Swiss International Airlines DM INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER, 1 by Plan.net, Serviceplan Suisse Zurich

INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER, 1
The Direct marketing titled INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER, 1 was done by Plan.net, Serviceplan Suisse Zurich advertising agencies for Swiss International Airlines in Switzerland. It was released in May 2013.

Swiss International Airlines: INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER, 1

Media
Released
May 2013
Posted
May 2013
Industry
Agency
Executive Creative Director
Art Director
Art Director
Creative Director
Account Supervisor

Awards:

AME Awards, 2014
use of mediummobile / cellular / hand-held deviceFinalist Certificate

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: SWISS INTERNATIONAL AIR LINES
Agency: PLAN.NET, SERVICEPLAN
Category: Social Media & Viral Marketing
Advertising campaign: INSTAGRAM TAKEOVER
Creative Director: Christoph Noe (plan.net)
Agency Producer: Florian Panier (Serviceplan)
Chief Creative Officer: Alexander Schill (Serviceplan)
Executive Creative Director: Axel Thomsen (plan.net)
Art Director: Felix Steingrube (plan.net)
Account Supervisor: Florian Nettesheim (plan.net)
Art Director: Matthijs Mejan (plan.net)

Implementation
One of the best-known events in Switzerland is the International Motor Show in Geneva. Users who showed interest in the Motor Show on Instagram were directed in their search to current flight offers from SWISS. For example, if a user searched for ‘#genevacarshow’ or ‘#genevamotorshow’, we hijacked the photostream. A SWISS aircraft appeared unexpectedly between the regular photos. At the same time, individual seats in the aircraft showed the different flights to Geneva. Of course every flight could be booked immediately without the user having to leave the Instagram app.

Client Brief Or Objective
Switzerland’s national airline, SWISS, wanted to reach new target audiences in the social media arena. It wanted to promote both its extensive route network and the large number of intercontinental direct flights to Switzerland.For this campaign we identified Instagram as the most suitable platform. Here users from around the world share their photos of, for example, city breaks, holidays and events they have visited. With its 100m users, Instagram has grown to be one of the world’s largest photographic archives. We made use of this wide-ranging potential to run the first, genuine sales campaign on Instagram.

Execution
With our ‘Instagram Takeover’ we succeeded in launching a sales campaign on a platform that, until now, has never had any official, bookable advertising space.As the search actively originated from the user, we had practically no wastage. It was possible to make offers and booking opportunities available to interested users without the need for technical modifications. SWISS was therefore able to assert its claim to be the number one carrier for flights in and out of Switzerland in the social media arena too.

Outcome
By choosing the more popular hashtags many potential customers saw the SWISS offers. The promotion was received positively by users. The offers were ‘liked’ and shared on other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The press and numerous weblogs also reported on the campaign. Without using a media budget we accessed new target audiences for our client, SWISS, as well as creating wider awareness of the brand. Although this was a sales campaign, through creativity and the unusual nature of the promotion, we succeeded in positioning SWISS within the social networks as an innovative and modern airline.