Back in 2011, we published a Top 10 on the Best Social Loyalty Initiatives by Airlines that featured a location-based initiative by the British low cost carrier BmiBaby in partnership with Gowalla.  The campaign eventually evolved into a wider off-airport engagement strategy where  travel experts created virtual city tours based on Gowalla check-ins that allowed travelers to explore several different cities served by the airline.

Now, the airline has decided to further enhance its efforts to engage with people based on their location, by launching an Instagram campaign that allows communities of users to meet in person on trips sponsored by BmiBaby.
Instagram community meetings
Instagram is a free photo sharing application on iOS that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter, then share it on a variety of social networking services including Instagram’s own. BmiBaby was able to exploit a particular trend within the Instagram image sharing network: having “Instameets”.  Instameets are user-organized events where Instagramers take part in a “photo walk” and take pictures of a particular location or town, that are then shared on Instagram under a dedicated hashtag.
BmiBaby launched a campaign to celebrate the 4th World Instameet Day by providing free travel to members …

The first A380 lands in London today. A perfect example of pro-active customer engagement is the latest campaign by Singapore Airlines (SIA) to involve the customer prior to its first A380 flight to London.

Some SIA customers have received an email recently inviting them to come up with creative portraits that show the A380 near a famous London landmark. Every week, the top voted submission gets featured on the frontpage of SIA’s A380 Gallery. To top it all off, customers are also being encouraged to share their A380 experiences on the same website.

This is a commendable attempt to engage the customer before the flight, hence aligning Brand Xpectations, and continuing the engagement post-flight, encouraging Brand Xpression (something not many airlines are good at). Customers who depict A380 near a London landmark are literally fantasizing that they are present at the location themselves – what better way to induce a person to get a ticket on the first A380 to land at Heathrow? Also, with a large number of customers blogging about their A380 experiences anyway, consolidating them on a single …