KLM Tile & inspire
Issue 21 | December 2011
Agency
Tribal DDB Amsterdam
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Chris Bayliss; Creative Director, Art: Olaf van der Geld; Creative Director, Copy: Bjorn Diemer; Concept: Pol Hoenderboom, Bart Mol; Art Director: Geert-Jan Biljstra;
Production Team
Head Of Art: Mike Hambleton; Senior Designer: Tomasz Greber Designer: Keith Jornson; Senior Project Manager: Laura Losse, Jessica Jonker; User Experience Director: David Vogel; User Interface Designer: Joeri Kiekebosch; Data Analyst, Databay: Rishi Bhugwansing; Technical Lead: Jan Willem Penterman; Digital Production: MediaMonks; Seeding film/3D animations: Kreukvrij; Making of: We are Will
Other Credits
Strategy Director: Ralf Hessen; Client Service Director, DDB: Esther te Pas; Account Manager, DDB: Ingeborg van de Wouw; Planner, Social Media: Niels Bellaar; Project Manager, RAPP: Kiki Kruimel
Date
April 2011
Background
Without the budgets of other European airlines, KLM had to be smart.
Around the world, traditional Delft blue tiles had been famous for centuries, depicting Dutch scenes with inspirational thoughts.
Idea
The idea, then, was to use the style of those memorably Dutch tiles to create a thoroughly modern “social object”, which would communicate ‘inspirational’, ‘airline’ and ‘from Holland’.
An animated video, in the blue-and-white style of Delft, directed visitors to www.tileyourself.com, where people from around the world turned their Facebook profile pictures into Delft tiles.
The most inspiring tiles were chosen to decorate an actual plane and personalised videos featuring them were made, which people could share on Facebook and other social media sites.
The plane was launched at a special event, where journalists could meet celebrities like model Dotzen Kroes, and this generated substantial additional PR.
Results
The Delft blue animation film quickly reached half a million views on YouTube. (750,000 in total so far.)
After three weeks, more than 120,000 tiles had been created in eight key countries. On average, consumers spent over five minutes on the site. ‘Likes’ of KLM’s (global plus local) Facebook pages increased by more than 120,000.
Brand preference scores for KLM rose more than 25% in its key markets. Hundreds of blogs wrote positively about the campaign, as well as several magazines and newspapers.
Our Thoughts
This is a great example of the effect of cultural significance on an idea. Many people will question the visual aspects of this concept (as did I), but when I considered the cultural relevance to the Dutch of the decorative blue and white tile motif, it became clear that this campaign is steeped in Dutch heritage, combined with modern digital technologies to create a beautiful engagement strategy with an incredible level of personalisation.