Promo - November 2008 - (Page 18)

Entertainment to Go #11 Best Interactive Promotion TAKE OFF & TUNE IN AGENCY: Civic Entertainment Group CLIENT: A&E Television, Southwest Airlines A&E had seen its ratings gradually slip over a few years and was looking for a novel approach to spark viewership through sampling. It huddled with its agency, Civic Entertainment Group, and the two developed a strategy with Southwest Airlines, the nation’s largest air carrier, which doesn’t offer in-flight entertainment. A&E and Civic struck on a strategy to provide pre-boarding entertainment made portable for viewing in-flight. A&E created a closedcircuit WiFi network at Southwest gates in three airports, Chicago Midway, Oakland and Phoenix. When travelers turned on their laptop computers to search for a wireless network, the A&E WiFi net was the first thing they encountered. “We were really looking to do some product sampling in other avenues,” says Stacy Krusch, A&E director of integrated marketing. “We got great exposure to a really captive audience.” A&E ambassadors were present at branded kiosks during peak traffic hours to answer questions and promote the effort. Gate announcements and signage drove traffic to the informational kiosks. In 13 other airports, Southwest staff members gave away DVDs of A&E shows, particularly to passengers stuck in middle seats, business travelers going home, or any passenger whose flight was delayed. A&E built awareness with gate announcements, buttons worn by Southwest staff members and signage in the airports. Southwest passengers were an ideal audience for the initiative because 90% of them make reservations online and carry their laptops with them. Passengers in Southwest’s waiting areas were able to download full-length episodes and short-form versions of several A&E shows, which were refreshed each month during the four-month promo- IDEA TO STEAL: MAKING CONTENT AVAILABLE for oﬀbeat sampling in an unusual environment can build serious buzz with a captive audience. Access to the A&E content— through a micro-site on www.SWA. com—was provided to passengers when they booked a flight on Southwest. SWA’s confirmation page noted A&E’s download alongside links to book rental cars and hotels. Ultimately, A&E reached 130 million consumers with the content online. Laptop users executed 30,000 downloads, and 300,000 DVDs were distributed. “It far exceeded our expectations for the campaign,” Cohn says. A feature story that ran in the Wall Street Journal drew attention to the campaign, which in turn sparked three cable networks to make inquiries with Civic about conducting similar stunts for their respective networks. “There was a tremendous amount of interest from other networks,” Cohn says. And A&E was able to glean information These women received A&E about the consumers who DVDs distributed downloaded its content by Southwest as during the promotion, part of the Take Off & Tune In which apparently helped campaign. to produce a spike in ontion. The menu included air viewership. “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” In the end, both A&E and Southwest “Gene Simmons Family Jewels,” were pleased with the results. “Criss Angel Mindfreak,” “Flip This “They saw an opportunity to House” and “Paranormal State.” give their customers something they People were also able to download a didn’t have, and we saw an opportucustom game. nity to reach their captive audience,” “The idea was to reach as many Krusch says. people as we could,” says David Cohn, Ultimately, A&E estimates that the Civic co-CEO. “Southwest’s customers promotion created $1.8 million worth are younger and tech-savvy.” of impressions, and Krusch says the The target audience in this case network is mulling the idea of doing a correlated to A&E’s 18- to 49-year-old similar promotion in the future. target, the traditional “sweet spot” of —Richard Tedesco TV viewership for advertisers. 18 november 2008 / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / Promo http://www.SWA.com http://www.SWA.com http://WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM

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Promo - November 2008 Contents Editor's Note Pro Awards The Promo 100 The Agency Center Resource Center Index of Advertisers Promoland

Promo - November 2008

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