Visit Soon
British Airways
Issue 34 | March 2015
Agency
OgilvyOne London
Creative Team
Executive Creative Directors Charlie Wilson Emma de la Fosse Creative Director/Art Director Andy Davis Creative Director/Copywriter Jason Cascarina
Production Team
Agency Producer Maggie Blundell Production Rapid Films Director Jonathan Nyquist Producer Alex Tizzard
Other Credits
Business Partner Dominique Bergantino Account Manager Jhennia Leipert
Date
April 2014
Background
British Airways wanted to encourage more people in the UK to fly to Australia, one of their longest and most expensive flights. Because the activity was co-funded by the Australian Tourist Board, it had to act as a showcase for the country as well.
Idea
The best target audience were the over- fifties with family in Australia. This group had both the money and the time to be able to undertake such a journey. What they lacked was the right inspiration.
So rather than speak directly to them, the idea was to turn logic on its head and talk to their families in Australia.
A film was made in which young Esme talked about her life down under. While she loved everything about it, the one thing she missed was her grandma and her grandad.
On a visit to their local cinema, they were amazed to see a film about their granddaughter. With its appeal to them to come over to visit. Their heart-warming reactions as they recognised Esme and, subsequently, were given return tickets to Sydney, were captured on a hidden camera and turned into a second film, which ran on YouTube and on the British Airways website.
Results
Total views of main content (YouTube and embedded) 1,303,245 views.
Reunion film 721,756 views with 29,964 attributable visits to ba.com leading to 47% uplift in bookings, equating to a revenue increase of £222,229.
Our Thoughts
There’s an interesting little tussle for the heartstrings going on between BA and KLM at the moment with YouTube as the battleground. (See DDB Tribal’s campaign on pages 92-93.) If KLM is focused on departures, BA is focusing on arrivals.
Their 2013 video, ‘Visit to Mum’ showed Ratnesh arriving back in Bombay from New York unannounced and reducing his mother to tears of joy. It got 1,336,000 views on YouTube alone. This is a follow- up, also showing the massively emotional emotions of a family reunited by BA.
What’s a direct marketing agency doing making films like this? Well, OgilvyOne has made sure it is integrated with a dedicated landing page, where visitors don’t just get to see videos of Alec and Catherine at the cinema and of Esme’s new life but get to see the deals on offer so they can book flights there and then.
It may not win them the awards their ‘Magic of Flying’ poster did but it is admirably planned, admirably executed and admirably effective work.