The Earnbassadors
Velocity Frequent Flyer
Issue 50 | February 2019
Agency
CHE Proximity
Creative Team
Agency CHE Proximity Chief Creative Officer Ant White Group Creative Directors Brian Jefferson, Hamish Stewart Associate Creative Directors Ashley Wilding, Daniel Davison Senior Copywriter Zac Pritchard Senior Art Director Nico Smith Senior Designers Trent Michael, Vanessa Saporito
Production Team
Head of Strategic Production Holly Alexander Senior Producer Kyla Bridge Production Assistant Katena Valastro Technical Director Product & Comms Matthew Rose Digital Products Director Anthony Harca Production Manager Natalie Hort Senior Editor King Yong Production Company FINCH
Other Credits
Managing Director and Chief Strategic Officer David Halter Head of Media Calvin Cain Experience Strategists Lucy Bowers, Hannah Garcia, Will McClure Director, Data Science James Greaney Managing Partner Renee Hyde Group Account Director Sam McGown Account Director George Robertson Account Manager Caitlin Adler Clients Frequent Flyer Chief Marketing Officer Dean Chadwick Head of Customer Marketing Steve Baird Leader, Customer Growth Tara Nair-Stuber Marketing Specialists Lyndall Gannon, Annabel Brusasco Lead Content & Creative Gemma Myhill Performance Marketing Manager Rino Do Digital Product Manager - Websites and Content Belle Landry
Date
October 2018 onwards
Background
Velocity is the name given to Virgin Australia’s frequent flyer programme. At the organisation, they noticed that the most engaged members were pointsobsessed.
They would drive out of their way to get fuel at BP petrol stations, pick up restaurant bills to pick up the points on offer and often going to irrational lengths to earn points and maintain their status.
The challenge was to get more people equally obsessed.
Idea
The idea was to offer points-hungry people the chance to collect even more of them and get them to get other Velocity members to do the same.
A 90-second online film launched the concept of Earnbassadors, people who earned points when they promoted Velocity in social media. The more hits, views, shares and likes they collected, the more points they were given.
At the website, an official ‘Code of Earning’ briefed the various ways people could create content to educate other frequent flyers about ‘Status Credits’ and the fact that members could fly to over 600 destinations with their points. The more creative they were, the more points they were awarded, irrespective of the number of followers they had. In response, there were puppeteers, a Velocity-branded Santa, memes, shaved heads, tutorial videos, skydivers, scubadivers, mural makers, and more.
The content created was monitored across Facebook and Instagram, ranked and scored by an AI bot called Earnie. The best content was turned into ads to target lessengaged members.
Thus Earnbassadors who were infrequent flyers could get to travel further and more often.
Results
Over the six-week campaign, over 150 pieces of content had been created and shared by members within 24 hours. As of mid-January, nearly 4,500 pieces of content had been created. There was a 390% uplift in positive sentiment, and increase of over 500 new followers within 48 hours, and a cumulative reach of 7.2 million people.
Real-life feel-good stories emerged from the campaign, such as Earnbassador Julie, who can now can fly her daughter Josie to a New York art exhibition for individuals with Down Syndrome. Earnbassador Sarah was able to visit her friend recovering from chemotherapy in Adelaide.
Our Thoughts
Once again, alarmingly, the general public reveal themselves to be every bit as creative as agency professionals. Points-hunters have sung jingles; made amazingly professional little ads; thrown themselves out of aircraft; one got himself tattooed; another held up a board down on the sea-bed saying, ‘Velocity points got me here’. Thousands of little (and not so little) bits of content got posted up on Facebook and Instagram and some to YouTube.
One bit of content posted up offline was a rather tasteful steel and glass sign.
The genius of this idea is that it isn’t limited to a campaign, it can run for years or for as long as there are people out there wanting to fly by whatever means possible.
It’s also a smart way of reaching people who would normally say they hate advertising, through their mates.