2013 Grand Prix Winner

Client Monarch Airlines

Team Liam Gibson – Direct Marketing Manager, Edward Dalgleish – Planner, Michael Nelson – Group Account Director, Tom Bellamy – Art Director, Charlotte Burn-Callander - Copywriter

Other contributors BlippAR – Augmented reality and image recognition platform

How did the campaign make a difference?
Monarch couldn’t outspend established airlines in the competitive ski market. What was needed was an airline industry first that resonated with the inquisitive target audience created something that felt special. This augmented reality DM pack generated £2.2 million revenue, an ROI of 18:1.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry?
Without the marketing budgets of the established airlines in the ski market, this augmented reality (AR) campaign helped Monarch punch above its weight by creating engagement and stand-out with opinion-setting adventure skiers. Connecting offline and online worlds delivered Monarch’s best-performing DM activity to date. The campaign also solved Monarch’s problem with insight into the skier profile and behaviour. Analysis of the Ski Club of Great Britain’s database created insightful profiles and found matches on the Monarch database. The profiles showed that Monarch’s routes would not appeal to family-focused package skiers. Independent, frequent, digitally savvy adventure skiers, keen to find their own way to Europe’s best snow were the perfect fit. These skiers are constantly researching new ski destinations and love new experiences. The challenge was to create an involving, content-rich immersive experience to satisfy their curiosity about the ski destinations Monarch serviced.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life?
DM is very important in the travel-buying process, creating destination inspiration, but to engage this audience there had to be an immersive experience too. This led to the double challenge of making the DM pack work (communicating the wealth of information the audience craved) but also delivering a content-rich digital experience. AR transported recipients to the resorts, whetting their appetite for the coming winter and inspiring them to book with Monarch. They were greeted by a video from Chemmy Alcott, Britain’s number one Olympic skier, and invited them to explore the ‘Monarch mountain’ and discover surprises. Users could click through to prices on the Monarch website to facilitate booking. A series of videos were developed with Chemmy, which were hidden across the mountain. The DM pack used a Maltese cross format to ‘build’ a mountain range so that recipients were taken on a journey of discovery as the pack unfolded.

Results
The experience delivered over £2.2 million in sales. It broke new ground by creating a wholly new approach to DM for Monarch and introducing the use of AR to the airline category. Monarch’s website saw 21.7% of DM recipients visit. One even tweeted pictures of the pack and thanked Monarch for the great information! There are still daily interactions with the AR element, with nearly 8,000 interactions from almost 1,750 unique users to date. The sticky engagement levels are further enhanced with an average interaction per user of 2.2.

Judge's comment:
"The Grand Prix was very hotly contested, so I congratulate WDMP for showing how a genuinely insight-driven, multi-channel approach - without a huge budget - can deliver impressive ROI."