The new Singapore Airlines’ low-cost-long-haul subsidiary, Scoot, has been officially unveiled. The quirky name only confirmed the rumors going around for a couple of months, amid lots of chatter about the appropriateness of the brand identity. Everyone seemed to have something to say about the name of the airline, the livery or even what this would mean for Jetstar and AirAsia X.

Scoot will be flying ex-Singapore Airlines Boeing 777s to Australia and China initially, then expanding the fleet to 16 aircraft by 2016 and adding destinations too.

From a PR perspective, I’d say this is close to a dream launch. After all, the aim is to get the world talking about it, even if the brand is polarizing.

 
A polarizing brand gets [famous] people talking
Remember Rico? The furry Air New Zealand mascot? Just as many people hated him as those who loved him. The same can be said about Richard Branson’s acts when promoting the Virgin brand – you either love him or hate him.

When it comes to branding, a polarizing image not only gets people talking passionately – they take sides and defend themselves too. The result may not be …

During a lot of conferences I speak at, the discussions are around what the ROI of social media is, for airlines. While we have addressed this through our multiple case studies of how airlines drive revenue and results through social media, one of the best examples of this recently has been the Indian budget airline – SpiceJet. They launched the Bombardier Q400 in India for the first time on regional routes and managed to achieve an 88% load factor in the first two weeks of operations after primarily reaching out to customers about the new product through social media.

It started out as an up-hill task, because Indians have typically not been the most keen to fly turbo-props and battling this mindset was the biggest challenge. Moreover, SpiceJet wasn’t flying these planes on major routes like Delhi-Mumbai, but secondary cities like Hyderabad-Goa – and there was a need to create destination awareness in specific segments.

The strategy developed leveraged on potential travelers educating one another about the new aircraft and learning about destinations – all through a series of contests on Facebook and Twitter….

Well, well, well! This year’s race for the 2nd SimpliFlying Awards for Excellence in Social Media is heating up like never before. Our awards are not just featured on the homepages of Malaysia Airlines and Air New Zealand but have gained huge traction on the web as well. Just about a week into voting, the total number of votes has already crossed 12,000!

Votes, as we mentioned in the previous slide-deck on the Best Airlines Driving Revenue through Social Media, have come from around 2500 cities across the world. We promised recently that we’d regularly post case-packs illustrating the fabulous campaigns that have led the final nominees to be shortlisted. And we’re back this time with another 5 great case-studies on how 5 of the best airlines in the world have used social media to drive Customer Service and Crisis Management.

This would be a good time to remind you that voting is still ongoing so you can vote for your favorite airline until 15th September. Do vote if you care about the airline you love! Meanwhile, you can check out the latest result for the current category below.

Best use of social …

Imagine flight attendants using a sling-shot to get your snacks to you. And a plane-full of Angry Birds pros who are not just passionate about the game, but really good at it too – so good that they will play it for 15 hours, non-stop!  That’s exactly what you are going to get on Finnair’s first flight to Singapore, starting later this month.
Route launch marketing, with Angry Birds
We have previously featured a number of innovative route launch marketing campaigns in our Top 10 Case Study packs. And this new effort by Finnair would have surely made the cut among one of the most creative launches.

Rovio – the creator of Angry Birds – is a Finnish company. And Finnair has tapped on the popularity of the game to drive awareness of its new route to Singapore (one I’m personally likely to travel sometime too, given our HQ is in Singapore).  During this longest Finnair flight, fans of the video game will have bragging rights to being the first to compete in the Angry Birds Asian Challenge played at an altitude of 10,000 metres.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POwyBCzXRCk[/youtube]…

Social technologies are gaining huge traction among airlines. There’s simply no denying it. A couple of months ago, we released an infographic that showed how airlines are dedicating resources to social media. Most major airlines, according to the infographic, already have social media teams in place – most are managing cross-departmental strategies. Some even have plans to expand their teams later this year. That infographic was deemed to be a truly important one as far as the topic of airlines in social media was concerned: it received over 100,000 views and was featured in a number of publications including twice on Mashable itself!
Make sense of the chaos
Now, to add to all the hullaballoo, it really doesn’t help that social technologies are not just adding newer features regularly, but new social technologies themselves are being launched a dime a dozen (any takers for Google+ in airlines?).

So if you’re an airline marketer and thinking really hard about which social technologies to adopt apart from the usual suspects, we have the perfect remedy for your troubles. In fact, even if you’ve figured out which social platforms to adopt, you might still be wondering how best to use them or …

One of the bigger marketing challenges airlines face is to fill up the seats as quickly as possible, when launching a new destination. Typically, it takes over six months to reach a level where a flight is profitable. And this is after receiving marketing help from tourism agencies and also from airports – press releases to billboards in the terminals.

But as as we have long suspected, the traditional press release is rather dead and buried. Granted, it’s not dead in the truest sense of the word; however, it is undeniable that social technologies have morphed press-releases beyond recognition. Gone are the boring, wordy releases that used to accompany every major announcement in the industry. Welcome to the new age of social engagement!

Social media for route launches
Airlines these days have begun smartly leveraging the power of social media while making new product and route announcements. Forget the one-page release announcing the nature and benefits of the new route. These days, there are dedicated campaigns being run by airlines (as well as airports) to draw attention to their new routes and planes.

Witness the wide-ranging strategies adopted …

Most social media and aviation geeks would have heard of or even used MySkyStatus and Cloudstream, two applications brought to travelers by Lufthansa. MySkyStatus instantly sends updates to your Twitter and Facebook accounts to indicate your departure, location, and arrival information. Cloudstream allows a traveler to “pack” articles, videos, and other entertainment into a digital carry-on that can be perused later on the flight, even without an internet connection. The best part about both these applications is that they are completely free of charge.

As coordinator of social media marketing at Lufthansa’s USA office, Alison Russo has been a key player in the launch of both these products, along with Lufthansa’s success on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. It was not surprising, therefore, when she won comprehensively in our SimpliFlying Hero Poll for July 2011 with almost 60% of the votes.

Well-planned beginnings
Much of Alison’s (and Lufthansa’s) success can probably be attributed to the great amount of time and planning that is put in by the team at every turn. Right off the bat, when Lufthansa first started its social media journey, it realized that it was …

We’ve all seen Air New Zealand’s “Fit to Fly” safety video, and seen their Bare Essentials safety video. We also fell in love with Cebu Pacific’s flight attendants dancing to Lady Gaga’s tunes and the rapping flight attendant at Southwest Airlines.

Not to be left behind Pegasus Airlines of Turkey has come up with an adorable safety video where the demonstration is done by cute Turkish kids! You really have to watch to catch all the adorable kids in action.

It goes to show the point once again that taking something mundane like a safety video and adding some fun elements to it can help a brand spread far and wide. After all, how many of you had heard of Pegasus Airlines before this, let alone flown them to watch this video?

Enjoy the show!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKgYqO9w-Do[/youtube]

At SimpliFlying, we are big fans of Air New Zealand. It’s an underdog airline brand, which very often punches above its weight. Previously, we’ve featured an interview with the airline’s CEO, Rob Fyfe talking about Rico, featured their viral safety videos and earlier this month, honored the lady behind the latest safety video, Megan Matthews, as a SimpliFlying Hero.

And now, the airline itself has come up with a video about their social media strategy, and the secret sauce that makes it so successful! So, we had to bring that video to you too!

Before you dive in, it will be interesting to note that:

They broke almost all rules of traditional branding in getting Air New Zealand to where it is
Their brand mascot, Rico, is the exact opposite of what you’d expect from other brand icons, like the Singapore Girl – it polarizes the audience!
Their safety videos are anything but mundane
They’ve been featured in the New York Times and other leading outlets, not by advertising in them, but because their marketing efforts were worthy of the coverage
And they’ve done this at a fraction of the marketing budget you’d expect an …

Do you remember the first time you ever flew? What do you remember about it? How big the cabin was on the inside? How small those cars looked on the ground below? The pain in your ears from the air pressure, or perhaps the gum you had to chew to make it go away?

Alice Liu, American Airlines’ Managing Director of Onboard Products, remembers something completely different from her first flight as a 13-year-old, and remembers it so fondly that it helped fuel her desire to work in the airline industry. Despite the nerves and excitement of moving with her family to a new and unfamiliar world across the Pacific, and the experience of seeing the tops of those fluffy, white clouds for the first time, what did Alice remember most about her 18-hour-trek from Taipei to Dallas via LAX? The food, of course.

That’s right. Good old, economy class airplane food, which she enjoyed so much that she asked for a second helping. If I can read your thoughts right now, you must either think that someone so passionate about airline food (!!!) is either flat-out nuts, or a match made in heaven for the job she does for American. Based …