Member Acquisition

Background

Getting people to sign up online to Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards programme had been difficult as the process was not WAP-enabled and was a slow, multi-page effort for travellers.

Idea

The approach was to talk to customers at precisely the time and place where airline travel is most on their minds. At the departure gate. Here boarding monitors ran a 15-second message asking passengers to text the word REWARDS to RAPID and by return they were sent a url that took them to the enrolment page. If they had browser-enabled phones, they could use the dead time waiting for their flight to sign up. Or they could enroll when they got into their hotel rooms or homes.

Results

Southwest Airlines wish to keep the precise results to themselves. However, the total number of new members to the Rapid Rewards programme has increased significantly and the campaign is being extended, with an SMS call-to-action incorporated into all advertising, including the In-Flight magazine.

Our Thoughts

The hero of this piece is obviously someone who has spent hours at various departure gates waiting for something, anything to happen. The idea of getting travellers to put that time to use and get something back from the airline in terms of rewards is inspired. So, congratulations to the suit or the planner who thought of it.

While the placement and the delivery are clever, I can’t help feeling the creative treatment could have been a tiny bit more engaging.