals is the latest in a series of campaigns around a master SAS theme

Produced by Danish advertising agency “& Co”, The Arrivals is a short video

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showing passengers coming out through airport arrivals doors and greeting loved ones. But it’s much more than an ad, the film captures real human experiences. That’s because SAS hired acclaimed photographer Peter Funch and filmmaker Jeppe Rønde to spend a week at Kastrup International Airport in Copenhagen. They worked with both actors but also real “chance encounters” that they captured just at the right moment. The film, campaign imagery and narration are really powerful in conveying the emotions involved when you clear customs and find friends or loved ones waiting for you. As a piece of film making and story-telling it really works.

The video is then backed up with a microsite featuring a survey carried out among Scandinavians on how travel changes you. For us, this is where the campaign is a bit weaker, as it seems to deviate from the theme of the arrivals experience and turns into a much more generic ‘travel changes you’ kind of message. For example, the finding that heavy travelers are more creative, politically interested and open to helping society may well be true, but surely that statistic could just as well lend itself to a campaign called “The Departures” as opposed to “The Arrivals.” In fact, the review of the ad in the Chicago Business Journal by Lewis

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As a result for us, SAS hasn’t (yet) made the most out of this theme, and they could in fact work it much harder. However, the fact remains that as a standalone piece of storytelling it is excellent. It manages to be moving, it doesn’t try and shoe-horn in too many commercial messages into the film, it shows a wide variety of passengers arriving and the hook of getting a filmmaker and a photographer to actually spend a week in Copenhagen Airport to capture the arrivals experience is a good one.

Lazare sums it up well. Lazare calls ‘The Arrivals’ “beautifully simple yet deeply affecting”, and we’d completely agree. Lazare then says that the backstories of the travelers are not spelt out - which surely is an opportunity, you could create a whole campaign around people’s stories when they arrive, and how they either reconnect with loved ones or arrive somewhere new. You could also create a whole PR package around the fact that an acclaimed film-maker and photographer spent time in CPH trying to capture moments. What did they observe, what are their perceptions of spending so much time at the airport?

As Ad Week says in its review, SAS manages to capture “the pure joy and love of the arrivals hall.” In fact Ad Week points out that the new SAS campaign is not unlike the opening scene of the now polarising Richard Curtis ‘rom-com’ film Love Actually. As Ad Week senior editor Doug Zanger says, that opening sequence is the one part of the 2003 film which holds up well today - in it a Hugh Grant voiceover says that there is a lot of “love actually” in the world, as the clip shows passengers streaming into the arrivals hall of London Heathrow Airport. And like in the SAS ad “Arrivals”, director Richard Curtis tried to capture ‘spontaneous’ moments (in his case by setting up hidden cameras in Heathrow).

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IATA - VALUE OF AVIATION As an industry, aviation provides a lifeline to countless industry sectors, in particular tourism. It’s also made the world a smaller place, giving people the kind of opportunities to see and do things and connect with other people that was out of reach to everyone except the top 1% 100 years ago. At the same time, aviation is also controversial from an environmental point of view. Witness the inevitable protests when a major airport in Europe or North America plans an expansion or new runway.

As a result, industry body IATA, which represents the world’s airlines, has been running a campaign to show how aviation “enables the free movement of people and goods around the globe.” IATA says that in 2018, the global airline industry will have transported 3.78 billion passengers and 5.27 million tons of cargo. The Value of Aviation Campaign, features six short online video clips, each tying into a different area where aviation is essential.

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The overall direction of the campaign looks to us sound. We like the fact that by focusing on things such as ‘adventure’, ‘romance’ and reunions’ IATA has taken a very human approach, showing how aviation brings people together.

For example, the film “Reunions” shows exactly that - people from across the world flying into different airports, and being reunited with loved ones. “Culture” shows a series of performers in concert halls and venues. Meanwhile the other films cover ‘medicine, ‘relief’, ‘romance’ and ‘adventure.’ IATA has also produced a series of posters to support the campaign, for example one shows a man in his 60s or 70s with a surfboard with a tagline “What’s left on your bucket list”, while another has a man hugging his daughter at an unnamed airport.

The alternative, to show business people going back and forth across the world and sitting in board rooms might in one sense be more accurate from an economic value point of view, but it would not have the same impact and resonance. If anything, to us the campaign doesn’t go far enough, and we would extend it out using actual human stories. For example, why not actually find the man in his 60s who has been able to realise his dream of going surfing thanks to aviation. Why not tap into the huge amount of material that there is around long distance relationships? As a campaign tactic, that would get IATA possible exposure in lifestyle media worldwide, if it was backed up by some PR stories, case studies, surveys and more short films.

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UNITED - WORLD ORCHESTRA United Airlines has of course not had the best eighteen months from a reputation point of view, suffering from PR disasters ranging from the David Dao incident, to the death of a dog in an overhead locker. The airline has been trying to claw some reputation points back in campaigns such as the Winter Olympics sponsorship, to the announcement (which we covered in August) that all staff would be trained on how to deal with passengers with intellectual disabilities. In its latest campaign, United is now shifting the focus onto its global reach.

A new ad called “World Orchestra”, shows musicians from around the world playing “Rhapsody in Blue” in sequence, in different destinations. But the twist is that they play it in a destination other than their own. For example, a group of Hawaiian musicians perform in Lisbon, a Japanese flute player performs over the Grand Canyon and a Bavarian Oompah band player appears on a beach in San Francisco. Though the ad itself comes from McGarryBowen New York, the musical side of the campaign was coordinated by Finger Music NY.

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According to the company’s creative director Dave Hodge, “We had 7 world instrument specialists, plus an orchestra, different instruments from different cultures, and seven scenes to coordinate. To make this sound like one fluid piece of music, we had to be on set to ensure that the sync between the actors’ movements playing the music work seamlessly with exact fluid camera moves at precisely the right time.”

vividly illustrates the carrier’s overarching marketing theme of connecting people from around the world.”

The campaign has received positive reviews so far. The Chicago Business Journal talks about a “lushly-produced spot

“I love this ad so much and think it sends a far more powerful message than an ad focusing on United’s Polaris lounges and business class seating. This reaches more people and reminds us all of just how fortunate we are to live in an era in which we can get almost anywhere in the world on a commercial airline.”

Inc talks about the ad being “almost a throwback to a time gone by, when airlines presented a fantasy and passengers wanted to believe it.” Meanwhile, leading aviation blogger ‘Live and let’s fly’ concludes:

As well as YouTube, the spot is running on TV, social, and in-flight. United Crowdrise campaign Last month, United Airlines launched a “Crowdrise” campaign in response to late Summer and Autumn hurricane and typhoon disasters in the US and Pacific. The campaign supports victims affected by by Hurricane Florence, Typhoon Mangkhut, flooding in Western Japan, wildfires in California and other disasters. Donations will support the airline’s relief

partners that provide assistance in the U.S. and internationally. United has pledged to match the first $50,000 raised and provide up to a total of 5 million bonus miles to give to individuals who make donations of $50 or more. At the time of writing, over $300,000 has been raised in the campaign.

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EASYJET - LOOK & BOOK At the end of September, tech news website ‘The Verge’ announced that ‘The end of Instagram as we know it is here. This came as Instagram’s founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced that they were leaving their creation, which they had sold to Facebook in 2012. As the “crown jewel” of Facebook’s lineup, and the one part of the organisation whose reputation was intact following the election-related ‘fake news’ scandals of 2016 and 2017, the brand has been subject to increased meddling by its parent company.

With Systrom and Krieger gone, that trend will now continue. What that will mean from a user experience remains to be seen, but from a brand point of view it will arguably result in more opportunities, with Facebook looking to increase ways in which Instagram generates advertising revenue. For airlines, that is particularly relevant given the influence Instagram has on holiday bookings for millenials in particular. For example, a survey quoted in Forbes says that more than 40% of those under 33 prioritize ‘Instagrammability’ when choosing their next holiday spot.

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One airline which is at the forefront of using Instagram in its marketing campaigns is UK LCC easyJet, which in September announced what it called a ‘world first’ when it unveiled its Look & Book feature, which is integrated into the easyJet app. Essentially, Look & Book allows you to book a flight to somewhere you saw on Instagram. Anyone browsing Instagram can take a screenshot of somewhere they seen and then upload it to the app. easyjet says that Look & Book then uses advanced image recognition techniques to identify the location to match the photo to easyJet’s 1000-strong destinations on offer throughout Europe. The new app feature not only recognises the destination, but also suggests the nearest airport and pre-populates the booking form with those details. A short YouTube video guides users through the process, using the example

of someone who saw a photo of Portugal and subsequently booked a flight from London Luton to Porto. Though it only works on Instagram for now, easyJet says it has the potential to plug into other picture-sharing apps such as Snapchat and Pinterest in the future. Certainly, it’s an innovative idea, and one which has got easyJet a lot of great PR. However we wonder whether - for now at least - users will actually follow through with the process envisaged by easyJet. After all, even if they are not geotagged, most images on Instagram at least have a clue of where they were taken in the caption and / or hashtags. It would be just as easy to take the location and enter it into the (e.g) Expedia or Skyscanner app. Our suspicion is that it all comes down to what apps a user has on his or her phone, and on that the easyJet app does rank well in terms of downloads, regularly appearing in the top five travel apps in the UK iOS store according to AppAnnie. In a sense, easyJet is probably also using this as a trial for future innovations. Current bookings via the app probably won’t be high, but it still gives the airline a useful test-bed for when Instagram rolls out more brand-friendly features for advertisers, especially in light of the departure of Instagram’s two original founders.

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easyJet - Electric planes Separately, easyJet announced that it was partnering with Wright Electric to develop electric aircraft that could potentially serve the short but popular London to Amsterdam route. According to easyJet, Wright Electric, has already commenced work on an electric engine that will power a nine seater aircraft, which is expected to start flying in 2019. Industry website Electrek comments that it is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;hopefulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; despite some major setbacks with other electric aircraft prototypes, given the rapid improvement in battery technology. Electric planes that have had problems include the Siemens electric plane prototype which caught on fire in the air and an all-electric Pipistrel trainer plane which also crashed recently. 15 | Airline Marketing Monthly - November 2018

AIR NEW ZEALAND, IT’S KIWI SAFETY When you think of airline safety videos, you first of all think of Air New Zealand. Though even relatively small carriers like Lebanon’s MEA now produce safety videos that are done as much for marketing as for in-flight safety purposes, Air New Zealand very much pioneered the genre.

after the other. The airline’s so-called ‘epic safety briefings’ have included “The Bear Essentials of Safety” with TV personality Bear Grylls, “Mile High Madness” with 80s sensation Richard Simmons and ‘Safety in Hollywood’ featuring Anna Farris and Rhys Darby.

As far back as 2012, SimpliFlying CEO and founder Shashank Nigam wrote, “Air New Zealand has taken the same videos and turned them from what people ignored in-flight to something people watch at home on Youtube. Many times over.”

The latest video, “It’s Kiwi Safety”, is the largest scale safety video the airline has ever produced, featuring a 600-strong cast.

Since then, Air New Zealand has produced one in-flight safety video ‘hit’

The safety video, takes the form of a rap and is backed by the soundtrack It’s Kiwi a remake of the popular RUN-DMC song It’s Tricky.

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While the song is playing, performers, Air New Zealand staff and community groups from across the country rap / say the safety instructions As well as featuring talent from 30 community groups, the video stars Kiwi actor Julian Dennison and local musicians Kings, Theia and Randa.

To celebrate “It’s Kiwi Safety”, Air New Zealand has also released its November Kia Ora inflight magazine with six different covers to showcase a number of the safety video’s stars. This is the first time in the magazine’s history the monthly publication has been released with six different covers.

The video also features surf lifesavers from Dunedin, curlers from Maniototo in Central Otago and the Mosgiel Brass Band. The safety video was filmed at various New Zealand locations in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Balclutha, Hokitika, and Naseby in Central Otago. Finally, Air New Zealanders featured include cabin crew, pilots, engineers, loaders and airline staff from Dunedin Airport.

No doubt about it, “It’s Kiwi Safety” is a really lavish production and watchable. It does a great job of bringing both the sights and faces of New Zealand to life. But to what extent is it really a safety video? After watching it for the first time, this writer could recall various elements such as when the rappers are in the laundrette, or when the surfers run into the ocean from the beach.

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However it was harder from memory to link the different scenes to actual safety information. Of course, the information is all there, as the transcript to the video shows. However, it just felt like more of a music video produced by Air New Zealand to celebrate its home country, than an actual safety video. And other commentators agree. Some say that at four and a half minutes, it is too long to hold the viewer’s attention. Other comments have questioned whether non English speakers would be able to follow a rap in a Kiwi accent, as there are few visual cues when it comes to safety.

And forget visual cues, says a blind advocacy group in New Zealand, given the medium of rap, the video will be tough for someone who is sight impaired to follow. “It’s hard to filter out the safety information from the entertainment”, says Blind Citizens NZ president Dr Jonathan Godfrey, commenting that “there’s a lot of other audio in the background. It’s a busy medium.” It’s hard to disagree with some of these sentiments, and we wonder whether the starting point was “all these other airlines are encroaching on our turf with cool safety videos, how can we blow them out of the water with something huge.”

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While the use of local talent over Hollywood stars is commendable, you could argue that this particular video does cross the line too much from safety to entertainment. Indeed, in our July edition, we featured a number of safety videos including Air Transat and EL AL, with a guest commentary provided by SimplIFlying’s director of consulting Marco Serusi. While the different videos we featured are creative and watchable, the safety information is still clear in each. As Marco Serusi pointed out in his commentary, airlines should be wary of

making “videos where the creators work hard to get attention but forget to pass on a message to the viewers.” Earlier this year, Air New Zealand released a video that similarly provoked a mixed reaction. ‘The World’s Coolest Safety VIdeo’ (which we featured in April) was a beautifully shot video shot in Antarctica produced to support the New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute. However, some local media coverage was negative as a result of some of the filming having been done near the site of the 1979 crash of Air New Zealand flight 901.

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EMIRATES - FLY BETTER Over the past year, we’ve featured Emirates for campaigns where the airline has consistently touted its service offering as being superior to competitors in all classes. For example, at the end of last year TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson fronted a campaign to launch Emirates’ new First Class private suites, which were inspired by Mercedes-Benz. However, Emirates also talked up the experience at the back of the plane via its ‘Upgrade your Airline’ campaign, where a video featured passengers of an unnamed airline trying to blag or beg their way towards an upgrade.

The latest Emirates campaign, called Fly Better, focuses first of all on the airline’s in-flight entertainment system. The ad, which launched on November 1st, showcases the airline’s inflight entertainment system (“ice”), with its diverse offering. Directed by Michael Gracey, whose previous work included the musical ‘The Greatest Showman’, the spot takes viewers on a journey with a cabin crew member morphing into a dancer who then shows off different dance styles from Bollywood to Hip Hop. A second spot is set to promote the airline’s network of global destinations. Emirates says that the ad takes viewers

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from the plains of Kenya to the Eiffel Tower and finally the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai,, featuring seamless transitions between destinations and Emirates’ onboard features.

Focusing on the important of the UK to Dubai market, the campaign was set to be debuted during the broadcast of entertainment show “The X-Factor” in the United Kingdom. With Emirates being a sponsor of a number of football (soccer) clubs, Fly Better branding was also in place during the Arsenal (which Emirates sponsors) vs Liverpool match on November 3rd.

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Emirates first class items on sale online Do you want a piece of the Emirates first class experience without shelling out for a first class plane ticket? Select first class items have gone on sale on the Emirates online store. This includes Bowers & Wilkins PX headphones, hydra-active sleepwear pyjamas and first class blankets. Of course, none of these items come cheap. For example, the headphones currently retail at US $455 in the online store. Still a fraction of the $20,000 odd you would pay for a first class ticket, though. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an interesting and obvious brand extension, and one followed through by a number of airlines. For example, Qantas frequent flyers can purchase many First and Business wines when they join Qantas epiQure.

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WESTJET - LOVE WHERE YOU’RE GOING With the launch of an ad called “Love where you’re going”, WestJet has unveiled a new brand image that seeks to build the airline’s reputation as more of a global brand. This coincides with the planned introduction of its first three international Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner routes from Calgary.

“from a point-to-point carrier into a full-network, global airline. A lot of the transformations are around destinations, aircraft, but also product – we’re premiumizing our product offering.”

To make the announcement and unveil the ad and new brand direction, Ed Sims, WestJet President and CEO, was joined in Calgary at an event by Canadian community and business leaders.

According to Daintree, WestJet’s new agency ‘Rethink’ is developing a new brand platform, while as more globally focused company, WestJet will start marketing in other countries for the first time (however, WestJet did run a tube poster campaign in London in 2017 with the launch of its Gatwick services).

Quoted in Strategy magazine, Rob Daintree, director of marketing communications says that the new positioning is intended to reflect WestJet’s evolution

WestJet is launching non-stop service on board its Dreamliners from Calgary to London (Gatwick), Paris and Dublin on April 28, May 17 and June 1, 2019.

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The airline says that the services will support 650 full-time jobs and $100 million in total economic output. This is in addition to WestJet’s yearly economic output of more than $5 billion, that supports more than 32,000 direct and indirect jobs in Alberta.

The award for Best Overall Airline 2018 was given to WestJet as it “continues to raise the bar in every category,” according to judge Max KingsleyJones, executive director of content for FlightGlobal.

The three new flights from the UK and Western Europe are expected to eventually bring up to 185,000 visitors to Calgary on a yearly basis, helping also increase local tourism.

WestJet enjoyed further success by winning major awards for the Best Use of Influencers and the Best Airline in Driving Revenue.

At the same time, the airline announced that WestJet Rewards will introduce a new Platinum tier, as the airline heads global. The tier is targeted for launch later this year. In September, WestJet received a number of accolades at the annual SimpliFlying Awards.

WestJet also received the special honour of being inducted in the Hall of Fame for sustained excellence in social media marketing. This was the third time at the SimpliFlying Awards an airline has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, following American Airlines in 2017 and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 2015.

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AIRLINE CAMPAIGNS

image: Kenya Airways Twitter

Kenya Air ways to New York On October 29th, Kenya Airways joined the relatively small group of African airlines (the others being Ethiopian, South African Airways, Royal Air Maroc, and Cabo Verde Airlines) offering direct flights to the USA, with the launch of flights to New York. With the airline having suffered losses over the past few years, the national carrier hopes that the daily flights will be one step to profitability. The 15 hour Dreamliner flight from Nairobi to JFK was of course a major news event in Kenya, with both the departure and landing live streamed on Kenyan media websites.

Meanwhile Kenyan TV station ‘Citizen TV’ sent reporter Jeff Koinage to cover the launch, who sent back reports where he claimed that airline was “taking New York by storm.” The Kenyan Tourist board additionally took out animated billboards in New York’s Times Square, coinciding with the route launch. While the new route is a major milestone for the airline, not everyone is convinced it will work. News website Kahawa Tungu writes that the New York flights are not sustainable: “Everyone is showering praise to the new development, but has anyone paused to think how the cash strapped KQ will manage the trips?”

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Airlines - Fly Pink A number of airlines are once again supporting the Fly Pink initiative, which is an initiative originally founded by QantasLink pilots in 2015. It supports breast cancer awareness, early detection, and donations aimed at cancer research. This year, the organisation has additionally partnered with the Movember Foundation to raise funds and awareness for men’s health, including prostate and testicular cancer. Airlines that have engaged in Fly Pink Activity include Condor / Thomas Cook, which allowed pilots and cabin crew to wear epaulettes with pink stripes instead of their usual golden-striped epaulettes and pink accessories such as scarves, ties or pins. Meanwhile two Thomas Cook aircraft have been painted in the campaign’s pink bow motif.

Similarly, for the third year in a row, Porter Airlines pilots and flight attendants are wearing custom Fly Pink epaulets and pins to raise awareness for breast cancer during the month of October. In a series of social media posts, the Canadian airline asks staff why the initiative matters to them, starting with Toronto-based flight attendant Laura Ricketts: “I was diagnosed this year so it’s very significant for me. When I see the Fly Pink epaulets and pins I know that I’m not alone in this fight. It makes me feel stronger. It makes me feel supported. I feel like we’re a family and we’re all in this together.” Finally, Qantas, which originally pioneered the initiative, is once again taking part. Since its launch, the initiative has expanded worldwide with an estimated $500,000 being raised for cancer research.

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Lufthansa - AI Powered ad campaign Earlier this year, we covered Lufthansaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s #SayYesToTheWorld brand campaign, which followed Lufthansaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s livery change where the blue is being given more prominence, at the expense of the Lufthansa yellow. The latest stage of the campaign has seen the airline team up with IBM Watson Advertising to launch what both companies call an AI-powered advertising experience, and a first for an airline. The interactive ads, powered by IBM Watson, ran in October and provided consumers with the opportunity to interact with Lufthansa for general airline questions and for travel content across 15 European destinations. A destination explorer showcased each location and helps the user explore different cities through local travel facts and tips, as well as tailored image galleries and videos, and offers the option for flight reservations. You can try the AI-Powered ads yourself on the Watson website. Earlier this year, Emirates Vacations launched an AI powered ad campaign, which allowed people to ask questions and receive answers within the ad unit. 27 | Airline Marketing Monthly - November 2018

TAP Portugal - Portugal Stopover According to Ad Week, TAP Portugalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stopover programme aimed at North American travellers on their way to Europe is proving to be a huge success, with passenger traffic from the US to Portugal having doubled since the scheme launched in 2017. This Autumn, the Portuguese national airline is giving the campaign an extra push through a New York focused ad campaign. This involves ads on the top

of NYC taxi cabs, a mural in Brooklyn and cartoon videos on Hulu. TAP Portugal is only the latest in a series of airlines running stopover campaigns. Icelandair and Finnair are two carriers who have a track-record of doing this very successfully. Similarly, Etihad last year launched a campaign highlighting all the things you can do on a 48 hour stopover in Abu Dhabi (our cover story last June).

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flybmi - Music contest

Last month we ran a feature on airline boarding music, with a piece of guest commentary by Juanito Pascual of Signature Tones. One airline which is reviewing the music used to greet passengers as they come on-board is British and European regional airline flybmi. The airline is currently running a competition with Birmingham (UK) music school, The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where students are competing to compose tunes of up to three minutes, with the winning composition being played on flybmi flights.

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Virgin Australia - Smiling Mind On October 11th, Virgin group chairman Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Australia hosted “the world’s first dedicated meditation flight” featuring the organisation ‘Smiling Mind’, which promotes mindfulness and meditation. VA9002 departed Sydney with 65 special guests on board including Sir Richard Branson, media, VIPs and team members from Virgin Australia and Smiling Mind. All guests were treated to a hot towel service and hand massages before Smiling Mind led a guided meditation at 30,000 feet.

Virgin Founder Sir Richard Branson said: “Integrating mindfulness into our everyday lives is just as important as eating well and exercising regularly, and I am so excited to see Virgin Australia deeply embedding mindfulness into the workplace and onboard flights.” At the same time, Virgin Australia announced that it would be following the US practice of honouring military veterans on their flights, and also will offer priority boarding. The announcement is not without controversy, with news.com.au reporting that Virgin Australia has come in for both criticism and praise as a result.

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Delta - Learning on the go with LinkedIn

Looking for ways to spend time on your next Delta flight? How about learning a new skill?

Editor-In-Chief Daniel Roth, including in-depth discussions with some of the world’s top leaders.

Delta has teamed up with social network LinkedIn, allowing passengers to access LinkedIn Learning courses in flight, free of charge through Delta Studio. The courses are taught by expert instructors and cover a variety of topics like managing stress, getting things done, communication and career development.

Written interviews can also be found in the recurring “5 Minutes With” column in Delta’s Sky magazine, which spotlights notable leaders in business.

Additionally, Delta Studio is featuring a new interview series hosted by LinkedIn

According to LinkedIn, you can also access LinkedIn Learning courses on Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Turkish Airlines, select Alaska Airlines flights and with Eurostar rail service.

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AIRPORT ROUND UP

London Gatwick Airport and Shannon Airport - Sensor y Rooms In October London’s Gatwick Airport became the second airport in Europe (and first in the UK) to open a sensory room for its passengers, offering a relaxing, private and fully interactive environment to calm people who may feel overwhelmed in busy and unfamiliar airport surroundings. The new free to use facility provides a calming space for passengers with special needs. It includes an interactive zone full of light and sound also designed to stimulate senses, improve memory, motor skills and encourage learning. The ‘chill-out zone’ for those needing calm includes floor cushions, bean bags and digital display panels, which gen-

erate colourful visual wall features. The separate ‘interactive zone’ stimulates the senses through tactile panels, textures and a game to improve memory, motor skills and encourages learning. The only other airport in Europe to currently have such a facility is Shannon Airport in Ireland, which issued a press release welcoming Gatwick’s announcement. Shannon opened Europe’s first sensory room in March of last year for children and adults with neurodevelopmental challenges including autism, and has since facilitated visits by airports around the world that are exploring Shannon’s lead. Among them was Gatwick Airport.

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Brussels Airport - 60th birthday This year, Brussels Airport celebrates its 60th birthday. Since the summer, Brussels Airport has been celebrating this anniversary with a variety of activities, such as handing out free cakes to passengers on July 5th. As part of the celebration, a new campaign kicked off on 1 October, which sees famous Belgians “jumping for joy” on posters. This includes sprinters Kevin

Borlée and Élodie Ouédraogo, master chocolate-maker Pierre Marcolini, author Pascale Naessens as well as Eurovision song entry “Blanche.” Unfortunately for the airport, the campaign launched during a period of significant passenger disruption. In October, a strike by staff of handling agents Aviapartner saw 960 flights cancelled and 115,000 travellers affected.

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TSA - Don’t lose your booze According to the South Florida Reporter, The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the USA s running a campaign to remind passengers to pay attention to liquid rules in security so you “don’t lose your booze.” Thousands of passengers every year forget to heed the liquids rules and then head to the TSA checkpoints with oversized liquids. The end result is they often choose to lose their booze. As well as the lose your booze campaign, we were impressed when we looked at

the TSA social media feeds. This includes screenshots of random tweets people have been sending into the TSA asking ‘can I carry this?’ Examples include a giant banana, a brick, a skeleton, and a man who sent in a photo of himself holding an axe. In each case, the TSA social media team responds with some pretty good puns (e.g “you may pack your brick in a checked bag, but please leave your mortar at home”). - as well as of course imparting valuable information.

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Sydney Airport - Keith & Brent Airline fees are of course only one part of the average airport’s revenue stream, the other two elements being retail and parking. As a result, most airports try and aggressively promote both of the latter two elements (as well as investing in airline marketing campaigns). Sydney Airport’s answer to get more people parking their cars at the airport has been to launch a “branded mockumentary” featuring Australian YouTube stars and comedians, the “Bondi Hipsters.”

Keith and Brent star in a four part series aired on the airport’s social media channels. For example, in the first episode they help a customer called Nathan try and find his Prius by ruminating over random subjects such as Elon Musk’s claim that we are living in a Matrix style simulation. Later episodes feature the duo working in the call centre, fielding queries and a “workplace dispute” on whether there should be ham or prawns on the menu at Christmas.

The two Bondi Hipsters play two Sydney Airport car park attendants called “Keith” and “Brent”

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Stockholm Arlanda Airport - Welcome to my hometown For 13 years, Stockholm Arlanda Airport has been running a campaign called “Welcome to my hometown”, where passengers arriving at the airport are greeted by famous Swedish faces in a gallery. The line-up has included photographs of well-known Swedes in sport, music, fashion, design, art, culture and business. The airport says it also includes some “future stars” – Stockholmers who are not yet well-known to the general public.

Members of the public can now nominate faces that they would like to see added to the line-up The airport says that the idea is to create a pleasant atmosphere and a nice start to people’s visit to Stockholm, and that nominations should consist of people who either were born or work in Stockholm in fields such as sport, design, architecture, art, fashion, beauty, culture, entertainment, music, business and entrepreneurship.

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Singapore Airport - Art that truly moves Singapore Changi Airport has released a film celebrating one of the many art installations in its terminals. Situated in Terminal Four, Petalclouds, is a grand-scale kinetic sculpture. It consists of six structures suspended 200m across the Central Galleria and it can be seen from the Departure Check-in Hall, Transit Area and Arrival Hall.

Petalclouds is a complex amalgamation of art, music and science and the airport says that Its movement is synchronised to animated lighting and music. This follows the airport running a piece on its blog about â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;seven stunning art installations you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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THE SIMPLIFLYING LAB

Twenty airline marketers walked into a room, sat at a table and... were asked to stand up again. Why? Our Airline Marketing and Digital Innovation Lab is the perfect place for airline marketing and communication executives to meet their counterparts from other airlines who face similar challenges. It is a special place for airline marketers to see that we all are so different, yet so alike and we all can learn from each other.

Watch the video (click on the image) to hear what our lab attendees enjoyed the most at the last Lab in London. Special thanks go to Panasonic Avionics Corporation and every Lab attendee who made this day special. P.S. Here is a summary article of all the Lab discussions. And, here you can find more about the winners of SimpliFlying Awards 2018.

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THE 10,000TH COPY OF SOAR AUCTIONED OFF FOR CHARITY A total of $780 was raised for a local Halifax food bank when delegates bid on the 10,000th copy of SOAR, at an impromptu auction held during the 2018 Airport Council International Customer Excellence Global Summit. After delivering the opening keynote address, CEO of SimpliFlying and author of SOAR, Shashank Nigam was busy signing copies of his book for top airport executives attending the conference. Copies of SOAR had been bought by ACI World and HIAA for all the attendees. As the number of signed copies were approaching the milestone 10,000th copy, Sha-

shank Nigam invited airport executives present at the conference to bid for it and donate the raised money to a charity. “SOAR has inspired over 10,000 marketers in aviation and beyond. I had to do something special to mark the milestone – raising funds for a local charity through an auction seemed like the best option,” said Shashank Nigam. The decision of choosing the charity for the raised money was given to Joyce Carter, CEO of Halifax International Airport, who selected a food bank in Dartmouth.

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“Halifax Stanfield was delighted to be a part of the impromptu auction of the 10,000th copy of Shashank’s enlightening book, SOAR, at the ACI Customer Excellence Global Summit,” said Joyce Carter, President & CEO of Halifax International Airport Authority.

the CEOs of Edmonton International Airport and Cincinnati Airport started. Ultimately, the 10,000th and the 10,001st copies were sold to them for a total of $780, including a 1-1 match by both HIAA and ACI World.

“As the host city of this inaugural international conference, the money raised through the auction will be donated to a charity of HIAA’s choice – the Dartmouth North Community Food Centre, which has been our Signature Partner for the past three years. Through our signature partnership, HIAA provides both financial and human resources to the Centre to help address issues of food insecurity in our community.”

“It’s not surprising that the impromptu charity auction of Shashank’s book garnered such interest,” concluded Angela Gittens, Director General of ACI World.“His thought-provoking presentation on exploring new ways of providing remarkable airport customer experiences provided the more than 400 delegates to ACI’s Customer Excellence Global Summit with a lot to ponder and certainly energised discussion.”

To lead the impromptu auction, Brian Shapiro, president of Shapiro Communications, was invited. The bid began with just $50 for the special copy of SOAR before a bidding war between

Special thanks for supporting the idea go to Angela Gittens, Brian Shapiro, Thomas Ruth of Edmonton International Airport, Candace McGraw of CVG and Joyce Carter from HIAA.

About SOAR SOAR is a book that details how eight airlines have overcome a number of challenges to build endearing internal cultures and consistently delight customers through as many as 50 brand touch-points. Airlines, airports and other travel industry professionals are the primary target market for the 200+ page

book, which aims to help its readers shake off old ways of thinking, adopt new attitudes and seize opportunities in brand marketing. You can get your copy of SOAR at www.simplisoar.com or on Amazon.

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REACH AVIATION MARKETING PROFESSIONALS THROUGH AMM In fact, we have subscribers in almost all of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top 100 airlines. In addition, professionals in major airports, aviation services companies and aircraft manufacturers read it. We know AMM is forwarded on extensively. For example, one European airline subscriber told us he sends it onto 30 colleagues internally.

Published by SimpliFlying, Airline Marketing Monthly (AMM) is the only trade magazine in the world devoted to aviation marketing. It appears monthly in a digital format, and is printed to coincide with major trade events. It originally started life as a monthly benchmarking report, in response to a request by a SimpliFlying client. Having published 70+ issues, we turned it into a free magazine in May 2018. Though we have a database of 6000 aviation professionals worldwide, this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the whole story.

Airline Marketing Monthly is a unique opportunity to reach marketeers and decision makers in the industry. Though for quality control purposes, we are reluctant to take on one-off ads, we are offering brands the chance to work with us on special editions. We will jointly choose the topic, something of relevance both to aviation marketing professionals and your organisation, and develop a number of themed articles around that subject. At the same time, we will include a by-lined thought leadership piece from one of your senior executives, give you credit on the cover, and promote the content via a paid for social media campaign. Get in touch with us to find out more contact@simpliflying.com

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AVIATION BRANDS IN THIS ISSUE Air New Zealand Brussels Airport Condor / Thomas Cook Delta easyJet Emirates flybmi Kenya Airways London Gatwick Airport Lufthansa SAS IATA Shannon Airport Singapore Changi Airport Sydney Airport Stockholm Arlanda Airport TAP Portugal TSA United Virgin Australia WestJet

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AIRLINE MARKETING MONTHLY November 2018