Emirates Airlines: FIFA WORLD CUP

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Localised Campaign

Advertiser: EMIRATES

Product/Service: EMIRATES

Date of First Appearance: May 20 2010

Entrant Company: STARCOM, Millers Point, AUSTRALIA

Business Director: Jane Redwood (Starcom)

Senior Strategist: Sarah Jopson (Starcom)

Implementation Planner: James Kirk (Starcom)

Agency Director: Sue Kallas (Starcom)

Media placement: Outdoor - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth - 20th May

Media placement: Online - National - 20th May

Media placement: Newspapers - National - 20th May

Media placement: Mobile - National - 20th May



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Our challenge was to leverage the FIFA World Cup which aired in the middle of the night and was dominated by our biggest competitor and Australia’s national carrier, Qantas. No easy feat! We faced two further hurdles: Soccer is still a minor spectator sport in Australia & Qantas is the sponsor of the Australian national team and would be the sponsor of the World Cup TV broadcast, ruling EMIRATES out.



What if we turned this mass event into an opportunity to target specific communities and harness our biggest advantage; the EMIRATES global network?



Our insight was that, due to the country’s heritage, most Australian’s will support a ‘second country’ in the World Cup; and chances are that EMIRATES flies there.

We would harness the passion and community spirit surrounding the World Cup by providing consumers with FIFA news, highlights and results targeted to their second country, everyday and in real-time.



Creative Execution

Providing targeted news, in real-time allowed us to by-pass Qantas, ensuring ownership of the anticipation of each match and the new news the morning after.



We used outdoor advertising to target communities by ‘second country’. Bespoke spectacular LED digital tickers were created at bus stops and via large billboards, each tailored by location and presented in their own language.



We targeted fans using digitally adapted outdoor and live mobile content. News and results were uploaded within minutes of the whistle blowing to ensure they became a daily point of reference throughout each suburb.



To harness peaks in anticipation, updates we provided within community newspapers and time targeted online. These were strategically placed within relevant editorial linking Emirates destinations to each featured team.



In another major innovation, departure screens at Sydney Airport were used to showcase the World Cup nations linked by the EMIRATES network, highlighting the airlines breadth and scale.



Results and Effectiveness

The campaign ran throughout our traditionally quiet European winter period but still generated over $28m of sales and the highest average fare of all campaigns throughout 2010.



The campaign generated over 10,000 ‘opt-ins’ for future communication, building a database of potential customers by their destination of choice; invaluable data for Emirates.



Consumer quantitative research via Intentrack showed that EMIRATES recommendations tripled by the end of the campaign.