Tuesday 8 December 2009

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES GETS MOBILE


Objective: 
The goal of the mobile campaign was to generate brand awareness and interest regarding the reduced fare promotion and drive traffic to the Continental mobile site.


Target audience: 
The campaign targeted a mobile Internet savvy Smartphone audience between the ages of 25-54, with household income levels $100K+, and had traveled for business within the last three months.
Strategy: 
Continental ran graphical banners targeted to reach their desired demographic audience across several premium network properties (including MSNBC, NBA, NBC Sports and NBC Local Integrated Media which also geo-targeted NYC mobile users) and concurrently hosted an Insight Express brand study for Continental to measure user perception and awareness of the Continental brand in mobile, and measure user purchase intent on the mobile Internet.  Ads promoted Continental’s inexpensive airfare.

Results: 
Continental was successful at driving increases across all brand metrics, for example, ad awareness increased by 60 percent and Web site awareness increased by 15.4 percent.  Purchase Intent also increased by 22.3 percent and mobile airline ticket purchase intent went up by 22.2 percent.
Lessons learned: 
The airline industry spawned sophisticated advertising which was based on yield management – an approach to maximizing revenue when a business has a fixed, perishable resource and can segment customers into groups willing to pay different prices for the same resource.  For airlines, a seat is perishable as the revenue potential disappears once the flight has flown.   
Airlines simply want to sell the right seat to the right passenger at the right time at the right price.  
What better medium then mobile to accomplish this objective. It’s personal, easy to segment and easy to measure.
“Mobile is an ideal channel as frequent travelers are heavy consumers of mobile search, shopping and travel purchases," Mr. Johar said.  "As new mobile applications are launched on user-friendly platforms like the iPhone and BlackBerry, the travel industry has leveraged information distribution, travel alerts, destination guides and mobile booking capabilities.”