A Summer Ad Flight With British Airways - A case study

When British Airways places online advertisements, it isn't going for a direct response. After all, when was the last time you saw a travel-related ad, clicked on it, and booked a seat on a plane? For British Airways, it's all about branding. As one of those intrepid traditional companies that are coming online to fill the gaping hole left by the demise of so many dot-coms, British Airways is an excellent test case for the effectiveness of brand advertising online. One enlightening example of this company's strategy is a campaign it launched -- with the help of its agency, i-traffic -- this summer.

Objective
The goal of the campaign was to raise awareness about British Airways' new flat-bed seat in business class, among international business travelers in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state area. (The flat bed seat was only available on flights out of JFK airport.) It was advantageous that BA was the first airline to introduce such a product, so that the novelty value of the seats drove consumer curiosity. "This was news," said Brad Epstein of i-traffic. "Also, our longer term goal is not just to introduce the seat, but to let the business traveler know that this is a very innovative company. The campaign also aimed to emphasize other brand values already associated with the airline: outstanding British service and worldliness. Secondarily, the companies wanted to drive traffic to a micro-site designed especially for the campaign.

Creative Strategy
In keeping with the "innovative" brand message, BA and i-traffic sought to use out-of-the-ordinary creative.

While the companies did use standard animated banners and buttons, they thought to make them special in a couple of ways. Two of the banner ads -- one featuring coffee being poured, and another showing wine being poured -- were so-called synergy ads, which referred to the offline components of the campaign. The liquids were shown from the perspective of the person lying in the flat-bed seat -- an unusual eye-catching perspective. The words "click to see the bed" appeared on these banners, allowing someone who had seen a television or print ad to take advantage of the Web to get more information about the seats.

"They are quite an enlightened client," said Epstein, praising BA for involving all of its agencies in the creative process. "They treat all of their agencies equally."

Buttons were also used, some of which had a pop-up component, which allowed consumers to see what the flat-bed seats look like. Vertical banners were part of the mix, as was a superstitial ad. The superstitial showed the seat with "hotspots" and encouraged consumers to mouse over different parts of it.

Audio-enabled ads -- featuring "bedtime stories" about Rip Van Winkle and the Three Bears -- were also used. Consumers could click on the banner to hear the audio

Media Buys
British Airways and i-Traffic were looking to reach international business travelers in the New York metropolitan area as they were in an "active browsing" mode. Since it was a branding campaign, getting people to click through wasn't as much a consideration as reaching the target audience when they were engaged.

Accordingly, the companies positioned ads in places that were likely to be part of the target audience's daily routine -- the New York Times online, Yahoo!, Worldly Investor, the Wall Street Journal, and Hoover's Online. Buys were also made through ad networks DoubleClick and 24/7 Media, as well as on travel sites like Expedia and Fodors.

Geo-targeting was accomplished through the analysis of IP addresses (certain dial-up IPs originate in certain areas), and the area codes given when users registered at a site.

"We tried to negotiate as many out-of-the-ordinary placements as possible," said Epstein, adding that placing large, vertical banners were a big part of the strategy.

Additionally, because the aim was to reach people in news-browsing mode, i-traffic placed ads disguised as editorial content. "When people are looking at things that interest them, ads are not the first thing that they are looking for," said Epstein. "So, we made it look like news."

Ads ran for three months, from June 28 to September 25, and 11.6 million impressions were delivered. The companies declined to reveal spending on the campaign
Results
Although generating click-throughs was not the main objective of the campaign, the companies did measure consumers' interaction with the ads.

1) The click-through rate for the campaign as a whole was .41 percent
2) The "landing page" experienced a total of 13,845 visits.
3) Of all creative units, the vertical banners outperformed other creative unit sizes. The cumulative click rate was .70 percent, approximately five times higher than the horizontal units.
4) Of the standard horizontal banners, the "synergy banners" didn't necessarily do better than the non-synergy banners. Although the "wine" banner got a .17 percent click-through, the "coffee" only garnered a .08 percent click-through, behind the "first bed" and the "elbow room" creative.
5) Buttons on the whole did not perform particularly well -- generating a .10 percent click-through rate.
6) The audio banner with a story about Rip Van Winkle had a 2.20 percent click-through rate, while the Three Bears ad had only a .17 click-through rate.
7) The superstitial had the best click-through rate, at 4.12 percent, but it as severely underdelivered. It was only placed on one site -- Worldly Investor -- and just 16,557 were served, of the 400,000 originally contracted for.

Meanwhile, the branding results remain fuzzy. British Airways expects to conduct online focus groups, to determine whether the campaign raised awareness in consumers' minds.

Learned Lessons/Next Steps
The campaign originally rolled out in the New York metropolitan area will likely be rolled out in other parts of the United States, as planes with the flat-bed seats begin to serve other airports. So, the lessons learned in this campaign can be put to work as it is used in other places. "We were successful in geo-targeting the communication within the tri-state area, which was a challenge," said Sangeeta Sawhney with British Airways. If the ads are used in other geographical areas, similar methods would likely be used. In addition, the vertical banner placements were really big winners in the campaign. "Wherever the vertical banners were displayed, we saw higher click-through rates," said Scott Keating of i-traffic, "and that was a great learning for us." And, while buttons didn't generate a very high click-through rate, i-traffic believes they are an important branding element, especially because they appear on the same page as horizontal banners.

Credits: ChannelSeven.com