A survey rated Don't Fly as being the most impactful of the Olympic campaigns, beating heavyweights like Adidas. The commercial got a million plays in the first two weeks.
ET Bureau
British Airways: #HomeAdvantage Agencies: BBH, ZenithOptimedia, The 12th Floor
The Big Idea: As sponsor of the London Olympics, British Airways decided to send an entirely different message to its local clientele: Don't Fly. It urged them to stay home and support the local team, encapsulated in #HomeAdvantage. This of course synched with actual consumer behaviour since many Britons were deciding to change their travel programmes to accommodate the Olympics.
The commercial debuted online and was part of a long hoary advertising tradition of missing the point of a song entirely — it was set to London Calling by The Clash, a song that's about as celebratory of London as Born in the USA is of America. But what made the campaign different was how uniquely it engaged the audience.
An app on Facebook and a standalone site allowed people the chance to see a cut of the commercial with shots of the plane making its way through the streets they lived in, if they keyed in their address or pincode.
Key Takeaways: The best method of amplifying an already counter-intuitive idea — Don't Fly for an airline company — is to bring the familiar and the local alive in a highly relevant and differentiated way.
Results: A PR-Week/One Poll survey rated Don't Fly as being the most impactful of the Olympic campaigns, beating heavyweights like Adidas. The commercial got a million plays in the first two weeks.
(Based on inputs from Meera Sharath Chandra, Founder CEO & CCO of Tigress Tigress, Carlton D'silva CCO of Hungama Digital Services and Mike Cooper, worldwide CEO of PHD)
ET Bureau
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