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Mosaic

British Airways

Issue 25 | December 2012

Agency

OgilvyOne London

Creative Team

Executive Creative Directors: Emma de la Fosse, Charlie Wilson Copywriter: Paul Pearson Art Director: Laila Milborrow

Production Team

Producer: John Thompson

Other Credits

Claire Middleton, Andrew Boggs, Victoria Hutchinson, Clayton Gray, Toby Low, Lorenzo Spadoni, Nina Bosanac, Matt Smart

Date

September 2012

Background

In November 2011 British Airways re-launched their frequent flyer programme, the Executive Club, with a new positioning, new product features and a new look & feel. However most people assumed that the Executive Club was just for high flyers. The challenge was to overcome this barrier and recruit new members by proving that the Club had been redesigned for people like them.

Idea

The theory of social proofing played an important part in defining the creative strategy for this project. With that in mind, British Airways wanted existing members to help recruit new ones. But this wasn’t a standard member-get-member scheme. Members were asked to submit their reason for joining the Club, along with a recent photograph. The goal was 1,000 members. They actually received over 50,000. Turning members into advocates, their photos were tiled into striking mosaic images relating to Executive Club benefits. The ‘member mosaics’ were then paired with compelling statistics, bringing the Club’s benefits to life in a visually engaging way that supported the social proofing strategy.

Airport posters, digital displays, emails, leaflets and on-board media drove prospects to a landing page on ba.com which supported the campaign with a member mosaic map of the world. As you roll over the map, each photo expanded to reveal that member’s reason for joining.

Results

As part of a broader acquisition strategy, the campaign has helped to deliver a significant increase in active members joining the Executive Club programme.  Actual results confidential at this point.

Our Thoughts

I thought long and hard about whether we should publish this or not.

Against: the fact that after two years of importuning Rory Sutherland, Emma de la Fosse and Charlie Wilson we have still failed to get the rotters to subscribe to Directory. Also, the idea of an image made up of hundreds of other little images is already an advertising cliché.

For: Yes it’s a cliché but online, the roll-over function makes it endlessly fascinating to see who else is a member and why. It’s an acknowledged truth that we tend to put more store by other people’s opinions than in any brand statement and the success of this idea against its objectives is proof of that.

Reasoned thinking triumphed over unreasoned resentment!