The airline industry is perhaps the one of the most competitive ones and the customer loyalty is way below different industries such as automobiles or electronics, people usually search for flights on places such as orbitz.com, expedia.com or Travelocity.com and end up buying the cheapest fare no matter which airline is offering the deal. American Airlines has been able to create some king of loyalty through its AAdvantage program where people can accumulate miles and use towards a future trip, but we have to say people stick to with more for the savings than the empathy with the brand.
One of these Airline companies is very different to the rest and has been able to effectively use social networks, twitter and Facebook to influence buyers and motivate positive reviews from bloggers and journalist around the globe. This company is JetBlue, a good example of how social networks and online marketing should be used by large corporations, the first success of Jetblue was in July 6th 2009 when they created the @JetBlueCheeps account in twitter and tweet a sweet promotion of $9 tickets from New York (JFK) to Massachusetts (ACK), this is the original copy of that tweet:
“Intro to Cheep Deals @http://tr.im/cheeps! $9 JFK to ACK o/w this Sat. 25 seats avail or til 6pm ET. Taxes, Fees & Rest. Apply.”
The campaign was a success and they continued doing that for all the month of July. The most recent promotion was $24 from Long Beach, California (LGB) to Oakland (OAK). The campaign not only was a big success with 48,876 followers and 1,276 lists in twitter but also created a lot of buzz and free press from bloggers and between web users all over the internet.
Most recently in New York JetBlue came up with another really clever ad campaign called The Flyer’s Collection, www.theflyerscollection.com featuring a series of fictional products that help give you a more “JetBlue-like” experience when you have to fly other airlines. The main component of the campaign was facebook but the campaign was heavily supported for other conventional advertising mediums such as 35,000 gift guides (which were distributed between frequent flyers on New York), subway ads and even a storefront at 48 9th Ave.
The holiday gift guide is, in essence, “a joke,” said John Amato, president of New York-based Show Media one of the fastest INC 500 companies in 2009, the advertising agency that worked with JetBlue on the sampling program.One of the gifts in the guide is a “knee jockey,” for instance. “It’s like a bra for your knees,” quipped JetBlue advertising manager Kirsten Frazell. “It holds your knees up so they don’t have to be smashed in [by] the seat in front of you.” The point here is to illustrate that JetBlue has a lot of legroom, another example is a sweater that doubles as a carry-on suitcase “so you don’t have to pay the extra $25 to [check in additional] bags.”
These products were actually exhibited on a storefront in Manhattan, located in the Meatpacking District, the store offers a “parody” set up of all items that are sold in the catalog. To distribute the catalogs town car drivers were chosen as the medium for distribution, the reason… because 80 percent of these vehicles go to and from the airport, said Kirsten.
The www.theflyerscollection.com actually point to the JetBlue “The Flyer’s Collection” page on Facebook (currently 118,179 members) where people’s interaction was heavily promoted and ideas of new items were requested to the community. These are just some ideas from the Facebook group members:
Kelly Hansen
how about a guy with a satellite dish strapped to his head trying to get inflight DirecTV. Maybe he could have a small flat screen TV strapped around his waist too. (sold separately of course)
Nimrod PriellJan 6
Ear protectors for guarding your ears from the dirt on the re-used earphones handed out on non-JetBlue flights!
The hilarious part of the campaign is when the people try to buy the products online, a beautiful pop up come up displaying the following text: “Thanks for shopping at The Flyers Collection. Due to unexpected demand, this product has sold out. If you’d rather just book a more confortable flight, simple Go Jetting.”
The Flyer's Collection NY Subway Ad
Amato said JetBlue’s campaign represents a shift in how companies—and their business partners—approach marketing these days, “Now, businesses in general are looking for new ways to make money, and this is the sort of project that delivers a huge net gain” to all parties involved.
“The Flyer’s Collection” campaign is a great example on how to engage online with the community, how to build a brand affiliation and create loyal customers, JetBlue without any doubt is changing the way marketing online should be approached by large corporations of any kind.
This article has been written by Libardo Lambrano, founder of Syndikomm; an online marketing firm based in New York city and specialized in multicultural markets. Libardo Lambrano, a digital citizen of the world can be reached@llambrano