2015 Bronze Best Use of Technology

OgilvyOne UK

British Airways

The Mood Blanket

The Team

Emma de la Fosse - Executive Creative Director Charlie Wilson - Executive Creative Director
Aaron Goldring - Creative Director Andy Davis - Creative Director Jason Cascarina - Creative Director
Adrian Peters - Creative David Wellington - Creative Jon Andrews - Creative Director - Technology
Lorenzo Spadoni - Creative Technologist Alison Cooper - Head of Content Production / Producer
Chloe Goodson - Production Assistant Adrian Swift - Project Manager Brian Jensen - Managing Partner Innovation
Chris Slough - Managing Partner Nici Malamoglou - Business Partner Francois Herrera - Account Director

Campaign overview

British Airways has made hundreds of refinements to its onboard experience with the aim to improve passenger wellbeing. Now it wanted to find a way both to measure the improvements and to demonstrate the positive experience of flying British Airways to its customers and prospects. By tracking and revealing customers’ mood states throughout their journey, British Airways presented ingenious visual proof of happier, more relaxed passengers. The Mood Blanket generated huge attention and debate as well as unprecedented data for BA to use to develop further enhancements to customer experience.

Strategy

British Airways has been investing to improve passenger wellbeing, including added levels of comfort in the seating, specially developed lighting and cuisine that counters changes in the palette brought on by pressurisation at altitude. In a crowded market, British Airways wanted to show the real added value these enhancements had made to the in-flight experience. It also needed a way to measure the impact of these enhancements – but a way that was real-time and unobtrusive. Using technology, the team reinvented one of the most established pieces of direct communication: the feedback form. The positive results were then communicated out through an earned media strategy.

Creativity

This innovative, real-time ‘feedback form’ was the Mood Blanket: an unobtrusive wearable device that monitored the subtle variations in each passenger’s mood. A cashmere blanket was woven with sensors and fibre optics that changed colour based on a range of different mood states. When the wearer was anxious and tense, the blanket turned red; when content, it turned shades of purple; and when relaxed, it turned blue. The Mood Blanket was given to passengers and journalists on selected transatlantic flights with the new cabin configurations. The cabin crew were able to see passengers’ responses to every aspect of the onboard experience and tailor their service accordingly. This was all captured on video and shared with journalists and the airline’s own social channels.

Results

The data collected has given British Airways vital insights into every second of the journey, informing ongoing refinement of its in-flight experience: from new onboard cuisine to different types of films and entertainment. Further valuable insights into passengers’ sleep patterns allowed British Airways to prove that when its passengers fell asleep, they could stay in deep, undisturbed sleep. And the campaign generated a wealth of noise for the new cabin experience, with more than 400 articles published, 450,000 video views and 29 million earned social impressions.