My vote for "Best of Social Media" campaign has to go to WestJet for their Christmas Miracle campaign from December, 2013.
WestJet Airlines is a Canadian airline that provides air service to 85 destinations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. They started in 1996 as a regional carrier with three Boeing 737 jets and have grown from a regional carrier into an international carrier landing in 76 destinations on 98 aircraft.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas being peak travel times, the holidays are a busy time for airlines. WestJet released their campaign the night of December 8, 2013. With plenty of time for it to be seen by consumer's making travel plans for Christmas. It also worked in great with the feelings of sentimentality people have around the holidays.
WestJet had Santa Claus ask customers what they wanted for Christmas. There was a kiosk set up in two airports where customers could interact with Santa through video, once they scanned their boarding passes, Santa knew their names and asked them what they wanted for Christmas. The real time interactive Santa, who spoke to people using their names was a great idea since no one likes traveling at the Holidays, and I'm sure it helped pass the time. And he was also wearing a blue suit and Santa hat, reinforcing the colors of WestJet Airlines and keeping with company branding.
Once customers told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, a team of behind the scenes people went to work. They raced to stores they had teamed with for the project, such as Best Buy and Under Armour, and purchased what each customer had asked for. When the planes landed and people went to pick up their luggage, Santa was there, and WestJet had presents with everyones names on them on the luggage carousel. Some people who had asked for tickets home for the holidays, received free tickets on the airline, some people received large gifts like a new television.
The customers where astonished and delighted. WestJet's strategy of building a relationship and feelings of good will with the public paid off. You can bet those people will be customer's of WestJet for life! People watching the YouTube video also found it touching and it generated a lot of positive feelings about WestJet, which was one of their objectives. Brian Reid, creative director at Studio M who created the campaign, said the goal of the campaign was "to make it personal and make people feel heard." So, customer loyalty, brand recognition and good publicity all resulted from this one campaign.
WestJet used YouTube to release the video. They also paid for ads on Facebook and Twitter, pointing viewers toward the video. WestJet encouraged people to share the campaign on Twitter by telling them they would gift a flight to a family in need once they reached 200,000 views. This is a great strategy- to encourage a reward for engagement. By giving customers a reason to comment, share or follow, you're post will stand out and get shared more. (WestJet is working with Ronald McDonald House Charities to donate flights to families in need.)
WestJet had been expecting maybe 800,000 video views, and they had received more than 13 million views within just a couple of days. Currently the video has been views over 31 million times. The video was released on the night of December 8, 2013. By Friday, December 13, the video had more than 19 million views on YouTube, and on December 11 alone, there was 67 percent more consumption around WestJet then there was the entire month of November. (This statistic is from Kontera , a content marketing platform). By consumption, they mean how often a term is seen online including text, video, and mobile via social media. December 11 there was 146 percent more consumption around WestJet then there was for their competitors Air Canada, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air and Spirit Airlines combined.
WestJet also received some great publicity from the campaign with articles about them in Forbes, Mashable, NPR, Financial Post, The Huffington Post, The Calgary Sun, and a lot of sites dealing with marketing and social media telling people "this is how it's done."
WestJet's creative strategy of making people feel good, building good will and counting on a creative approach to capture people's attention and make them want to share the video has paid off. Their video pulls viewers in emotionally, we want them to succeed. We want to see people's reactions when they open their gifts. We feel good about this company and what they've done for people. Next time we're going to fly in this area, we will remember the airline that made us feel this good! Their target market, existing and potential airline consumers, will remember it too. I think this campaign was very successful, and although they won't say how much they spent on the campaign, it was probably much cheaper then buying expensive airtime on television. WestJet was creative and had a clear message that reached a lot of people.
Do you know of any social media campaigns that hit it out of the park? Please let us know in the comments section, we'd love to check them out!
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