M a r c h 2 0 1 3 | Qatar Today
Air New Zealand’s quirky in-flight safety video, #richroll, has had nearly 2.8 million views on YouTube [http:// youtube/3iaTEgoezNQ], surely a somewhat secondary audience, but one which projects the image of the carrier as fun and creative. Watch it, and I defy you not to smile! On a simpler but promotionally no less effective level, the Uruguayan carrier Pluna Airlines offers bonus frequent flyer points if you share your booking details with friends across a number of social networks. And when Virgin America opened its new terminal at San Francisco International Airport it ran a virtual scavenger hunt, encouraging participants to “check in” on Foursquare so they could win online badges that could be turned into real-world prizes. In each of these instances the financial cost to the airline is pretty small. But by encouraging users to share their experience with their own social networks they are able to enjoy a far greater and potentially
Online check-in QR codes and electronic boarding passes In-flight Wi-Fi and mobile reception Personalised at-seat entertainment services Engagement via social channels
more effective reach than through traditional digital marketing. After all, such social sharing is the new word of mouth. And that’s the most trusted advertising medium there has ever been. If some of these ideas seem like gimmicks, it’s worth considering the size of some of these audiences. They may be bigger and more influential than you think.
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Examples of digital experiences we now often take for granted
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Social Network Key YouTube Twitter
AGGREGATED NET INCREASE THIS WEEEK
EMIRATES
BRITISH AIRWAYS
AZUL
KLM
Air FRANCE
TURKISH AIRLINES
LAN AIRLINES
DELTA AIRLINES
GOL
Google Plus
ENGAGEMENT INDEX
73,557 views 62,950 fans
680 followers 90,410 fans
51%
97,164 views 16,912 fans
3,058 followers 36,518 fans
4%
356 followers 38,901 fans
ALITALIA
Last October, when Emirates celebrated its 27th birthday by launching an official Google Plus account, it attracted nearly 100,000 followers in a week. At the same time, a post on Emirates’ Facebook page announcing this new social channel received 10,000 likes in one day. Although Middle East based carriers like Emirates are starting to really engage in this space, they’re arguably still behind in terms of the digital audiences enjoyed by some of their US-based counterparts. JetBlue, for example, currently has 1.7 million Twitter followers, considerably more than all the MENA carriers combined. And for those who say that size isn’t everything, it’s worth looking at American Airlines. It has a smaller Twitter audience than JetBlue and a number of other airlines, but it is very digitally engaged, having sent 145,000 tweets to date. These figures dwarf the level of activity (see chart below) for carriers in our own region.
100%
947 views 39.009 fans
2,218 followers 8,537 fans
80,822 views 25,255 fans
6,551 followers 1,953 fans
21,160 views 23,609 fans
808 followers 2,213 fans
14,467 views 16,912 fans
3,058 followers 36,518 fans
835 views 22,627 fans
35 followers
30%
24,328 views 22,979 fans
2,539 followers
7%
3,524 views 4,631 fans
954 followers 8,733 fans
6%
VK
RenRen
Tencent Weibo
28% 628 fans 1,521 fans
26% 24%
36,518 fans
Seina Weibo
27%
57