British Airways delivers an appetising Taste of London brand experience

In June, members of the DMA’s Brand Activation Council paid a visit to a Taste of London – the capital’s biggest annual festival of food – to find what kind of experience some of the world’s biggest brands offer to consumers. Here’s part 1 of their report…

British Airways
At Taste of London in June British Airways got us all excited with their mile-high dining experience…

What was it?

Dominant. Striking. Unexpected.

BA was, once again, headline sponsor of this year’s Taste of London food festival in Regent’s Park – and it was a pretty big headline, with the brand splashed everywhere you looked.

Even so, we didn’t anticipate a large chunk of mock airliner fuselage to have been dropped slap-bang in the middle of the site – it’s fair to BA and their design consultancy, M, to say that it was both impressive and comment-worthy. They had us at “Hello”, and we instantly headed straight over to sign up for whatever they were offering.

Fitted with airplane seats and tables, the mock cabin was the setting for a programme of talks, BA menu tasting sessions and afternoon tea, under the title ‘Height Cuisine‘ and all narrated in person by BA’s head chef Mark Tazzioli and his team. Perhaps you’d have to be a pretty intense foodie or brand geek (like us) to get excited about this, but it was very slickly delivered and memorable for all.

BA served up several lovely touches to make the experience even more absorbing, including a large team of cabin crew, in full uniform, to meet and greet visitors and register people for tasting sessions using mock boarding passes. All good fun, and it did stir in us that kind of patriotic pride about British Airways that you get to feel about so few brands.

We joined the afternoon tea service and settled down in front of a generous plate of cakes and awaited our Twinings tea. The session was well-presented by the events team; and with our headphones on and nestled within the cabin stage, we were happily lost in BA’s brand bubble and oblivious to the world outside. Full marks for immersion.

However, if we have one small criticism it’s that despite taking our names to assign us a spot in their tasting session and delivering a significant experience to us, we were never asked to give our contact details, preferences or feedback. Beyond our names, they gathered no data whatsoever – and obviously have been able to conduct no follow-up communication.

British Airways is still an exotic, aspirational brand. It’s about holidays, obviously, and stepping outside of the norm; which their Taste of London experience delivered in bucket-and-spadefuls. The event gave people a high-flying sense of that; with follow up activity they could continue to feel part of the Club Class.

By guest bloggers the DMA Brand Activation Council