10. Social seating: Have you read about the Malaysian Airline initiative that led the airline to create a much talked about Facebook booking engine that allowed people to sit with their friends on the airline’s flights?

9. Airports in social media: In the ninth place we have a Top 10 case-pack, an initiative helmed by our Senior Innovation Officer Shubhodeep Pal, on how airports have driven engagement trough social media.

8. Blockbuster social initiative: Next, in 8^th place we find one, if not the, most successful social media campaigns of 2011, the AA Advantage “mystery miles” campaign that hit the headlines in February by achieving an 84 fold growth of its Facebook fans in 54 hours.

7. Airline Twitter initiatives: In the seventh place we find another Top 10, this time focusing on the use airlines made of Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networks of the year.

6. Social media ROI: The second half of our roundup us opened by keynote presentation made by our CEO Shashank Nigam at the Social Media Travel Summit earlier this year. The keynote focuses on a much talked about and little understood topic, the ROI of social media.

5. In fifth place is one of our most popular infographics, focusing on the resources that airlines dedicate to social media.

4. Airline Facebook initiatives: Our Top 10 case-packs have been one of the most viewed resources on our website and in the fourth place of this roundup we find another one illustrating the best examples of Facebook contests run by airlines.

3. 6X Model of Airline Branding: In third place we present a long standing favorite of our readers, the Airline Branding Whitepaper. This much praised paper was written by our CEO Shashank Nigam back in 2008. Yes, light years away in social media time, and was also selected and re-published by Brandchannel.com in the summer of the same year. Three years later it is still extremely relevant and, as this roundup shows, one of the most visited pages of our website.

2. Future of loyalty programs is social: In the second place comes one of our best infographic to date, highlighting the social future of loyalty programs and the new tendencies of the connected frequent flyers.

1. A380s and sales problems: In the first position, we have an article that was the most read in 2011, even though it was actually written in August 2009. We are talking, of course, of our famous piece on the Singapore Airlines’ A380 Suites and the sales problems that followed their introduction.

That said, if you have read this far you clearly have an interest in us. Similarly, we too are interested in our readers. We’d love you to use the comment box below to tell us what you would like to see (or not see) on SimpliFlying in 2012.

Thanks for reading SimpliFlying! Have a great New Year and here’s wishing you a fantastic 2012!

• A revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative – Vote for the Jan 2012 Hero now!
• [Infographic] How travel marketers calculate ROI on social media and why the future is mobile
• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of February 2011 – Finnair vs Delta Air Lines vs Malaysia Airlines
• Best Airports in Social Media: Top 5 Airports nominated for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• A Brand New SimpliFlying – from airline branding pioneers to leading customer engagement at airports and airlines

At the close of the year, it’s worth pausing to consider how quickly the social landscape has evolved over the past year or so. Airlines have not only embraced Twitter but have also realised that there’s great value in using it to drive specific goals such as revenue, engagement and loyalty. Many innovative initiatives on Twitter have been captured in our Top 10 case-packs as well. It’s worth noting that as of November 2011 there were 198 airlines on Twitter with 90 actively tweeting. This, more than anything else, is a sign of changing times and even greater change to come.

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

1. Even though most airlines have jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon, the majority of the tweets are produced by a minority of airlines. 30 airlines provide more than 83% of tweets sent out by airlines.
2. Delta Air Lines is still the runaway champion, having been consistently been a Listening and Talking champion (in terms of tweets received and sent). Air Asia and Southwest make a belated, but expected entry to the list. However, American Airlines makes a surprise appearance on the Talking Champions list.
3. Airlines are definitely using Twitter more intensively with each passing day. Over the past 6 months, the number of outgoing tweets increased by around 38%.
4. As the weather begins to turn unpredictable, it’s that time of the year again when people feel hassled while flying. This was quite evident as “baggage handling” was a trending topic as the number of tweets related to it  increased by about 28% in the last month.
5. Over 1.2 million tweets have been exchanged between airlines and their customers on Twitter in the past six months. That’s a heck of a lot!

It’ll certainly be interesting to come back to this report at the end of the next year and see how things have progressed!

For more insights, check out the infographic below and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something ?that resonates with you? Or maybe it doesn’t? Comment or tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can view more airline infographics here.

(Click here to download a larger image)

Note: The airlines on Twitter report is produced by eezeerdatalab.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for August 2011: Cebu Pacific joins the big league and scores high!
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• [Infographic] Airlines on Twitter – April 2011 data reveals the need to focus on Customer Service

The innovations begin

When airlines initially began their adventure on the socialscape, it was all about about feeling their way about on the social platforms of their choice. The primary focus at the outset was first, discovering how to drive traffic and building a fan-base, followed by the more important aim of utilizing the platform for customer engagement and provide them a real-time medium of information-dissemination and customer service. Slowly, however, they realized that social platforms could also aid them in driving revenue. Flash sales, deals and contests became popular to attract more customers. However, the real innovations were still some time away.

A changing landscape

That time, it seems, has finally come. Airlines, more than ever before have realised that the social web can be utilized to change and influence the booking behaviour of patrons by incorporating their preferences, habits and social circles into the booking cycle. Slowly, we’re beginning to see the true emergence of the New Traveler Life Cycle which can be split into 5 parts: dreaming, validating, booking, travelling and sharing. Airlines have begun to recognize that the booking portion of the cycle alone might not be sufficient to draw customers to themselves. Hence, they’ve begun to incorporate the other portions, in various combinations, to their travel cycle. Our latest case-pack illustrates how airlines are effectively doing this.

Some key points about Travel Distribution emerging from this case-pack are:

1. Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are slowly losing ground as airlines increasingly attract customers to book through their own portals. eg. Delta’s Facebook booking engine is a neat “push strategy” to get customers to book without moving away from their favourite social network.
2. Immersive apps that aid in the dreaming, planning and booking process will not only be addictive travel planning tools but also great brand-builders by wowing patrons. eg. Virgin America’s chrome app.
3. Mobile (and tablet) apps are set to go huge. Whether it is managing bookings or redeeming frequent flyer miles or even checking in without a paper boarding pass, mobile apps will rule the next wave of social airline strategies. eg. British Airways’ cool iPhone app and Lufthansa’s iPad app.
4. Incorporating customers’ social graphs into the booking cycle could pay rich dividends by unleashing a “social multiplier effect”. Knowing which friends are in cities you could fly to (Alaska Air) and choosing seats alongside friends (Malaysia Airlines) are just some of the ways in which booking behaviour of customers can be influenced.
5. Flyers will always be deal hunters looking for the best (in other words, cheapest) fares. LAN Airlines’ Fall Sale, JetBlue Cheeps and Melbourne Airport’s cheap Twitter fares are prime examples. Also, even though the jury is still out on this one, Groupon type sales will continue to be effective in the short-term at least (ie, until they can be sustained).

Without further ado, here’s our case-pack on the Top 10 Travel Distribution Initiatives by Airlines. Enjoy!

You can find more of our Top 10 case-packs here.

• Mobile 2.0 – The Top 10 Mobile Apps by Airlines
• Socializing the airline booking process – Germanwings follows Alaska Airlines’ lead
• The Best Airlines in Social Media: the Top 7 nominees for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• Best Airports in Social Media: Top 5 Airports nominated for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• [Infographic] How mobile is re-shaping travel distribution (gasp!)

After close to 6 months of reporting monthly on how airlines are using Twitter, we can safely say that apart from Facebook, Twitter is the social media platform of choice for most airlines. The number of tweets sent and received has been rising in general for months in a row. Airlines have also become more forthcoming as well as responsive.

This month, while the usual suspects (Delta and JetBlue) are once again on the list of top engagers, Cebu Pacific absolutely storms into the list. Not only is it placed second on the list of airlines receiving the most number of public tweets, it also scores the highest in the Global Satisfaction Score with a score of 106.7. (For more details, see the infographic.)

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

1. As we’ve mentioned, Cebu Pacific is second on the list of airlines receiving the most number of public tweets with more than 11,000 to its name. However, Delta Air Lines is once again literally burning the competition. To put things in perspective, it received almost 28,000 tweets. That is 2.5x of the no. 2 airline and 3.5x of the third on the list: JetBlue.
2. Even though airlines have been, in general, using Twitter more than before there was a slightly surprising drop in the number of public tweets this month. Compared to March 2011, the number of tweets in August were up by 37% compared to 51% for July. All the more surprising since we’ve had a rather busy month on the internet (see below). (This does not change the fact, however, that Twitter is being used more actively in general.)
3. Delta Air Lines still sends and receives the most number of tweets, which has been the trend since the first report. I’m tempted to add in a *yawn* here. Because really, they’ve been quite brilliant in handling social media and have literally pioneered the new media active customer engagement model!
4. Just over 40% of all airlines accounts on Twitter tweet actively. In effect, in August 2011, 105 airlines were not tweeting actively even though they have Twitter accounts.
5. In the UK, British Airways (somewhat expectedly) is the most followed airline, with over 260,000 people following the airline’s tweets.
6. Hurricane Irene and the earthquake on the East Coast let loose a flurry of conversations on Twitter, especially among airlines. More than 5000 tweets about Hurricane Irene were published over 4 days. Interestingly, 21.6% of those tweets involved a mention of Delta Air Lines! To learn more about how airlines responded to the earthquake and hurricane, see our special case-pack here.

For more insights, check out the infographic and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something you agree with? Disagree? Are there any figures that you’d like to see in next month’s infographic? Comment or tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can also view our previous Monthly Twitter Reports for July here, June here and May here. More airline infographics can be viewed here.

The airlines on Twitter report is produced by eezeerdatalab in association with SimpliFlying.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for November 2011: increasing engagement but 30 airlines produce over 80% of tweets
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• [Infographic] Airlines on Twitter – April 2011 data reveals the need to focus on Customer Service

To acquaint you better with the nominees in each category of the awards, we’ll be posting case-packs on our SlideShare channel for each of the 5 categories of awards detailing what makes each nominee so special and why they’re in the final list of nominees (the initial list had over 60 candidates!). The campaigns that clinched each airline its position of prestige will be illustrated in detail. We hope you enjoy going through them and revelling in the reflected brilliance of their innovativeness, cleverness and sheer chutzpah.

The first case-pack has 5 case-studies, each illumninating the campaigns of Top 5 nominees in the category “Best use of Social Media to drive Revenue”. As you’ll see, some, like Virgin America jumped onto the latest trends and technologies to make a killing, while others such as Estonian Air were just plain clever in employing social media to drive revenue. Similar flattering things can be said of the other nominees: Air Asia, airBaltic and Malaysian Airlines. But it would be best if you experienced them yourselves. Enjoy!

You can see the current poll results below. Hurry! Voting closes on 15th September.

• Best Airports in Social Media: Top 5 Airports nominated for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards in Social Media Excellence – Nominations now open for airlines, airports and hotels
• SimpliFlying-Airline Business Awards for Social Media Excellence for Airlines – Vote now!
• The Best Airlines Driving Customer Service & Crisis Management Through Social Media: Top 5 SimpliFlying Awards nominees
• 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards in Social Media Excellence – Vote NOW for best airlines, airports, hotels

In light of the article I wrote in this space a few months ago, I must say I was quite proud. Since I wrote that first article, UA has merged their Twitter presence with Continental (and are actually still tweeting from both), but it’s nice to see them complete the message by including the Twitter handle this time. Glad somebody’s paying attention…and well done, United!

This is how it looked previously on their napkins!

• Why Should I Friend you on Facebook or Twitter, United?
• Thoughts on the United and Continental merger – as quoted in the press
• The day airlines’ Twitter accounts were hacked, and three steps to reverse the brand damage
• SimpliFlying in The Media: FinanceAsia, USA Today and Aviation Security International
• Southwest vs. United: Why Authenticity Wins, Even In TV Advertising

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 which business goals you might drive best through them. Well, we have the perfect panacea for you.

The SimpliFlying Social Media Cheatsheet is intended to help airline marketers choose social platforms based on the goals they actually want to drive. And this has been put together after surveying 25 of the best airlines on social media globally!

Drive business goals with ease with this cheatsheet

How do you  use this cheat sheet? Elementary: just choose one of the goals you’d like to drive eg. revenue, loyalty etc. Once you’ve chosen a particular goal (via the columns) you simply have to look at the corresponding rows to see which social platforms drive these goals the best. To help you choose better where multiple platforms drive the same goal, we’ve indicated the optimal platforms by means of three “likes” or thumbs-ups. For the least optimal, but still workable, platform, we’ve gone with a single like. Two “likes”, obviously, indicate a platform that’s between optimal and workable.

We developed this matrix-like cheatsheet based on insights gained from working with our clients, through feedback on our blog and by requesting 25 of the world’s top airlines to answer a short survey.

Some key observations:

1. Facebook is the most used social media tool among airlines
2. Twitter and Groupon are best in driving revenues
3. If you have a small team and looking for maximum impact, just do Facebook and Twitter right. Then expand efforts to YouTube and Foursquare
4. Engagement, followed by customer service and PR are the most well addressed business goals

Here’s the cheat sheet for you to download and print/distribute.

• [Infographic] How travel marketers calculate ROI on social media and why the future is mobile
• [Infographic] How travel brands are using social media to achieve ROI
• Social CRM for Airlines – Managing the Cult and driving true value (Plus: upcoming webinar)
• How airlines can drive and measure ROI from social media (Plus: Free passes for webinar)
• [Presentation] Why the future of loyalty programs will be social-media based

SimpliFlying is back with the Monthly Twitter Report (in partnership with Eezeer) for July 2011 in continuation with our coverage and analysis of the dynamic social media landscape for airlines.

A number of facts are immediately clear from this report:

1. Airlines are using Twitter more than ever before. The number of tweets increased by 51% from March 2011 to July 2011.
2. However, most of the tweets are being sent out by a small number of the airlines on Twitter. To be precise, 30 airlines account for 84% of the tweets, which is up from 26 providing 80% of the tweets in the May report.
3. Delta Air Lines still sends and receives the most number of tweets, which has been the trend since the first report. However, while the response rate to public tweets may seem like a paltry 20% of the tweets, we’ve confirmation from Delta Air Lines that when we include Direct Messages, the airline responds to over 50% of the messages!
4. Over a hundred airlines still don’t seem to have a strategy for Twitter, as only 82 out of the 191 airlines tweet actively
5. In South America, TAM Brazil is the most followed airline, with over 225,000 people following the airline’s tweets.

For more insights, check out the infographic and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something you agree with? Disagree? Are there any figures that you’d like to see in next month’s infographic? Tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can also view our previous Monthly Reports for June ’11 here and May ’11 here.

The airlines on Twitter report is produced by eezeerdatalab in association with SimpliFlying.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for August 2011: Cebu Pacific joins the big league and scores high!
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for November 2011: increasing engagement but 30 airlines produce over 80% of tweets
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!
• [Infographic] How mobile is re-shaping travel distribution (gasp!)

1. Airlines are using Twitter more than ever before. The number of tweets increased by 39% from March 2011 to June 2011. That’s a rather impressive jump!
2. However, most of the tweets are being sent out by a small number of the airlines on Twitter. To be precise, 26 airlines account for 80% of the tweets.
3. Delta Airlines is the breakaway champion in terms of receiving tweets addressed to them. They received almost twice as many tweets as the airline with the second-highest inbound tweets.
4. Airlines are listening to travellers more than ever. They follow almost 600,000 people on Twitter as compared to the nearly 7 million people following airline Twitter accounts.
5. Airlines receive almost 6x as many tweets as they send out. Why do you think is there such a disparity? Are airline having difficulty managing their resources or do most inbound tweets not merit a response (eg irrelevant rants, indirect conversations etc)?

For more insights, check out the infographic below and let us know what you thought about it. Is there something you agree with? Disagree? Are there any figures that you’d like to see in next month’s infographic? Tweet us @simpliflying and let us know. You can also view our previous Monthly Reports for April ’11 here and May ’11 here.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• [PRESENTATION] How Airlines Dedicate Resources to Social Media – delivered at #omtravel in Miami (June 2011)
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for August 2011: Cebu Pacific joins the big league and scores high!
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for November 2011: increasing engagement but 30 airlines produce over 80% of tweets
• Eezeer and SimpliFlying launch airline monthly twitter report – Delta leads Twitter use, and customer service is in!

This is a very challenging question since, by definition, stranded travelers are in a difficult situation, often far away from home, in a difficult environment where uncertainty is high. Stranded travelers are usually left on their own, airport and airline officials have often no answer to provide because of the inherent uncertain nature of the event and are limited in what they can do to help travelers at a loss for helping the travelers.

The following items may not work for everyone, everywhere. However, they show various directions that will need to be customized and modified according to the specifications of the location, the needs of the travelers and various other parameters.

Let us assume several assumptions to start with:

• We are talking about stranded travelers who need to fly, sleep and eat. Flight is their first priority but other means of transportation may be considered.
• Travelers do not pick up the 20 best airports to be stranded in nor the worse. Stranded travelers can be in any airport that needs to do its best to turn a difficult situation into a successful one.
• The Internet and Twitter are working which is not always the case . It is possible and recommended to work with other social networks such as Facebook or at least to be able to connect to telcos.

Here is a series of 12 items to consider:

1. Free or Freemium wi-fi

It is crucial that the airport provides the best Internet infrastructure as possible. Suddenly, you may have a very large number of travelers trying to connect to the Web through their web devices and laptops. It is essential to add all the required equipment so that everyone can be connected simultaneously. Depending upon the policy of the airport, free access may be provided, special discount or premium service can be offered during the time of the crisis event. (Here’s a very good discussion on whether airports should offer free wifi or not)

2. Ample power outlets to recharge batteries

Batteries of smart phones as well as laptops discharge quickly. Make sure that you provide a series of extensions to the travelers so that every traveler can recharge their batteries. If possible, then set up a desk where travelers can actually buy additional batteries and various other related products such as local SIM cards. These can even be put in vending machines across the airport!

3.  An Airport Twitter account

More and more airports and airlines are using Twitter to inform passengers about the situation. In addition, it is a good idea to set up a list of twitter accounts including all of the major players working in this location, such as airlines, transportation, restaurants and more.
It might be also useful to open a special account for a specific situation e.g. @TLV-stranded.

4. Display airport’s & airlines’ Twitter feeds in public

Gatwick Airport uses LCD screens to display the various twitter mentions of the airport. San Francisco’s new Terminal 2 also does the same. This way, even people without an account or who are not technology savvies can ‘follow the airport in real-time and get updates. They can even help each other out!

5. Find out who are tweeting in and around the airport

Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook record the location of the users if they have not decided to opt out. Applications like Geochirp and Trendsmap allow to search in a specific location based on key words the people who are tweeting. Once you see the identity and the posts of those people, it is then possible to start a dialog, following them and more. This way, it is possible to know who the travelers are and communicate with them. Communication can go beyond the airport especially for stranded travelers who have decided to leave the airport and are waiting for some green light to come back and catch their plane.

6. Provide hard facts not rumors

Stranded travelers often suffer from a lack of information, misinformation and various rumors. Why not take an action one step further and publish along with a local newspaper an electronic & paper edition aimed at stranded travelers?

When you follow accounts of the stranded travelers, you may avoid major crisis like the one that happened with the British trains when stranded travelers in the British trains who decided to walk back on the track and thus causing additional delays. It is then possible to stop rumors from the beginning and convey facts. It is also important to follow accounts like @eurocontrol which is the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.

7. Providing a shower up to a seat in a concert hall

Mobile showers should be arranged as soon as possible in order to help stranded travelers stay clean. Depending upon policy, it might be possible to charge a fee for those services especially if they are expensive to provide.

Why not go one step further and start selling toilet kits as well as bringing in professionals like chiropractors, masseuses, alternative health doctors, etc. to improve the well being of stranded travelers. As an extension, it can include a whole list of events that will turn the airport into a concert hall, a food market or whatever idea you may have. On June 16, Charles Boem (@cboehm) tweeted: “@LizzSum AUS has got to be the best airport in America to get stuck at. Often has live music too.”

8. Work hard…

Many business travelers usually hold a membership for entering airport lounges. However, in the case of a large number of stranded travelers, those lounges may not be reachable or over crowded. Therefore there is a demand for additional infrastructure. It is then a good idea to provide some paying workspaces where people can work hard (after the concert…),  hold video conferences if needed, bring in guests for meetings and more.

9 … Play hard

On the other hand, some of the stranded travelers are tourists who are going to miss one or several days of vacation. They intended to play hard, relax, have a good time during their vacation. Being stranded is very frustrating for them. It is the right time to offer them some alternatives while they are stuck. In this situation, creative and out-of-the-box solutions need to be found, quickly. As an example, travelers on their way to some ski vacation may enjoy the use of ski simulators or even workouts with a special coach for physical preparations before skiing.

10. Tie up with the airlines

Bring airlines into the picture too, and create a win-win strategy. When travelers were stuck in Singapore and Malaysia due to the Icelandinc ashcloud, AirAsia offered them heavily discounted flights to regional destinations like Bali and Phuket for a couple of days. How smart!

11. Turn stranded travelers into a community

Everybody talks about social media. Let’s take the first word of it and become social: start talking, socializing with your neighbor. There are many ways (inviting actors, clowns, artists…) to improve the ambiance.

12. Find a solution for individuals and for groups of people

In the end, there is a need to find a solution for everyone but not everyone is like Monty Python actor John Cleese who spent more than £3000 on a taxi journey last April 2010 during the Icelandic volcano event.

Some travelers really have to find an immediate solution no matter what (e.g. Tweet dated 18 June 2011:.” DanielClemens: Best friends weddings missed, grandparents missing graduations, passengers stranded for too long! Flight 420 @Lufthansa “), some others may be OK to wait until things calm down.

This is where services like SOSTravelers.com come into the picture. An experienced travel agent will find the solution even if it requires sending the traveler to another airport, find a room in a hotel when it is not possible to find one using automated services and more.

At SOSTravelers, we are also looking to provide collective solutions so that a group of travelers who may not know each other at first but share the same aims become an ad-hoc community. This community may then be able to find some cost effective solutions that would not have been found on an individual basis such as renting together a car, hiring a bus or even a plane.

What do you think about these methods? Are there others you’ve tried or experienced? Let’s hear it in comments or over on Twitter (@simpliflying)

• What to do if you are stranded on Thanksgiving?
• Top 12 things to do if you are stuck at an airport when the next Hurricane Irene or earthquake strikes US East Coast
• What if you’re stranded and Twitter doesn’t work? 10 things you can do to your travel plans back on track
• Top 10 Location-Based-Service Initiatives by Airlines (Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and more..)
• Are location-based services a blessing for the airline brand?